This document describes the experiences of 13 unemployed adults who participated in job training that was provided by the Croydon Continuing Education and Training Service in the London borough of Croydon with funding from the European Social Fund from 1995-1997. The document begins with an overview of the two projects: the New Addington NOW (New…

This is the third in a series of reports published by Universities UK and the Standing Conference of Principals (SCOP) charting the development of widening participation activity across the UK higher education sector. The study analyses 34 in-depth case studies (including a re-examination of the 23 previous case studies from the 1998 and 2002…

Since it began in 1965, Head Start has been the cornerstone of the nation's services for low-income children and their families. A substantial research base has been attached to Head Start, providing information about the program's overall accomplishments and directions about ways to improve services for young children. American Indian and Alaska…

Contends that, in the public's perception, much of adolescents' trouble today can be traced to deterioration in the quality of family life. Reports on a study of education completion and marriage. Finds that females living with mothers only, who complete their senior year in high school, actually have higher educational attainment and later…

Many disadvantaged students show incipient excellence underlying perceived errors in literacy performance. The paper examines research on helping teachers think more generatively about increasingly diverse student populations. Preservice teachers can be taught to handle multicultural classrooms by interpreting problematic student performance in…

Examines aspects of the structural and regulatory environment of schools to identify features associated with higher levels of engagement among at-risk eighth graders. Results from 6,488 at-risk students (about 33% were Hispanic American, 28% were African American, and 39% were white) support the importance of school characteristics in student…

The English-only initiatives sweeping the United States are mainstreaming English language learners into content-area classes designed for native or fluent English speakers, with little, if any, English as a second language (ESL) support. This spells trouble for the ever-growing population of Latinos because ESL teachers are not likely to have the…

This article unpacks the decision to decharter a successful urban middle school serving African American students, especially focusing on parental choice in a school caught between two urban reform initiatives: charter schooling and state takeovers of urban districts. Originally chartered by a university, DeCharter became a "school of choice" in…

"Brown v. Board of Education" (1954) is one of the greatest achievements of the American judicial system. It decisively declared racial segregation in the schools unconstitutional, inaugurating the modern civil rights era. In addition to advancing equality, "Brown" initiated a new type of judicial decision making. After…

Educators often ignore the political requirements of urban reform in their focus on the research and models that guide it. Conversely, political scientists frequently miss the differences among reforms in their focus on coalitions and resources. Integrating Clarence N. Stone's concept of "civic capacity" with an educator's view of reform…

Recent studies investigating need theory and the extent to which money can buy happiness have called for more research within culturally homogeneous samples from developing countries to explore this relationship. We examine wealth as a measure of possessions and savings and relate this to subjective well-being (SWB) among poor indigenous farmers…

In the state of Florida, several of the principles of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) have been enacted earlier than at the federal level. For example, the Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test (FCAT) is required for all students through grade 10 and must be passed for promotion to grade 3 and for high school graduation. Schools are graded A through…

This paper discusses a framework for education policy, from early childhood through post-secondary education, along with major reform ideas consistent with that framework. We present evidence showing that education is critical to broad-based economic growth. Investments in education yield large returns to both society and the individual.…

This report presents findings stemming from the first-year evaluation of the Governor's Educator Excellence Grant (GEEG) program, one of several statewide performance incentive programs in Texas. In the fall of 2006, the GEEG program made available non-competitive, three-year grants to 99 schools ranging from $60,000 to $220,000 per year. Grants…

By fiscal year 1994, all local educational agencies (LEAs) in West Virginia had implemented the statewide system of standards and measures mandated by the 1990 Perkins Act. The second evaluation under this system indicated that the majority of vocational programs met the standards for student satisfaction, placement, employer satisfaction, and…