What constitutes quality in early childhood settings, and how can it best be measured with today's widely used tools and promising new approaches? Find authoritative answers in this book, a must-have for high-level administrators and policymakers as more and more states adopt early childhood Quality Rating and Improvement Systems. The most…

This report outlines the Ministry of Education's achievements during the fiscal year ending March 31, 2011. It reflects the Ministry's progress over the past year; in particular their efforts to expand early learning programs, introduce flexibility in their education system through personalized learning, and inspire life-long learning for British…

Controlled Drawing Observation (CDO) was developed by Tove Krogh and it has been used in Denmark, Finland and Estonia for assessing a child's readiness for school. CDO is a group test, it gives information about a child's functioning in an educational setting and it serves as a starting point for later individual assessment. The goal of the study…

The National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES) is a random digit dialing (RDD) survey program developed by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. The surveys are designed to help NCES collect data directly from households about important education topics.…

The Office of Head Start/Region 11 serves nearly 23,000 American Indian/Alaska Native (AIAN) children in 26 States throughout the country: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina,…

Invest Early is an effective program in preparing low-income students for school success when delivered in sufficient quantity. Wilder Research, in conjunction with the Invest Early leadership team and staff, is conducting a longitudinal and cost-benefit evaluation, documenting and assessing implementation of Invest Early and outcomes for the…

This study examined the relationships between behavior problems, learning behaviors, and educational outcomes for at-risk preschool children. A sample of Head Start children (N = 196) was selected in the southeast United States. Behavior problems were assessed using the Devereux Early Childhood Assessment (LeBuffe & Naglieri, 1999) and…

Reviews both the technical and policy aspects of readiness testing in local school districts. Summarizes policy context, motivations behind the tests, and consequences. Discusses the types of readiness tests and developmental screening measures misused as readiness tests, along with evidence of these measures' substantive and technical validity.…

Describes inadequacies of three policies intended to enhance child readiness for education: raising the age of school entry, retaining students in kindergarten, and extra-year programs. Argues that they are inconsistent with educational research and potentially harmful. Suggests the use of curriculum-based performance tests to help teachers and…

This study examined the cognitive effects of an educational early childhood television program in Turkey that was designed to enhance basic cognitive skills and socio-emotional development of 5-year-old children. The program targeted children with low socioeconomic status who had limited access to formal preschool education. The program was…

We examined children's growth in school-related learning and social skills over the pre-Kindergarten (pre-K) year in state-funded programs designed to prepare children for kindergarten. We expected that children's gains in academic and social skills could be attributed to variations in the structural and classroom process dimensions of program…

According to generational theorists, the interests and experiences of incoming students have fluctuated over time, with Millennial students being more engaged and accomplished than their predecessors. This project explored data from 1974-2007 to determine the actual trends in engagement and accomplishments for three generations of students. Over…

Problem behaviors early in the preschool year have been negatively linked to a variety of school readiness outcomes, including language, literacy and mathematics, both at the end of preschool and later on as children transition to elementary school. In order to inform preschool intervention efforts, the current study extends this research by…

Each year, thousands of American students enter postsecondary institutions unprepared for college-level work and are subsequently placed in remedial or developmental courses. Several recent studies have examined the impact of these courses on student outcomes, but such studies focus exclusively on students who need just one or two classes; the…

Launched in 2003, "Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count" is a multiyear national initiative designed to improve educational outcomes for community college students, particularly students of color and low-income students. Supported by Lumina Foundation for Education and other funders, the initiative has grown to include 98…