In 1999, South Carolina's First Steps to School Readiness was launched as a comprehensive early childhood initiative to improve childrens school readiness by improving the efficiency and coordination of existing services to children from birth to age 5 and their families, and by providing new services where gaps are identified. A legislatively…

When it comes to student support, widespread agreement exists for moving in new directions. It is easy to agree that change is needed. It is harder to agree on what the changes should look like. And, it is even harder to get from here to there. The intent of this paper is to focus the discussion about new directions for student support by…

The term "informed clinical opinion" appears in the regulatory requirements for the implementation of Part C of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) as an integral part of an eligibility determination. It must be included in evaluation and assessment procedures, since it is a necessary safeguard against eligibility…

These exemplar units of work for National Strategy Key Stage 3 English show how medium and short-term planning can be based on the Key Stage 3 Framework objectives and support the implementation of Curriculum 2000. The Key Stage 3 English strand introduces pupils to more specialist study of language and literature and supports the study of…

Annie E. Casey Jobs Initiative sites recognize the challenge that long-term retention poses in today's labor market for low-income residents. They have developed key elements of an operational definition of retention, including the following: no limitation to one job, but only very limited gaps between jobs; and jobs in construction or other…

The Anne E. Casey Foundation (AECF) funded replications of effective jobs projects to achieve better job placement and retention for low-income, young adults. The six projects funded, collectively called the Jobs Initiative (JI), in Denver, Milwaukee, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Seattle, and St. Louis, used an outcomes framework developed by The…

The Standards Implementation Design (SID) system is a comprehensive framework for analyzing school performance, planning for improvement based on the analysis, implementing the improvements, and evaluating results. It is designed to engage school personnel in introspection about student achievement as related to curriculum, the teaching and…

This booklet is one of five in the Peace Corps (PC) Programming and Training Guidelines collection that provides agency-wide programming and training (P&T) guidance for PC staff and project partners. It incorporates topics from previous booklets--how to design or revise a project, how to integrate the PC's cross-cultural goals, and how to…

This study examined the impact of a 5-year school family partnership project in Israel with the goals of improving children's reading and writing achievement and forming a parents task force to create community-wide involvement and change. Participating in this study were 510 parents of the first graders enrolled in 21 classrooms in 7 Jewish…

Economic Growth Challenge / Innovation Incentive, as proposed by the Governor's Commission on Higher Education and the Economy, is a new line item involving reallocation of current higher education funding plus matching levels of performance funding to achieve a major restructuring and refocusing of Ohio's portfolio of doctoral research programs.…

This guide was developed for Ohio's Work SITE Learning Model, a national demonstration project for the integration of academic and vocational learning. The guide is designed to assist schools in conducting effective teacher worksite externship programs that allow teachers to observe workplace practices in order to glean information about academic…

This document, fourth in a series, describes trends in statewide assessment programs. It is based on surveys conducted in the past for the Association of State Assessment Programs. States were asked to describe the assessment programs they operated during the 1995-96 school year. Part One of the survey asks each state to describe its existing…

The fifth edition of the "Annual Survey of State Student Assessment Programs," tabulates extensive and detailed information about each state's assessment programs based on surveys conducted in the past for the Association of State Assessment Programs. The entire survey is presented. Part One asks each state to describe its existing…

This guide draws on case studies to identify lessons for small and midsized firms who wish to improve the quality of their services and facilitate change. Following an introduction, section 2 describes the context in which the research was undertaken after a needs analysis was conducted of small and midsized businesses and service providers, and…

This final report describes activities and accomplishments of Project Ta-Kos Outreach, a 3-year program to provide consultation and site-specific training for families, educators, and health care providers. Project Ta-kos, through its curriculum and training approach, was designed to increase the probability that children, ages birth through eight…