This report describes Blalock FIRST, a 3-year collaborative research project designed to improve literacy skills of low-income, African American families living in a severely depressed urban housing project. Project implementation, and antecedents to the implementation, are described. Objectives of the project were to: (1) increase achievement in…

The curricular recommendations of the current educational-reform movement are discussed and their likely effects on at-risk youth are considered. Current reform efforts tend to focus on three major curricular changes: (1) increase the number of academic courses required to graduate from high school; (2) increase the time for education; and (3) end…

This book analyzes how welfare reform can improve the lives of children, based on a study of successful programs that provide services to needy children and their families. The study looked at programs that operated in conjunction with the welfare department before the enactment of the Family Support Act and that operated successfully. Chapter 1…

This report describes the implementation of Section 1017 of Chapter 1 contained in Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Section 1017 requires school districts to serve eligible students enrolled in private schools. Private schools affiliated with religious groups make up the bulk of all Chapter 1-eligible students. The report…

This paper analyzes the ways in which the Cleveland (Ohio) Hispanic community, made up mostly of Puerto Ricans, has been organizing to increase its involvement in the education of Hispanic youth. In particular, this paper focuses on the past 3 years when new styles of involvement were attempted. This involvement has taken the form of program…

The lives and places in society of urban youth at risk of dropping out of the Los Angeles (California) Unified School District schools are explored through interviews of adolescents whom the author met when doing field work in Los Angeles County. Data come from interviews conducted in the course of the 1991 Drug Use Forecasting Study (DUF) and the…

Goal Five of the National Education Goals states that by the year 2000, every American will be literate and will possess the knowledge and skills to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. This report examines the challenges and progress of minorities compared to Whites in reaching Goal 5, focusing…

By focusing on the settings and environments in which high-risk young people are living, this book fixes responsibility on society as a whole. High-risk settings do not just happen, but are the result of public policies and national choices. The Panel on High-Risk Youth of the National Research Council attempts to clarify forces tearing apart…

The equity of a national examination system using authentic assessments is discussed from technological and historical perspectives. Testing is, in fact, a technology embedded in sociotechnical systems such as education, government, and business. The historical perspective is important because it provides lessons for present policy. The first…

This document includes materials from and about Skilled!, a national demonstration project that was implemented in 10 areas of England in partnership with local authority youth services and further education colleges to provide educational opportunities for disaffected and underachieving young people aged 16 and over. The first half of the…

This guide is intended for Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) program service delivery areas (SDAs) and educators involved in providing educational services in the Summer Youth Employment and Training Program (SYETP). It presents strategies for delivering high-quality instruction that promotes active learning, skill transfer, and skill durability…

This paper studies pretest-to-posttest, posttest-to-sustained effect, and pretest-to-sustained effect changes for 3,775 students in grades 2 through 8 who participated in Chapter 1 reading/mathematics programs in Columbus (Ohio) Public Schools during the 1989-90 school year. Data for 16 analysis groups were collected in spring of 1989, 1990, and…

This manual assists teachers in providing adaptations for disabled and disadvantaged students to ensure their success in the regular vocational classroom and to meet requirements of the new vocational education standards in Iowa, which call for a competency-based curriculum. Introductory pages include strategies for teaching special needs…

Washington State's Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (ECEAP) provides a comprehensive, family-focused preschool program designed to help low-income children succeed in the public school system and help families support and participate in their children's success. Findings from an ongoing longitudinal study of the ECEAP program…

This second interim report presents evaluation results from Project Youth Experiencing Success (YES) and documents a decrease in the Virginia statewide event-dropout rate in grades 7 through 12 from 4.8 percent during the 1988-89 school year to 3.3 percent during the 1991-92 year. Event-dropout rates measure the proportion of students who drop out…