In February 2005, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report that raised concerns about the effectiveness of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Administration for Children and Families' (ACF) oversight of about 1,600 local organizations that receive nearly $7 billion in Head Start grants. GAO was asked to report…

This study was designed to analyze the effects of the support programs provided in education welfare action zones. Education welfare action zone policy came into effect by government from 2003 to guarantee actual educational opportunity to disadvantaged children in urban areas by providing educational, cultural, and welfare service. Education…

This article highlights the study which illustrates how an age-old board games that incorporate numbers and counting have led to better understanding of numbers by young students. Few family rituals have as fixed a place in the American household, and in the popular imagination, as board games, those impromptu or regularly scheduled contests…

This article profiles Lyn McNaught, who retired in 2004 after more than thirty-five years as a teacher and Director of the Horizons Student Enrichment Program. McNaught's legacy of community service remains with her successors and the benefactors who continue to support the growing Horizons educational programs in New Canaan, Connecticut, and…

Working with students can be as tiring physically and mentally as any job. In the case of inner-city, disadvantaged youth, this becomes even more of a truism. Some of these students come to school with more baggage that one can even imagine; it's a wonder they can focus on anything, least of all school. In this article, the author shares a few…

Social capital is a term widely used in diverse contexts and in diverse meanings. For the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 1998), social capital is defined as networks with shared norms and values that facilitate cooperation (Cote & Healy, 2001); for Putnam (1995), as networks, norms, and trust that enable members of…

Purpose: This study aimed to show (a) whether the minimal competence core (MCC) of consonants used by African American preschoolers in I. Stockman (2006) can be observed in a larger group of children using shorter and more controlled speech samples and (b) whether the MCC pass/fail outcomes are differentially related to performance on selected…

Religious organizations offer a potentially rich pool of caring adults who are driven by their own spiritual commitments and a strong ethic to serve others. Indeed, more Americans volunteer through religious organizations than through any other venue. Religious organizations account for half of all volunteering, with an estimated 60 percent of the…

Many homeless children and youth have difficulty in school due to their loss of stable housing, and lack of consistent contact with family and friends. When a child becomes homeless, schools are federally mandated to identify these students and provide the same access to a free and appropriate education as their non-homeless counterparts. Within a…

As the demand for services from therapists in the educational environment continues to grow, both physical and occupational therapists seek innovative and effective ways to meet the identified needs of the child and school environment. Train-the-trainer model of service delivery can be used to meet the needs of both the therapist and the preschool…

How good does an early childhood program have to be in order to achieve school readiness outcomes for children? This is known as the "threshold question," and policy makers and others have wanted an answer to this question since the onset of public investments in early care and education (ECE) programs. With expansion of Head Start and…

Promoting marriage, especially among low-income single mothers with children, is increasingly viewed as a promising public policy strategy for improving developmental outcomes for disadvantaged children. Previous research suggests, however, that children's academic achievement either does not improve or declines when single mothers marry. In this…

"Streaming" for mathematics remains a contentious issue and particular forms of the practice have been considered inequitable. In the study reported here, the focus was on the extent to which streaming is used for mathematics at years 7-10 in Victorian secondary schools. Also of interest were the forms of streaming adopted and the…