Wilder Research, in conjunction with the Invest Early leadership team and staff, is conducting a longitudinal and cost-benefit evaluation. Annual reports document and assess implementation of Invest Early and outcomes for the service system, families, and children. Invest Early is an effective program in preparing low-income students with multiple…

Trends in family formation during the past several decades have increased children's exposure to mothers' partnership instability, defined as an entrance into or exit from a coresidential union or a dating partnership. Instability, in turn, is associated with negative outcomes for children and adolescents. This study uses data from the Fragile…

States have come a long way in building longitudinal data systems in just three years, but dire budget conditions will not make it easy to finish them. Forty-two states can now report uniform graduation-rate data. All but two states can match test records for individual students from year to year. And 29 states track individual students'…

This study is a population-based investigation of children's school readiness with a national sample of low-income children, utilizing data from the Family and Children's Experiences Survey (FACES; 2000-2003). Guided by a developmental ecological framework, we posed 3 research questions: (a) How do children's early school readiness skills in the…

This article examines the history of Head Start, a federally funded program, whose conceptualization emerged in earlier phases of the Civil Rights Movement in order to provide education, nourishing meals, medical services, and a positive social environment for children about to enter the first grade. While Head Start was implemented in states…

The 2015 edition of the "Annual Condition of Education Report" includes a rich set of information about the status of Iowa's K-12 education system. The report provides valuable feedback about Iowa's students, educators and school districts across a number of statewide measures. They include changes in student populations and…

This paper presents an updated WWC (What Works Clearinghouse) Quick Review of the Report "Head Start Impact Study: Final Report". This study examined the effects of offering Head Start to 3- and 4-year-olds. Head Start is a federal program aimed at boosting the school readiness of low-income children by providing preschool education and…

This 2008-2009 school year program in AISD uses a train-the-trainer model in which Spanish-speaking mothers participate in a 6-week course about teaching early literacy skills and preparing their children for school. Sixty-nine of 107 mothers completed the program in 2008-2009. Students of mothers who completed the program showed academic gains.

In the past 20 years, many advances (e.g., maternal steroids and surfactant) have changed the course of neonatal medicine. As a result, extremely preterm infants survive medical complications that were previously fatal. Once they are discharged from the neonatal intensive care unit, preterm infants may continue to experience a spectrum of medical…

From selecting appropriate curricula and teachers to providing classrooms with bathrooms easily accessible to 4-year-olds, public preschool programs present challenges to districts that run the programs, which are designed to prepare children to get off to a good start when they enter kindergarten. While a wide range of private preschool programs…

This study examined whether the effects of employment-based policies on children's math and reading achievement differed for African American, Latino and Caucasian children of welfare receiving parents, and if so, why. Two kinds of employment policies were examined: "education-first" programs with an emphasis on adult education and job…

Background: Teacher qualifications have been emphasized as a basis of professional development to improve classroom practices for at-risk children's school readiness. However, teacher qualifications have often not been compared to another form of professional development, in-service training. Objective: The current study attempts to investigate…

The federal Early Head Start (EHS) program began in 1995, and a randomized trial was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of 17 EHS programs. In all, 3,001 low-income families (35% African American, 24% Hispanic, and 37% White) with a pregnant women or an infant under the age of 12 months were randomly assigned to a treatment or control group (with…

In the United States, racial-ethnic differences on tests of school readiness and academic achievement continue. A complete understanding of the origins of racial-ethnic achievement gaps is still lacking. This article describes social equity theory (SET), which proposes that racial-ethnic achievement gaps originate from two kinds of social process,…

New K-12 science education standards emphasize teaching and learning grounded in authentic scientific practices. A first step toward supporting teachers' adoption of scientific practice-based pedagogies is to develop a clear picture of how teachers are currently teaching science, and what factors predict their pedagogical choices. A recently…