This playbook highlights promising practices, strategies and resources to help communities support 16 to 24 year old boys and young men of color who are neither in school nor employed. Such young people -- commonly referred to as "opportunity youth" or "disconnected youth" -- have distinct talents and needs, and require…

Background: Ethnic educational inequality is present in almost all Western societies. One possible explanation for the persisting disadvantages of children from immigrant family backgrounds is discrimination. Individual ethnic discrimination has been reported in the form of ethnic bias in school teachers' evaluations and recommendations. Children…

Recent studies demonstrate that emerging literacy depends on earlier language achievement. Importantly, most extant work focuses on "parent-reported production" prior to 30 months of age. Of interest is whether and how "directly assessed vocabulary comprehension" in the 2nd year of life supports vocabulary and kindergarten…

Education programs in Africa increasingly aim to develop and measure social and emotional competencies. However, assessments are typically adapted from those developed in other continents and are not derived from local perspectives. In the current study, we conducted focus groups and individual interviews with teachers, parents and students in 4…

Kindergarten entry assessments (KEAs) have increasingly been incorporated into state education policies over the past 5 years, with much of this interest stemming from Race to the Top--Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) awards, Enhanced Assessment Grants, and nationwide efforts to develop common K-12 state learning standards. Drawing on…

UPSTART is an in-home preschool program that uses CAI [computer-assisted instruction] to provide children an individualized reading curriculum. UPSTART forms a partnership with parents to ensure their children use the program for fifteen minutes per day, five days per week. This report summarizes the results of seven years of data. Data was…

This chapter documents changes in school readiness among entering kindergarteners across the years 1998-2010, a period characterized by dramatic changes to the early childhood landscape. I use a broad definition of school readiness that includes not only academic skills such as reading and math knowledge but also social and emotional skills and…

State boards of education have authority endowed by state constitutions and statutes to position them as key players in improving early education. Recognizing the importance of early childhood education (ECE), federal and state governments have been investing billions of dollars to serve the nation's youngest children. Yet many children still…

School readiness occurs within a broad context that includes the four components of community, educational environment, family and the individual child. These four components function as interdependent systems of support that have multidirectional influences. Early childhood experiences, from birth through age 8, are necessary for school success…

Program administrators and policy makers have placed a priority on expanding access to inclusive, center-based early care and education (ECE) for low-income children with special needs, a "doubly vulnerable" population characterized by academic and social-emotional achievement gaps at kindergarten entry. Yet, no research has documented…

"Professional Learning Community: Emergent Literacy" was developed to support preschool teachers through collaborative learning experiences in a literacy professional learning community (PLC). PLCs are a form of professional development in which small groups of educators with shared interests work together with the goals of expanding…

"Professional Learning Community: Emergent Literacy" was developed to support preschool teachers through collaborative learning experiences in a literacy professional learning community (PLC). PLCs are a form of professional development in which small groups of educators with shared interests work together with the goals of expanding…

Children entering kindergarten and grade 1 vary greatly in their emergent literacy skills. Because preschool teachers can help set the foundation of literacy skills related to school readiness, one way to address those gaps is to build teachers' capacity to apply evidence-based strategies in their language and literacy instruction.…

"Professional Learning Community: Emergent Literacy" was developed to support preschool teachers through collaborative learning experiences in a literacy professional learning community (PLC). PLCs are a form of professional development in which small groups of educators with shared interests work together with the goals of expanding…

The present study considered the ways in which interactional quality in the classroom and teacher--child relationships independently and synergistically shaped the early academic, social-behavioral, and executive function outcomes of 1,498 preschoolers from low-income families from a large, culturally, and linguistically diverse county. The…