Early Head Start is a comprehensive, two-generation federal initiative begun in 1995 aimed at enhancing the development of infants and toddlers while strengthening low-income families. This report contains information from the Survey of Early Head Start Programs. Beyond the need for an updated picture of the Early Head Start program, the Survey of…

KIDS COUNT, a project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, is a national and state-by-state effort to track the status of children in the United States. By providing policymakers and citizens with benchmarks of child well-being, KIDS COUNT seeks to enrich local, state, and national discussions concerning ways to secure better futures for all…

A growing body of evidence confirms what makes sense intuitively--quality matters for participation in after school programs. Nationwide, a chief concern among after school stakeholders is programming for middle schoolers--too "old" to be told what to do after school and too "young" to be left home alone. A national dialogue about the state of…

Presbyterian Ladies College (PLC) is a 130-year-old independent girls' school in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Teaching students from ages 4 to 18, PLC has a reputation for academic excellence. Geography is a separate subject taught as a part of the core curriculum in the secondary school. The College, which uses principally Macintosh…

In this paper, we conceptualize and develop an index of sociodemographic risk that we hypothesize will be an improvement over the standard poverty measure as a measure of risk for children's development. The poverty line is widely used in government statistics and in research but is also widely acknowledged to have multiple shortcomings. Using…

A framework is presented for understanding how errors arise in institutional research, and principles are suggested to avert errors in work processes of institutional research offices. Error is defined as a product which fails to meet professional standards, has unacceptable process limitations, or is unacceptable to a client. The following four…

This report describes the final status of classroom practice in Texas prekindergarten programs in comparison to initial study findings and findings from a self-study component implemented in 1993 with prekindergarten staffs participating in the study. Findings from the longitudinal component indicated positive trends in academic performance for…

An evaluation was conducted of the educational programs and facilities at two male juvenile corrections schools in Wisconsin (Ethan Allen and Lincoln Hills). Surveys were developed in cooperation with administrative personnel at both schools and given to all students, instructors, and support staff. A total of 573 students, 76 teachers, and 140…

In response to the recommendations of the New Jersey Special Education Study Commission and input from parents, educators, and the general public, the New Jersey Department of Education's Division of Special Education developed "A Plan To Revise Special Education in New Jersey" (1986), commonly called P2R. P2R calls for changes in the…

This paper is a transcript of a videotaped roundtable discussion on the role of volunteers in adult literacy in Canada. The participants expressed concern that tutors may not be able to provide the quality of learning experience for adult students that trained teachers could and that volunteers could be taking jobs that should go to trained…

In the fragmented federal system, over 150 programs provide employment training assistance to adults and out-of-school youth. Individually, these programs have well-intended purposes. Collectively, they raise four concerns: (1) they are difficult for job seekers and employers to access and for administrators to implement; (2) they overlap and…

Since 1993, Washington community and technical colleges have received funds under the Workforce Employment and Training Act to provide new and expanded retraining programs to serve unemployed workers. This report reviews accomplishments of the colleges under the provisions of the act from 1993-95, providing detailed information about the colleges'…

The vocational education programs offered in Michigan's juvenile corrections institutions were reviewed. Information was collected from the following sources: review of student outcomes; student and teacher surveys; and team reviews and surveys of students at two residential training schools for juveniles (Maxley and Adrian training schools); site…

This document proposes a direction and strategies for using a total quality management approach to develop and implement standards for evaluating vocational education students and assessing programs throughout Michigan. Discussed in part 1 are the following: the terms "standards,""assessments," and "certification";…

Prepared for a 1993 accreditation visit, this self-study report describes outcomes at Washington's Highline Community College for 10 college-wide standards. Following prefatory materials, including a campus map, a description of the self-study process, timelines, and abbreviations and definitions, an introduction provides general information on…