Decentralization and an increased emphasis on community and parent participation represent significant education reform trends over the past decade. These reforms take place in the context of increased emphasis within Education for All (EFA) on improving education quality and outcomes and on strengthening accountability for results. They require…

Every year, thousands of new teachers pass through hundreds of different teacher preparation programs and are hired to teach in the nation's schools. In recent years, alternative programs have expanded rapidly. Despite the expansion of these new routes into teaching, little research exists to provide guidance on the effectiveness of different…

This monograph describes the development, implementation, and outcomes of the full-day, literacy-focused Bright Beginnings program for disadvantaged preschoolers in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) in North Carolina. Key components of Bright Beginnings are a child-centered curriculum with strong language development and literacy emphasis,…

This study was designed to measure the performance of academically underprepared students who complete remediation, compared with underprepared students who do not complete remediation. The study was conducted on 766 full-time students at Ivy Tech State College, a two-year technical institution in Indiana. All of the students included were…

Uses case studies to assess extent to which the "Bubble Dialogue," an application supporting role-play within a comic strip environment, helps abused, adopted, and foster children express feelings, reflect, and debate pertinent issues. Study of the application with comparison group in primary school provides baseline data. Issues arising…

Different forms of peer tutoring within college and universities are described and compared for effectiveness, including cross-year and same-year small-group, individualized, supplemental, diadic, reciprocal, fixed-role, writing process, and distance tutoring. Three methods are found to be widely used, demonstrated effective, and meriting expanded…

Reviews findings on the long-term effects of early childhood care and education (ECCE) programs outside the United States. Focuses on three issues of policy debate of concern to the United States: (1) long-term benefits of ECCE programs; (2) using ECCE programs to reduce educational inequities; and (3) benefits of parent involvement in ECCE…

This study used an "enhanced constructed comparison group" statistical model to conduct longitudinal research on the child developmental impact of Pittsburgh's early childhood initiative (ECI), a partnership to provide high-quality early care and education for children in high-risk neighborhoods. First-phase findings indicate that…

Examines drug-prevention programs in the United Kingdom and the United States which have included parents within their intervention strategies. Reviews implications for practice, describes a small number of model programs, and identifies critical issues for policy and practice regarding identifying, recruiting, and retaining parents within the…

The long-term effectiveness of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) Program was assessed by contrasting 497 ninth graders who received the program in sixth grade with 352 who did not. Employing latent variables to represent the concepts, no significant differences were found between D.A.R.E. participants and comparisons. (SLD)

Compared treatment needs and services received in six areas based on the Treatment Outcome Prospective Study and the Drug Abuse Treatment Outcome Studies for Adolescents (DATOS-A). Found a general decline in services received that was only partially offset by significant decreases in some self-reported service needs in DATOS-A. Unmet needs…

This study investigates the effect of a conceptual change approach over traditional instruction on students' understanding of chemical equilibrium concepts (e.g. dynamic nature of equilibrium, definition of equilibrium constant, heterogeneous equilibrium, qualitative interpreting of equilibrium constant, changing the reaction conditions). This…

This study examined whether two versions of a drug and alcohol curriculum explaining how substances affect behavior and health, one version more causally coherent than the other, were more effective than a control curriculum on disease in changing school-age children's (N = 327) beliefs and attitudes regarding cocaine and alcohol. Few differences…

The aim of this study was to examine the fidelity and completeness of the implementation of a school-based healthful diet promotion programme called "Krachtvoer" (we use the Dutch title of the programme throughout this article. A possible translation is Power Food, but this does not reflect the play on words in the Dutch title), aimed at…

This review systematically examined the effectiveness of 24 mass media interventions on changing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-related knowledge, attitudes and behaviors. The intervention studies were published from 1990 through 2004, reported data from developing countries and compared outcomes using (i) pre- and post-intervention data, (ii)…