Research suggests that children as young as 6 years old could begin to develop a negative attitude towards the STEM disciplines and this results in disengagement and loss of interest in these areas, particularly for girls. Finding ways to address this apparent lack of interest among young students is critical as reports highlight a lack of…

The New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) is the largest public school system in the country, and regularly communicates with more families in a month than many school districts do in a year. Innovations in communication or outreach efforts can influence profoundly how families engage with the district, especially innovations in outreach…

This report explains how the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA) Act came to be and offers promising practices and lessons other states may adapt to their political and economic contexts. Through in-depth interviews with advocates and state leaders, the authors uncovered five factors that contributed to TISA's passage that have…

Science outreach programs that enable real-time interactions between scientists and school-aged children are known to positively impact learning gains and students' perceptions of scientists. To expand K-12 outreach by scientists, it is important to build structured outreach programs which offer scientists well-defined opportunities, while…

Graduate students often serve as a liaison between a university and its surrounding community through their participation in educational outreach programs. Astronomy graduate students' responses to openended survey questions about their experience volunteering with an educational outreach program were qualitatively coded to investigate how…

The aim of this study was to examine the impact of Reading for Ethiopia's Achievement Developed Community Outreach (READ CO) project intervention on students' oral reading fluency, reading comprehension, academic achievements, and listening comprehension. It also aimed at identifying the students and teachers' awareness and practices about the…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe and assess a hearing screening program of first-grade children in Poland. The program aimed to detect hearing disorders and increase awareness among parents of hearing problems. Method: A hearing screening program was conducted in all elementary schools of the biggest region in Poland. A total of…

The immigrant population in Hong Kong is steadily increasing every year. This immigrant population largely comprises families, most of whom have pre-school and school-age children. However, limited information is known on the practices that immigrant parents adopt when they become involved in their children's schooling. In the present study, the…

When many of today's parents were students, the process of applying and enrolling in school was fairly simple and involved few choices. In many cases, a family visited the neighborhood public school at the start of the school year and enrolled the child at the school's office. But now, the proliferation of school-choice policies in districts…

Poor school attendance in the early grades is predictive of poor subsequent educational outcomes. We report on a pilot intervention aiming to reduce chronic absenteeism in kindergarten. We designed and implemented a two-way, text-based parent-school communication system to encourage daily attendance, provide parents with personalized feedback on…

The Smithsonian Science Education Center (SSEC) serves K-12 students and teachers, school districts, state education agencies, and ministries of education throughout the world with curriculum materials, digital resources, professional development, leadership development (through our Leadership and Assistance for Science Education Reform [LASER]…

This study examined an urban school readiness initiative that developed parent leadership as a key strategy for increasing the likelihood that all children enter kindergarten ready to succeed. Parent Leaders were primarily immigrant mothers who conducted outreach activities and child developmental screenings with low income, under-served, urban…

This study explores the underrepresentation of Black and Latinx students in California's community college Dual Enrollment (DE) programs. The study investigates how DE staff describe an understanding and commitment towards equity for Black and Latinx students in DE programs and how staff engage in equitably aimed praxis to serve Black and Latinx…

Generating solutions for society's complex problems will require the development of a diverse workforce that is committed to technological and social innovation. In the United States, this need is being addressed by the invention education movement, a goal of which is to promote the adoption of an inventive mindset among K-12 students through…

There are many actions schools and districts can take to help ensure a child's transition into kindergarten is smooth and stress-free for her and her family. This report highlights innovative efforts schools and districts across the country are taking to ease the transition into kindergarten for families and students, including students who did…