The Joint Educational Facilities Inc. (JEF) computer science program has as its goal to acquaint minority and socially disadvantaged K-12 students with computer science basics and the innovative subdisciplines within the field, and to reinforce the college ambitions of participants or help them consider college as an option. A non-profit…

An effort to kick-start local education and to keep students learning and going to college came in 1958 when Fall River optometrist Irving Fradkin started a citizens-based scholarship fund to help ambitious but needy public school graduates pay college tuition and textbook costs. With literally a dollar contributed here and a dollar contributed…

Accelerating Achievement in Math and Science in Urban Schools (AAMSUS) is a research and demonstration grant funded under the Javits Education for Gifted and Talented Program. AAMSUS, begun in 2004, is built on the notions of finding economically disadvantaged children early, providing varying interventions, raising achievement, and having the…

The High School Puente Project, one of several outreach efforts of the University of California, is an innovative program that is designed to assist traditionally underserved students. Puente builds on community and the idea of "familia" and features a strong component of professional developments for teachers as well as structural…

A powerful practical reclaiming strategy for youth at risk is to tap their potential for service to others. This counters a sense of learned helplessness. The term "learned helplessness" (Seligman, 1975) comes to mind when the author thinks about when she began working with troubled youth more than 20 years ago. Her and her co-workers often spoke…

The author examined the extent to which a Head Start-to-Public School Transition intervention promoted children's social competence following one year of participation. The sample comprised 337 children (127 intervention and 210 comparison) who were participants in a Head Start Public School Transition (HSPST) project and who had made the…

Despite Head Start's long history and ever-expanding budget, the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged, between white and minority, is still substantial. Proposes keeping Head Start but letting a few states have more control of funds, carefully studying their subsequent reforms, and then determining future policy based on solid…

Used data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 to examine educational aspirations and postsecondary access and choice by students in urban, suburban, and rural schools. Results show a changing pattern of disadvantage for urban students, but consistent disadvantage for rural students. (SLD)

This article describes how the Fairbanks Native Association's (FNA) Early Head Start (EHS) program in Alaska participated in the EHS Pathways to Prevention initiative. At the FNA EHS program, staff members had watched their families struggle to receive appropriate and respectful mental health services. Developing more culturally relevant services…

A language and literacy intervention was implemented in 10 Head Start classrooms. Teachers were trained in specific book reading and conversation strategies. The focus of the intervention was to train teachers how to increase opportunities for language and vocabulary development in young children. At the end of the year, children in the…

The Vision In Preschoolers (VIP) Study, is a multi-phased, multi-center study designed to identify screening tests that best detect vision problems in preschool children. The VIP Study uses mobile medical units that are specially equipped to conduct vision screenings and eye examinations. Known as Vision Vans, these mobile units are staffed by lay…

In response to Mr. Kozol's December article, Mr. Slavin maintains that, while everyone is entitled to form his or her own opinion of Success for All, Mr. Kozol misrepresented the program. In particular, Mr. Kozol neglected to mention the substantial gains made by students in the very schools that he is so concerned about. (Contains 2 figures and 9…

Adopting an ecological framework, this study examines the role of community violence exposure, interpartner conflict, positive parenting, and informal social support in predicting the social skills and behavior problems of low-income African American preschoolers. Participants were 184 African American mothers and female caregivers of Head Start…

Background: Scholars are bringing much-needed attention to the persistent problem of academic underachievement among African American children in the United States, who continue to lag behind White school children in all socioeconomic groups. This is especially true of impoverished African Americans. Although some link these outcomes to poor…

Policy makers and educators in the U.S. have recently shown considerable interest in the concept of weighted student funding (WSF) as a means of financing primary and secondary schools. WSF appeals both to conservatives, who see it as a way to promote parental choice and school autonomy, and to progressives, who are attracted by the call of extra…