In the United States, people often feel like they need to choose between pursuing a conventional four-year college degree or working, leaving millions of people with no opportunity to achieve the professional and economic advancement that comes with a bachelor's degree. What if this is a false choice? Apprenticeship Degrees offer a hybrid option…

This dissertation consists of two chapters that examine the impact of educational and positive youth development programs on students' academic and behavioral outcomes. In the first chapter, I evaluate the effect of the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) program, a school meal provision allowing schools meeting the eligibility requirements to…

For many non-traditional candidates, the path into teaching is riddled with bumps and detours. They must pay for increasingly expensive coursework and certification costs, attend classes that conflict with work schedules, and forgo wages to complete unfunded student teaching requirements. These roadblocks can deter valuable local…

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) present serious problems for the twenty-first century. These disorders describe a variety of neurological and behavioral deficits that result from exposure of an unborn child to alcohol during pregnancy. While thousands of children are diagnosed with FASD annually, FASD is completely preventable if women…

This study examined Pathways Early Autism Intervention, a community-based, parent-mediated, intensive behavioral and developmental intervention program for children with autism spectrum disorders that could be used as a model for state-funded early intervention programs. A single-subject, multiple-baseline, across-participants design was used.…

"Career Academies" is a dropout prevention strategy for youth considered most at risk of dropping out of high school. Students in the program take both career-related and academic courses and acquire work experience through partnerships with local employers. "Career Academies" integrate rigorous academic curricula with career…

The problem of substance use among older youths is often disregarded in prevention research. The prevailing perception has been that prevention programming is developmentally inappropriate for those who are actively experimenting with substances. This project examines the differential effectiveness of youth-driven adaptations of the evidence-based…

Purpose of the Study: The Exercise Assessment Screening for You (EASY) tool was developed to encourage older adults at every functional level to be more physically active. The purposes of this study were to examine characteristics of older adults who participated in an evidence-based falls prevention program by their entry to EASY tool scores,…

The cultural competence of 13 parenting education programs for Latino families with young children was examined in this study. Based on our analyses, we make several recommendations for improving the cultural competence and effectiveness of parenting education programs for Latino families with young children. Specifically, we recommend the…

In central Texas and regions across the country, community leaders are calling for university-community engagement, including development of structures for community-based research and service learning. Including the community in decision making regarding continuing professional education serves as a link between universities such as Texas A&M…

To stem the tide of students dropping out, many schools and districts are turning to early warning systems (EWS) that signal whether a student is at risk of not graduating from high school. While some research exists about establishing these systems, there is little information about the actual implementation strategies that are being used across…

This article describes the significance of academic enrichment and English as a second language in a community-based professional development middle school. As an example of a university-school partnership that is responding to the needs of its students, parents, and community, the Baylor University School of Education has partnered with the Cesar…

Irving Independent School District in Texas is not a typical candidate for a locally funded one-to-one computing program. With more than 31,000 students, most of whom are minority and economically disadvantaged, technology-rich classrooms and wireless laptops for all seems a lofty goal. Irving's recipe for success lies in strong leadership and the…

This document on state-level planning for education in Texas by the Texas Education Agency consists of two papers. The first focuses on the long-range plan of the State Board of Education for Texas public school education. The paper summarizes this plan, describes the process by which it was developed, and analyzes the status of its implementation…

This paper describes state, institutional, and other community-based programs deemed exemplary (on the basis of design imperatives) for successful interventions to promote meaningful access of minority group youth to postsecondary education. The imperatives include early intervention, comprehensive and integrated intervention, intervention…