Boys & Girls Clubs in New York City and Boston participated in a 3-year initiative to provide and enhance services to underserved teens. Researchers collected data via surveys of club members and staff; cost surveys of club administrators; interviews, focus groups, and observations at each club; and attendance information. Results indicated…

This document is an addition to the "The Vermont Alliance for Children: Building Bright Futures" plan and serves as a supplement specific to children with disabilities and their families. The purpose of this agreement is to ensure, guide and monitor coordination and collaboration among Head Start, Early Head Start, Essential Early…

Expanded schooling options for disadvantaged children is one of the four major principles of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), representing the theory that competition will produce better educational opportunities for disadvantaged students and improve the performance of low-performing schools. Under NCLB, school choice is the first in a series…

In the past two decades, there has been a dramatic rise in the number of homeless students enrolled in US schools. This report explores collaborative efforts of schools and social service agencies working with homeless children and families. The project's goals were to identify frequently encountered barriers and successful strategies to overcome…

This paper examines school finance as a potential solution for inequity, identifying problems with the conventional solution of simply providing additional funding when inequities and inadequacies appear. The paper notes that states have developed a large roster of policy instruments, or state mechanisms of achieving educational policy.…

This report describes an ongoing, large scale evaluation of First Things First (FTF), a district-wide comprehensive school reform initiative in Kansas City, Kansas. FTF is an example of a theory of change initiative, which entails specifying and sequencing each step required to achieve the desired outcomes in order to monitor early, intermediate,…

This paper examines the changing socioeconomic composition of English and Welsh schools over 11 years following the Education Reform Act of 1988, using many indicators of socioeconomic disadvantage and methods of measuring the changing spread of disadvantage among schools (segregation). It explains how to assess segregation (percentage differences…

There have been a number of empirical approaches to understanding the factors that contribute to violence among black males, and there are a number of theories that try to explain black-on-black violence. After a review of some of these theories, this paper suggests certain aspects of programs to combat violence among African American males.…

This publication presents essays written by seven young, urban, minority students participating in an intensive writing workshop given by What Kids Can Do in collaboration with the Margins to Mainstream project. The goal of the workshop was to coach students to create short essays suitable for use as a newspaper column, radio commentary, or…

This study of Chicago teachers' assignments in mathematics and writing in grades 3, 6, and 8 shows that students who received assignments requiring more challenging intellectual work also achieved greater than average gains on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills in reading and mathematics, and demonstrated higher performance in reading, mathematics,…

This brief examines critical issues that charter schools and their authorizers will face as states respond to the No Child Left Behind Act's (NCLB) new accountability provisions. The first section provides a context for the NCLB and summarizes its major accountability provisions, discussing timelines for states to put these systems into place and…

Most youth in America have a good chance of becoming productive members of adult society. However, for a particular group of young people, at-risk youth, the probability of maturing into responsible adulthood is less certain. "At-risk youth" is a term commonly used to describe those adolescents for whom there is a high probability (risk)…

The institutions and agencies in this directory sponsor federally funded TRIO programs that enable students from low-income families to enter college and graduate. The TRIO programs (originally only a "trio" of programs) include Talent Search, Student Support Services, Upward Bound, Upward Bound Math and Science, Veterans Upward Bound,…

The Peers Early Education Partnership (PEEP) program was established in 1995 to make a significant long-term positive impact on the educational attainment of children and families in disadvantaged areas of the United Kingdom. This report examines the work of the PEEP program for the period April 1998 through March 1999. The sections of the…

This document includes a three-part set of Parent Briefs that focus on supplemental security income. The first Brief (published in March 2003)provides basic information on Supplemental Security Income (SSI), the federal income support program for people who have disabilities and limited income and resources. It identifies myths about SSI…