School-age children between the ages of 5 and 14 spend up to 80% of their time out of school. These hours represent an opportunity to help children grow and acquire important social, emotional, cognitive, and physical skills and to help them develop lifelong interests. This time can also be used to provide support for the academic challenges faced…

School-age children between the ages of 5 and 14 spend up to 80% of their time out of school. These hours represent an opportunity to help children grow and acquire important social, emotional, cognitive, and physical skills and to help them develop lifelong interests. This time can also be used to provide support for the academic challenges faced…

Noting that research has shown that the more extensive the parent involvement, the higher the student achievement, this Digest discusses standards for parent/family involvement and describes online resources that can help parents and educators attain those standards. It discusses existing national standards for family involvement programs and…

The current emphasis on performance standards and testing has led schools to look to the after-school hours as time that can be spent developing children's academic skills. This Spanish-language digest describes types of after-school programs and discusses recent research on who participates and the effects of participation on children's school…

The current emphasis on performance standards and testing has led schools to look to the after-school hours as time that can be spent developing children's academic skills. This digest describes types of after-school programs and discusses recent research on who participates and the effects of participation on children's school performance. The…

The academic achievement of limited-English-speaking (LEP) students has long been a major national educational concern. This digest focuses on: (1) factors that promote or inhibit academic achievement in a second language; (2) the length of time needed for LEP students to achieve at comparable levels in school with their native English-speaking…

Since 1981, Chapter 1 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act has provided school districts with supplementary services funds for more than five million low-achieving students. Historically, schools have used "pull-out" programs to serve this population, but the provisions of the current legislation, the Hawkins-Stafford…

The difficult transitions of adolescence combined with the challenges of learning a new language and culture can be overwhelming for immigrant secondary school students. This Digest highlights three ways educators can help students through these critical transitions and provides brief descriptions of three programs that are working to facilitate…

This digest reviews various longitudinal studies that examined the long-term effects of programs that served young children living in poverty and at risk of school failure. Concerning program effects on school performance, all studies that collected data on children's intellectual performance found that their program groups had better intellectual…

This digest describes community college honors programs with regard to their origins and goals, consistency with institutional missions, and effectiveness. Potential goals for honors programs at community colleges include: (1) providing advanced students an opportunity to learn more than they would in a non-honors curriculum; (2) retaining a…

This digest discusses two specific computer-aided instruction systems used in two-year colleges in the United States and Canada, and addresses critical points regarding system implementation in remedial education programs. As developed in the Nova Scotia Community College System in Canada, the INVEST computer system provides literacy-based…

Successful college instruction programs have two features that are associated with increased grade point averages and retention: (1) they are comprehensive and meet student needs, and (2) they are better institutionalized into the academic mainstream of the college or university. Several program characteristics are crucial to learning improvement,…

Work-based learning (WBL) includes a range of activities that extend beyond traditional cooperative education, such as job shadowing, service learning, internships, and apprenticeships--all of which provide career and technical education (CTE) students with valuable experience in the world of work. Several issues are involved in developing…

The use of time in school is undergoing close scrutiny. Over the years, educators have sought to enhance learning time through such reforms as block scheduling and year-round schools. School time can be conceived as an inverted pyramid, in which allocated time (total time in the school day or year) forms the top tier, engaged time (time-on-task)…

This digest highlights the findings of an extensive review and analysis of the literature related to the role of libraries in education. The review was undertaken to demonstrate the critical role libraries can play in meeting the six National Education Goals adopted in 1990 by the President and the governors of the United States. The goals, which…