In the 1990s, the nation's educational focus turned to troubled schools in the nation's poorest cities. Under the leadership of Luther Williams, then Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Urban Systemic Initiative was created to improve the teaching and learning of science and mathematics. Recognizing that high-needs…

Today's increasingly complex financial services market offers consumers a vast array of products, services, and providers to choose from to meet their financial needs. While this degree of choice provides consumers with a great number of options, it also requires that they be equipped with the information, knowledge, and skills to evaluate their…

English as a second language (ESL) programs in community colleges are as diverse in the models they follow as the students they serve. This volume provides a detailed look at how faculty and administrators are tailoring their ESL programs to best serve the needs of their students and the missions of their institutions. The authors of the thirteen…

The importance and potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to develop economies has been demonstrated through various studies around the globe. For the Pacific, especially Fiji, where development is hampered by dispersed populations, small sizes and vast ocean distances, ICT can help overcome these restrictive circumstances,…

Educators must work together to ensure that every American young person has access to the skills and experiences needed to become a full participant, can articulate their understanding of how media shapes perceptions, and has been socialized into the emerging ethical standards that should shape their practices as media makers and participants in…

Proof of academic performance often serves as the litmus test for maintaining instructional practices and programs. Just as the national focus on academic improvement has gained momentum, so too has another movement calling for character education. Educators find themselves caught in the middle, questioning whether character education is just…

This report describes an investigation into how a school moves from a handful of individual teachers dabbling in alternative assessment strategies to full school implementation of an assessment system. The research was conducted at Bay Park Elementary School in the San Diego (California) City School District, a school participating in a pilot…

This package of handbooks on the Far West Laboratory version of Experience-Based Career Education provides information on the distinctive features of the Far West model. Part 1 on management has four handbooks: program overview; administration (attendance, budget, insurance and liability, schedules, staff, troubleshooting and problem solving);…

This newsletter includes six articles that examine key issues facing public schools and communities related to accountability, bilingual education, immigrant education, school finance, and school choice. In addressing these issues, articles focus on the importance of community involvement and input in local school reform efforts aimed at achieving…

This lesson plan for the second and third grades uses information on dinosaurs, their adaptations and survival, to provide science education for limited-English-proficient (LEP) students in San Diego, California. The primary text is "Los Dinosaurios Gigantes," a core literature book used in the school district. Lessons are based on the whole…

This program guide documents a child care job family curriculum that develops competence in generic work force education skills through two minicourses: Basic Issues in Child Care and Child Development Associate. An annotated table of contents lists a brief description of the questions answered in each section. An introduction presents a program…

This monograph provides an overview of the characteristics, attributes, and behaviors that define and identify elementary school students who are at risk of not succeeding in mathematics. The monograph is divided into seven sections that report research to support early intervention procedures to prevent problems from developing and suggest…

This seven-chapter monograph elaborates on five components of an expanded vision of basic education. It presents material that deals with aspects of these components: universalizing access and promoting equity, focusing on learning, broadening the means and scope of basic education, enhancing the environment for learning, and strengthening…

The effects on selected student outcomes are evaluated after 2 years of operation of Project RAISE, a multifaceted approach to helping at-risk students featuring outside adults as school-based advocates and one-on-one mentors at seven middle schools in Baltimore (Maryland). Seven community sponsoring groups (churches, universities, businesses, and…

Because it is based upon the premise that learning is a lifelong process and that citizen involvement is essential to neighborhood problem solving, community education is particularly attuned to the current needs of cities and can be particularly effective in responding to urban housing needs. One way in which leaders can simultaneously address…