Playful Learning Landscapes seeks to transform everyday spaces into playful learning opportunities to maximize "the other 80 percent" of time that children spend outside school. It lies at the intersection of the growing Child Friendly City movement and a global development agenda that calls for access to high-quality early childhood…

The Expanded Success Initiative (ESI) evaluation was designed with two overlapping and interacting components: (1) a study of the initiative's implementation in the participating high schools; and (2) a study of its impact on student experiences and other outcomes. As the document of record evaluating an important, large-scale initiative, this…

Cities around the country are building systems that seek to make the most of public and private resources to provide widespread, high-quality, out-of-school time opportunities. Local officials are leading these efforts because participation in OST programs not only benefits young people but also the cities in which they live, with the potential to…

This executive summary describes highlights from the report, "Building Management Information Systems to Coordinate Citywide Afterschool Programs: A Toolkit for Cities." City-led efforts to build coordinated systems of afterschool programming are an important strategy for improving the health, safety and academic preparedness of children…

The National League of Cities (NLC), through its Institute for Youth, Education and Families, produced this report to help city leaders, senior municipal staff and their local partners answer those questions as they work to strengthen and coordinate services for youth and families, particularly for those cities building comprehensive afterschool…

In cities and towns across America, millions of children and youth get out of school by mid-afternoon but have neither a safe, supervised place to go nor a structured or engaging activity in which to participate. Because the hours between 3:00 and 6:00 p.m. are when young people are most likely to be affected by crime or to engage in risky…

The literacy problem in the Cleveland area and recommendations for dealing with it are presented in this booklet. Beginning with a definition of literacy and a discussion of the human costs and economic consequences of illiteracy, the booklet advocates reducing adult illiteracy, eliminating basic skills deficits, and improving communications…

Reviews federal urban aid programs from the 1940s to the present. Maintains that federal redistribution programs fail to compensate for the effects of economic rivalry among cities and regions. Discusses several alternatives to current policy. (DM)

Discusses the need of young children for strong social bonds with family and other caregivers to withstand stressful early childhood experiences. Briefly describes parent education programs in Chicago and Washington, DC, that give parents information on how to deal with their children's problems in and out of school. (FMW)

This brief is the first in a series featuring promising practices in city-wide after-school initiatives, with a focus at the infrastructure level, focusing on the infrastructure representing the underlying elements or framework that hold a system or initiative together. The brief identifies practices to support the public relations function and…

This summary evaluates a federal demonstration program to reach "disconnected" youth not currently served by job training programs under the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA). Disconnected youth are defined as those who have lost or never developed the traditional values of their communities, who do not participate in traditional…

The Atlanta (Georgia) Partnership of Business and Education, a private nonprofit corporation, is an umbrella organization that coordinates a range of activities aimed at strengthening education in Atlanta's public schools. There are over 300 business members of the partnership, and a wide range of affiliated civic, educational, and religious…

The 1987-88 Saginaw (Michigan) Prekindergarten Program, funded under the Education Consolidation Improvement Act Chapter 1, served 479 children at 13 elementary schools, and attained ten (62.5 percent) of its 16 achievement objectives. A list of the objectives is included in Appendix A. The program is designed to prepare inner-city 4-year-olds…

Describes the Young Adult Learning Academy in New York (New York), a collaborative offering educational services to dropouts between 16 and 24 years old whose low reading levels make them ineligible for adult education programs. Emphasizes cooperation, staffing, and development of the instructional program. (FMW)

Providing disadvantaged youth with the training to continue their education or to obtain meaningful, long-term employment has been hampered by lack of funding, inability to meet the multiple needs of at-risk youth, and the difficulty of recruiting at-risk youth to participate in programs. This report describes and recommends nine employment…