Southeast Pennsylvania 4-H Extension educators identified a need for professional development in order to further develop current urban 4-H programs. The expectation was that increased awareness and knowledge would lead to increased skills competency in planning, implementing, and evaluating urban 4-H youth development programs. An interstate…

Little is known about the feasibility and acceptability of interventions designed to address the needs of high school students with emotional and behavioral challenges and adopted by their teachers. In this study, 336 general and special education teachers rated classwide interventions (e.g., expectations, routines, positive student-teacher…

This mixed-methods pilot study extends researchers' understandings about elementary teachers' (K-6) perceptions of design, engineering and technology. In the first phase of the study, a reliable and valid survey was given to thirty-five participants in a teacher professional development academy sponsored by the Institute for P-12 Engineering…

Despite the assertion that due to an Obama presidency America has become a post-racial society, Black males still face a unique social crisis. In this article, we hold that both race and gender continue to work in tandem to produce a certain set of social outcomes for young Black men in America despite this assertion. The educational, economic,…

Implementation of college- and career-readiness standards is some of the most important work currently underway in states to improve student achievement and public education overall. SREB examined the efforts of 14 states--including 11 SREB states--to support implementation of new college- and career-readiness standards. The goal of the research…

Implementation of college- and career-readiness standards is some of the most important work currently underway in states to improve public education and student achievement. This report provides a summary of findings from SREB's research into the efforts of 15 states--12 in the Southern Educational Research Board (SREB) region--to support…

Comic books employ a complex interplay of text and images that gives them the potential to effectively convey concepts and motivate student engagement. This makes comics an appealing option for educators trying to improve science literacy about pressing societal issues involving science and technology. Here, we report results from the first…

This study examined the perceptions held by 40 teachers and 304 students of a middle school honors program. The sample population represented an equal number of honors and non-honors participants. Two surveys were analyzed using thematic coding for qualitative questions, while "t" test and descriptive statistics were used for…

The purpose of this paper is to inform the community about teacher appraisal methods in the School District of Philadelphia, outline the difficulties of the current system, and suggest approaches that would strengthen the teacher appraisal process. The authors gathered their information over three months in mid-2009 from multiple sources:…

Children grow and change more rapidly during the first eight years of life than any other time in their life span. Progression through the physical, cognitive, and social-emotional developmental stages varies for each individual child. Children with atypical development experience a wide spectrum of variability in their development. Over the past…

Special education referral and identification rates have risen dramatically over the last thirty years. In fact, several studies report an increase of nearly 200% (Cortiella, 2008; Vaughn, Linan-Thompson, & Hickman, 2003). During the last several years a new model of identifying students with learning difficulties has received much…

Telephone-survey data were gathered from parents and youth in five of America's largest and most distressed cities to estimate unmet demand for after-school programs. Unmet demand was conceptualized as a function of low utilization and dissatisfaction with one's current arrangement; furthermore, the authors argue that dissatisfaction must stem…

The purpose of this report is to listen to families about "what" mattered most to them and "how" family support has impacted their lives. The findings of this report represent a synthesis of families' voices from 8 focus groups and 35 individual interviews, conducted at centers, office meetings, and homes--with over 100 family…

An evaluation was conducted of the Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) Experience-Based Career Education (EBCE) program at the end of its second year of implementation. Evaluation data were collected in the following ways: regular meetings with project staff; on-site observations of program activities; results from pre and posttesting students; inspection…

The evaluation study of the first year of a vocational education program in eight correctional institutions in Pennsylvania sought to determine the participants' views of the program and the quality of the different program offerings. A training survey was administered to the participants to obtain information on their career goals, vocational…