One educational innovation that is having a widespread and disproportionate impact on the gap in academic achievement between African-American and Latino children and their White peers is Success for All (SFA), a comprehensive reform model for elementary schools piloted in Baltimore in 1987. SFA, a whole-school reform model that focuses primarily…

A study explored the lives of families and successful readers within "at-risk" environments. This inquiry sought to identify and understand the home and family characteristics that enable children to defy the myths and become successful readers and literacy users, when individuals and institutions would suggest they would fail. Through…

This document is part of the series, "New Expeditions: Charting the Second Century of Community Colleges," sponsored by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Initiative. Addressed specifically in this paper is the history and current status of community colleges with regard to trends in enrollment, persistence rates, associate degree attainment,…

This is the first comprehensive study to examine SAT I Math and Verbal test results for the nation's urban schools. This report, prepared in collaboration with The College Board, examines 1998-99 SAT I Math and Verbal test results in 58 Great City Schools (GCS) districts, analyzing test scores on: number of test-takers; race/ethnicity and gender;…

This report presents final school completion outcome data on students in New York City's class of 1997 as of June 2000, noting separate final outcomes for the 1997 special education class. The class of 1997's overall graduation rate was 69.7 percent. About two out of three students who continued their education beyond 4 years of high school earned…

This study of the of the Florida Community College System compares Associate of Arts (AA) transfers over a five-year period, from 1994-95 to 1998-99. The study tracked transfers with Florida's centralized student database system, which uses social security numbers as student identifiers. It included only students who completed the AA degree, and…

The factor structure of the Coping Resources Inventory Scales for Educational Enhancement (CRISEE) was examined for its application to Hispanic, African American, and Non-Hispanic White middle school students. The study was designed to provide additional evidence for the validity of the CRISEE scales and to determine whether its psychometric…

Noting that research on long-term effects of attending preschool has found social as well as cognitive effects, this study explored the association between preschool participation and adolescent goals and activities in a sample of 80 urban eighth graders who had attended different types of preschool and kindergarten programs. The sample was 55…

Popular music and films can become vehicles in the study of racial prejudices and stereotypes and provide a framework for understanding the popular opinions of a particular era. At the College of Staten Island, City University of New York, a course incorporates popular music and videos into the study of historical accounts of the 20th century…

This paper discusses the finding of two studies that assessed the need for children' mental health services in the Mott Haven community of the South Bronx, and investigated the cultural, personal, and service utilization characteristics of Mott Haven children who are recipients of existing mental health services. Results from a one-week period in…

This brief examines racial/ethnic differences in educational attainment, tracking student progress from high school to a postsecondary credential and examining where in this path racial/ethnic differences arise. It uses data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, "Fourth Follow-up, 2000, which tracks students who were in 8th grade…

This book uses extensive interviews and statistical data to examine the failed desegregation efforts in Louisiana as a case study to illustrate how desegregation has followed the same unsuccessful pattern across the United States. It shows that the practical difficulty with desegregation is that academic environments are created by all the…

This large-scale evaluation of Indiana's Prime Time, a funding mechanism designed to reduce class size or pupil-teacher ratio (PTR) in grades K-3 examined the academic performance of nearly 11,000 randomly selected third graders on the state mandated standardized achievement test as a function of class size, PTR, and presence of an instructional…

West Virginia's philosophy toward equality of opportunity differed from that of southern states. Gender roles in West Virginia were unique to Scottish and Irish settlers; men were warriors and women did such heavy work as clearing fields, slaughtering, and cutting forests. Early settlers in other southern states such as Virginia were from southern…

This report reviews the educational experiences of students of color in Minnesota schools, colleges, and universities, highlighting students and communities of color; students of color K-12 enrollments; students of color K-12 achievement; students of color college success; early college awareness; and redefining success for students of color. The…