Jean Kirshner holds a Ph.D. in Education and Human Resource Development from Colorado State University and specializes in literacy and teacher education. Jean started her career as the Early Childhood Director at Saint Ignatius Grammar School, Chicago in 1988. After two years she joined the Child Opportunity Program in Denver as a Head Start…

Creative Youth Development (CYD) is a long-standing practice that fuels students' potential by intentionally integrating creative skill-building, inquiry and expression with positive youth development principles. In CYD programs, young people create original work through arts experiences and apply their creative skills to solve problems. These…

Dual language learners are a growing population in early learning and care settings. Young DLLs have the potential to develop proficiency in two languages when provided adequate supports; however, most teachers of young DLLs feel inadequately prepared to support DLLs. Cultivating Oral Language and Literacy Talent in Students (COLLTS) is an…

Collaboration is tough even in ideal circumstances. How do you begin to effect change when nearly half of the families in a district speak a language other than English in the home, but traditional education models rarely emphasize the strengths of cultural or linguistic diversity? Or when nearly all students live in low-income families and face…

The birth of a child can be a simultaneously joyous and challenging time for families. Virtually all parents will struggle with the enormous physical and emotional demands of parenting a very young child, but for too many California families those challenges are additionally compounded by poverty, housing instability, lack of social support, or…

Literacy programs often target preschool children who are from minority groups, are from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and are second language learners, as they are deemed to be at risk for academic difficulties. The family literacy program described in this article is unique in that it focuses on families who have an additional risk…

There is a critical need to identify solutions to the unemployment of high school dropouts. When a student prematurely leaves school, the economic, social, and political impacts result in negative consequences for the individual and the community. Of the nearly 2.2 million students who drop out of high school every year in the United States,…

More than 32,000 young people in the United States exit the foster care system in a typical year by aging out to independence (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2011). Despite available financial support for post-secondary education through the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999, only 20% of college-qualified foster youth attend college and…

These "Stories From the Field" describe five Wallace-funded programs working to expand learning and enrichment for disadvantaged children, so they can benefit from the types of opportunities their wealthier counterparts have access to, from homework help to swimming classes. The report details each program's approach, successes and…

With the tendency of low-income African American and Latino children identified at-risk for school readiness and school success compared to their early-childhood counterparts, Head Start personnel are challenged to examine the role of family strengths in the promotion of academic success for these populations. This article provides a rationale for…

On February 17, 2009, President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law. Passed in response to the 2008 recession, the Act's purpose was to create jobs, pump money into the economy, and encourage spending. Through the Act, states received $1.2 billion in funding for the workforce investment system to provide…

Poverty-related factors place children at higher risk for disabilities and also serve as barriers to families accessing services for their children and themselves. Early childhood practitioners can play a critical role in supporting families by providing services to overcome these obstacles and by working in partnership with specialized early…

This paper presents an overview of the Head Start program. Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act), $1 billion will be provided to the Office of Head Start to promote the school readiness of low-income children, including children on federally-recognized reservations and children of migratory farm workers, by enhancing…

Early Head Start is a federally funded community-based program for low-income families with infants and toddlers and for low-income pregnant women. Created in 1995, Early Head Start strives to promote healthy prenatal outcomes for pregnant women, to enhance the development of children ages birth to three, and to promote healthy family functioning.…

In a world increasingly globalised, it is crucial that preservice teachers are equipped with a range of pedagogical knowledges, understandings and practices related to diversity and difference. This paper reports on the implementation and learning outcomes of a teacher preparation initiative in an Australian university called Refugee Action…