Since it began in 1965, Head Start has been the cornerstone of the nation's services for low-income children and their families. A substantial research base has been attached to Head Start, providing information about the program's overall accomplishments and directions about ways to improve services for young children. American Indian and Alaska…

Many disadvantaged students show incipient excellence underlying perceived errors in literacy performance. The paper examines research on helping teachers think more generatively about increasingly diverse student populations. Preservice teachers can be taught to handle multicultural classrooms by interpreting problematic student performance in…

Examines aspects of the structural and regulatory environment of schools to identify features associated with higher levels of engagement among at-risk eighth graders. Results from 6,488 at-risk students (about 33% were Hispanic American, 28% were African American, and 39% were white) support the importance of school characteristics in student…

In her first year as superintendent of the Atlanta Public Schools, Beverly Hall encountered what she describes as the nearly universal disbelief that poor children of color can achieve high levels of learning. This chapter recounts how she confronted this and other obstacles and challenges as the new leader of the Atlanta Public Schools. Hall is…

This article unpacks the decision to decharter a successful urban middle school serving African American students, especially focusing on parental choice in a school caught between two urban reform initiatives: charter schooling and state takeovers of urban districts. Originally chartered by a university, DeCharter became a "school of choice" in…

Educators often ignore the political requirements of urban reform in their focus on the research and models that guide it. Conversely, political scientists frequently miss the differences among reforms in their focus on coalitions and resources. Integrating Clarence N. Stone's concept of "civic capacity" with an educator's view of reform…

This paper discusses a framework for education policy, from early childhood through post-secondary education, along with major reform ideas consistent with that framework. We present evidence showing that education is critical to broad-based economic growth. Investments in education yield large returns to both society and the individual.…

This paper describes the programs at the University of Kansas (UK) School of Education to encourage diversity. The TRIO programs, which include a regular Upward Bound program, an Upward Bound Math and Science Center, an Educational Talent Search, and a McNair Scholars Program, report to the associate dean for teacher education and play a key role…

A study examined the vocational guidance needs of young people in Greece. Available literature on the following topics was reviewed: transitions of young people to economically active life; available vocational guidance services; transitions of youth from education to work; youths who abandon compulsory education; and young women with…

Work preparation should provide adequate qualifications for sustained labor market participation and lifelong learning that lead to economic self-sufficiency and positive engagement as family members and citizens. Five barriers to productive transitions confront disadvantaged urban youth: changing structure of employment opportunity; skills…

This report traces the history of the collection of programs for disadvantaged students known as the TRIO programs and federal student financial aid policies, and finds that national efforts to equalize college opportunities have been losing ground for the past 15 years. The report cites, for example, a study showing that in 1994 a student from a…

These conference proceedings contain abstracts of papers or complete papers that were submitted for presentation, along with descriptions of all workshops from a conference on reaching families and youths who have limited resources. The following are included: "Volunteerism and Limited Resource Audiences" (Safrit, Smith); "Cultural Do's and…

Critics of the Federal Title I and Chapter 1 compensatory education programs to increase the academic skills of disadvantaged children suggest that the return for the Federal investment has been small and that designers have not created programs that work. When the compensatory education programs were conceived, their promise was immense. During…

Prepared by the national professional association of education reporters, this publication contains five articles that emphasize stories about mothers' crucial roles in their children's literacy. Reporters in five different parts of the United States sought out and interviewed young mothers with school-age children. "An Overview: Mothers'…

The story of the Dropout Prevention Initiative (DPI) of the New York City Schools illuminates the obstacles, incentives, and inventions that can come into play in a large city school system's effort to strengthen its effectiveness for at-risk students. The Board of Education commissioned an external evaluation of the DPI in 13 comprehensive high…