In the 1995 legislation establishing charter schools in the state of Louisiana, the Louisiana Legislature indicated their intention "that the best interests of at-risk pupils be the overriding consideration in implementing the provisions of this Chapter" (Charter School Demonstration Programs, 1997). Furthermore, the legislation required…

Drawing on a community-university (CU) partnership between a non-profit organization that serves teen families, a housing organization and a university, this paper discusses the opportunities and challenges that can arise when engaging vulnerable youth in research. Through this paper, we share reflections on promising practices and ethical…

Head Start has long focused on assessing and improving program quality to ensure that the children served receive the best possible preparation for school and life. Most research has been focused inside the classroom--the classroom environment, teacher qualifications, and teacher interactions. Of course, the classroom is important because that is…

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has expended considerable effort to ensure high quality in data collection by developing standardized materials and survey operation procedures and using well-trained professional administrators. However, schools are allowed to minimize the disruption associated with pulling students out of…

This Technical Report is designed to provide technical detail to support the analysis and findings presented in the "Head Start Impact Study Final Report" (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, January 2010). Chapter 1 provides an overview of the Head Start Impact Study and its findings. Chapter 2 provides technical information on the…

Ensuring that all Arizona children receive the high-quality education they deserve requires an effective teacher in every classroom along with school and district leadership that is focused on raising student achievement. Arizona's educators, from the classroom teacher to the district superintendent, are the most important component of the state's…

APPRAISALS OF ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY ACT PROGRAMS SHOULD BE MADE IN TERMS OF (1) A PROGRAM'S STATED PURPOSES, (2) A BEHAVIORIAL DEFINITION OF PROGRAM OBJECTIVES, (3) THE SITUATIONS AND EXPERIENCES THROUGH WHICH THE OBJECTIVES ARE TO BE ACHIEVED, (4) DATA COLLECTED BY APPROPRIATE INSTRUMENTS TO MEASURE THE ACHIEVEMENT OF OBJECTIVES, AND (5) DATA…

The topics discussed in this resource book include not only how to assess the long-term impact of early childhood Title I programs, but also how to develop and use a longitudinal information system for a variety of routine operations. The book is designed to help evaluators decide what a particular information system should look like. For…

Focus of the study was to identify and analyze the common elements of the instructional organizational systems used in nine of the most effective Title I reading components in 1968-69 for disadvantaged pupils in grades 1-6. (Author)

This issue brief focuses on the special needs of teenage parents and their children ("teen parent families") and on how the unique set of services available through Early Head Start (EHS) programs can support them. Teen parent families face multiple risks, risks that may be substantially different from those faced by families with older parents…

A variety of special needs programs were funded by the Michigan Department of Education in 1972. Data collection instruments were developed to evaluate these programs and data were gathered. This initial effort was important in the movement toward implementation of a more sophisticated evaluation design. Specifically, the paper discussed the final…

The purpose of this paper is to specify the design for evaluating the second year Health Start Program. This design is used as the basis for the determination of the data to be collected and the comparisons that will be made using these data to provide information to answer the policy questions asked by the Office of Child Development (OCD). For…

Surveyed partnerships between K-12 schools and postsecondary institutions using a 12-item questionnaire to determine (1) structural characteristics; (2) funding; (3) success in achieving goals; and (4) data collected to measure success. The partnerships see themselves as at least somewhat successful in improving high school preparation and college…

In fall 2003, the Head Start Bureau began implementing the Head Start National Reporting System (NRS) to systematically assess the early literacy, language and numeracy skills of all 4- and 5-year-olds enrolled in Head Start. In addition to child progression on a designated set of outcomes during the year preceding kindergarten, the data will…

To examine the impact of Camp Limberlost, a two-week residential camp for socially and economically disadvantaged children, various methods were used to obtain evaluation data in the form of parental feedback on the 1982 and 1983 camps. The four research objectives were (1) to identify changes in children resulting from the camp experience, (2) to…