By comparing resource expenditures of academically high achieving school districts in the Chicago (Illinois) suburbs with those of the Chicago Public Schools, this study contends that Chicago's schools are asked to perform at a high level with far fewer resources than the highest performing schools in the region. This analysis linked high school…

Many young students are not finishing high school and even fewer are entering college. This book demonstrates how some teachers have created classrooms that work for children at risk. They use an integrated, inquiry-driven curriculum to create holistic, language- and literature-based classrooms. Chapter 1 describes the nature of being at risk for…

The extent to which school mix--the social class composition of schools--influences school processes and student achievement has long been a matter of dispute. Drawing on a comparative ethnography of four New Zealand urban secondary schools, this article suggests that school mix probably does impact on school organizational and management…

The concept of "opportunity to learn" (OTL) strategies was first introduced several decades ago and was defined by a narrow set of instructional components. Since then, many additional criteria have been incorporated into the OTL concept, some specifically to ensure an equal education for disadvantaged and minority students. The original…

This booklet presents a short history of the Head Start program and discusses some of the challenges that the program will face in the 1990s. Project Head Start, begun in 1965, has helped 12.5 million children become better prepared to start school, and has grown to be the largest early childhood and family education program in the country. From…

This paper discusses the challenges of effectively matching the needs of youth populations with program services. An introduction reviews some broad issues that shape the discussion, namely whether youth is a period integrated into the course of life or a separatist culture. A second section proposes an ecological approach to youth services, which…

This 2-volume set contains 10 papers, 5 in each volume, that review and evaluate findings from the Youth Research and Technical Assistance Project, whose purpose was not only to explore studies and evaluations related to youth training and employment programs but also to provide a broader synthesis of evidence, findings, and research from related…

This study analyzed data on general health and functional status of Mexican-American and Puerto Rican children in the United States. Data came from the Hispanic Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a database that contains parental reports of neonatal characteristics, chronic-developmental conditions, and functional limitations, and physician…

This paper documents the trend in the educational attainments of U.S.-born and immigrant Hispanics from 1960 to 1980, using data from the decennial censuses, in an effort to pinpoint sources of convergence and divergence in schooling outcomes. A major question addressed is whether and to what extent persisting educational differentials between…

The INNOV database was created as part of a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) program to collect, analyze and promote successful basic education projects in the developing world, and this report lists innovations in the field. It is divided into sections of project reports in three major geographical…

The rosy picture that Asian-American youth are academic successes by almost any gauge does not in fact hold true for many Asian-American students. These students, who make up 7.3 percent of the population of the public schools, are dropping out at a disturbing rate, and those who remain in school face an array of problems such as harassment from…

This report describes the role of a mentor of young people and a summer program providing mentors for high school students. For two summers, with the help of the Commonwealth Fund, several hundred young New Yorkers were chosen from among high school juniors with little hope of finding a summer job to enroll in a program sponsored by Hunter College…

This six-part guide offers practical advice for the establishment and management of a family-support program, including discussions about typical problems and the ways practitioners have chosen to resolve them. This volume, Part 1, defines collaboration and draws distinctions among different collaborative stages. Topics explored include…

This paper describes the approaches being taken in 11 school districts that are located in California, Nevada, and Arizona to help disadvantaged newcomers within the districts, contrasts these approaches, and relates them to achievement-gain scores. The study's objective is to gauge whether school districts that were classified as high performers,…

This volume contains descriptions of programs for student success and retention at 68 state colleges and universities in the United States. Each institution is a participant in the National Retention Project, a research-based project working within broader campus cultures that are committed to providing access and success to students traditionally…