This study examines the influence of a parent workshop intervention on vocabulary acquisition of at-risk preschool children during parent-child shared storybook reading. Sixty-nine parents were randomly assigned to either treatment or control group. In the treatment condition, parents were taught to implement elaborated vocabulary instruction…

The purpose of this study was to conduct a pilot randomized controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy of an intervention for enhancing the language development of young children enrolled in home visiting programs. The participants were 59 children (18-30 months old) enrolled in one of three types of home visiting programs. Children's language…

Background: Childcare programs serving preschool children are generally of poorer quality than publicly-funded preschools both in terms of their classroom processes and structural features. Research on childcare programs has typically collapsed them into a single group, yet these programs vary greatly in neighborhood disadvantage and organization…

We examined the associations between preschool attendance and academic school readiness at kindergarten entry among 5-year-old children of immigrant mothers in the United States using data from a US nationally representative sample (Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort, N = 1650). Comparing children who were in preschool (Head Start,…

Growing up in poverty increases youth risk for developing aggressive behavior problems which, in turn, are associated with a host of problematic outcomes, including school drop-out, substance use, mental health problems, and delinquency. In part, this may be due to exposure to adverse school contexts that create socialization influences supporting…

Head Start is the oldest and largest federally funded preschool program in the United States. From its inception in 1965, Head Start not only provided early childhood education, care, and services for children, but also sought to promote parents' success. However, almost all evaluation studies of Head Start have focused solely on…

Background: The Child Health Initiative for Lifelong Eating and Exercise is a multicomponent obesity-prevention intervention, which was evaluated among Head Start (HS) centers in American Indian and predominantly Hispanic communities in rural New Mexico. This study examines the intervention's foodservice outcomes: fruits, vegetables, whole grains,…

Researchers have become increasingly interested in programs' main and interaction effects of two variables (A and B, e.g., two treatment variables or one treatment variable and one moderator) on outcomes. A challenge for estimating main and interaction effects is to eliminate selection bias across A-by-B groups. I introduce Rubin's causal model to…

The 2001 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) increased accountability pressure in U.S. public schools by threatening to impose sanctions on Title 1 schools that failed to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) in consecutive years. Difference-in-difference estimates of the effect of failing AYP in the first year of NCLB on teacher effort in the…

In response to the recession that began in 2007, the U.S. Congress passed, and President Barack Obama signed into law, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Pub. Law 111-5). At an estimated cost of $831 billion, this economic stimulus package sought to save and create jobs, provide temporary relief to those adversely affected by the…

In response to the recession that began in 2007, the U.S. Congress passed, and President Barack Obama signed into law, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Pub. Law 111-5). At an estimated cost of $831 billion, this economic stimulus package sought to save and create jobs, provide temporary relief to those adversely affected by the…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to identify conditions that are favorable in promoting the academic achievement of children living in poverty by comparing perceptions of teaching and learning conditions in Title I high schools in Alabama that achieved Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) and Title I high schools that did not achieve AYP. The…

Use of multivariate analysis (e.g., multivariate analysis of variance) is common when normally distributed outcomes are collected in intervention research. However, when mixed responses--a set of normal and binary outcomes--are collected, standard multivariate analyses are no longer suitable. While mixed responses are often obtained in…

A general overview of the Writing Democracy project, including its origin story and key objectives. Draws parallels between the historical context that gave rise to the New Deal's Federal Writers' Project and today, examining the potential for a reprise of FWP in community literacy and public rhetoric and introducing articles collected in this…

In 2009 the U.S. Department of Education announced the requirements and selection criteria for the monies attached to the Race to the Top Fund. The monies attached to this competition were awarded during phase one, phase two, and phase three. This casual comparative study examined the impact of the Race to the Top federal education competition on…