"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Video Games Take Testing to the Next Level: Researchers See Promise in Game-Like Assessments That Measure Complex Skills (Robert Rothman); (2) An Academic…

The Foundation for Educational Choice recently commissioned a new study to examine the economic and social costs of Oregon's high school dropouts. Emily House, the study's author, analyzed how dropouts in the state dramatically impact state finances through reduced tax revenues, increased Medicaid costs, and high incarceration rates. House's study…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the writing skills of incarcerated males and to examine differences in these skills based on age and race. All participants (n=115) were male, so gender was not analyzed. Data analysis consisted of descriptive statistics as well as a Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA). Results indicated wide…

This article reports on the development and implementation of a Career and Technical Education (CTE) Program in a county jail system in New York State. The program is funded through the Carl D. Perkins Career & Technical Education Act, which reserves a pocket of funds for individuals in county correctional institutions. This program integrated…

Previous research and experience in Croatia show that interventions are not matched with the risk level and intervention needs of children with behavior disorders. As a result of that, the situation in Croatia requires actuarial approach to the risks and needs assessment of children and youth. The purpose of the current research is to put stronger…

Background: This cross-sectional study aims to assess whether there are differences in staff job satisfaction, including organizational and individual characteristics, between three residential models for adults with intellectual disabilities (small residential home, group home and institution) and to investigate the organizational and individual…

Sexual exploitation and prostitution of children and adolescents is a multibillion dollar industry in the United States (Estes and Weiner in "Medical, legal & social science aspects of child sexual exploitation: A comprehensive review of pornography, prostitution, and internet crimes, vol I," G.W. Medical Publishing, Inc, St Louis,…

"BebeBaba" is a project that combines education and artistic performance in a process that is centred on music, babies and their parents. We discovered that previous productions resulted in a very strong bonding among parents and babies, families and the community. In 2008 we implemented a special production in a prison in Oporto where…

This research explores autobiographies of young women in detention, rehabilitation, and education as counter-stories to the official, institutional stories of their lives. The context of the study is a private detention facility in the United States; the participants are young women aged 15-19 years in a detention classroom; and data for the study…

The current study examined the effects of institutionalization on the discrimination of facial expressions of emotion in three groups of 42-month-old children. One group consisted of children abandoned at birth who were randomly assigned to Care-as-Usual (institutional care) following a baseline assessment. Another group consisted of children…

There is an abundance of evidence showing relatively strong associations between family characteristics and a child's psychological functioning--both within the normal range and, also, with reference to psychopathology. That has sometimes led to the assumption that equally strong associations should be found within adoptive families. Nevertheless,…

Access to, and delivery of, safe and culturally appropriate health services is increasingly important in New Zealand. This paper will focus on counting the costs of health advocacy through the experience of a small non government charitable organisation, the Health Advocates Trust, (HAT) which aimed to provide advocacy services for a wide range of…

While considerable research has been conducted on educational practices and programming for incarcerated youth, significantly less attention has been given to short-term detained youth. The high transience of pre-adjudicated youth, legal protections pending trial, and varying levels of collaboration with correctional personnel have made it…

The most recent figures place the number of juvenile arrests in the United States at 2.11 million. (OJJDP, 2009). In some states, children as young as 10 years old are incarcerated for violent offenses. Crowded juvenile facilities are often unable to meet the needs of these large numbers of youth. The cost to treat offenders within long-term…

The author is pleased to see that the future directions of the Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders (CCBD) are being addressed. The celebration of the 50th birthday of the inception of CCBD has set the occasion to carefully examine the status quo of the organization and to set future directions, as appropriate. The authors of "New…