Examined the role of two parents who helped design and implement a field-based teacher-preparation program at one professional-development school. Interviews with participants led to four main themes that illuminated the stages parents experienced: excluding breeds suspicion, holding our ground, saying the same thing, and establishing a new…

New Haven (Connecticut) Public Schools realized that pushing students academically was useless without creating a positive school climate to address their social and emotional needs. James Comer's School Development Program is the district's guiding principle. Via planning and student-support teams, school community members decide on life-skills…

A dramatic increase in numbers of homeless families with school-age children and independent homeless youth has occurred in recent years. This article, an introduction to issues involved in educating homeless students, offers strategies for building awareness, increasing and supporting parental involvement, providing early intervention, and…

Ongoing controversy exists over how to practice character education in public schools. Parents are responsible for developing their children's character, and they must be involved from the beginning in developing character education in their schools and communities. Like the self-esteem movement, the character education movement requires…

Explored relations between former Head Start parents' self-efficacy beliefs, beliefs about their children's academic abilities, affective state of depression, perceptions of school climate, and reported level of involvement in their children's education at end of kindergarten year. Parents' views of school climate and beliefs in their ability to…

Describes multilevel recruitment strategies for High 5 Alabama, a school-based study designed to change fourth graders' fruit and vegetable intake. The paper discusses district-, school-, teacher-, and individual-level recruitment; compares participants to nonparticipants; and presents results from teacher perception surveys. Recruitment success…

Evaluated the effects of a six-week interactive shared-reading intervention with 3- to 4-year olds from low-income families who attended subsidized child care. The intervention involved teacher-reading at school, parents-reading at home, both-reading, or a no-treatment control. Found that significant gains on measures of oral language and language…

Teachers at a rural Appalachian elementary school made the curriculum more responsive to students by incorporating storytelling, theater, and music. Students interviewed community members, told their stories in school and community, created and performed plays based on them, and provided workshops for classmates. Teacher perspectives, supporting…

A survey of 37 system-of-care sites constituting 31 programs for children with serious mental health challenges found high family participation in such activities as modification of questionnaires, collecting data, and reviewing results. Low family participation was reported in the hiring of staff and data processing. Most families were…

This article describes three potential levels of accountability for providing certain types of support for families in early intervention and preschool programs for children with disabilities: providing the legally required services for families, providing services that are considered recommended, and achieving certain outcomes as a result of…

This reaction to an article (Bailey, 2001) that describes three potential levels of accountability for providing family support in early intervention and preschool programs, recommends articulating inclusive and functional family support outcomes and developing outcomes that describe growth toward a long-range goal but also allow for individually…

This reaction to an article (Bailey, 2001) that describes three potential levels of accountability for providing family support in early intervention and preschool programs, comments on the role of the families at each level. The need to include parents in the development of procedures and guidelines for evaluation is stressed. (Contains five…

This study examined whether maternal resources of involvement and autonomy support might buffer children against the negative effects of the transition to junior high. School, cognitive, and personal involvement were examined. Findings highlight the importance of the home environment in children's coping with the transition to junior high.…

Notes that one of the best investments society can make is in its children's education. Describes how employers across the country are supporting better education through family-friendly policies for learning, particularly through the "Employer's Promise for Learning," an initiative of the "Family Involvement Partnership for…

To maintain quality education and high morale, educational decision making must become decentralized, particularly during financially difficult times. Teachers and other educational stakeholders, rather than government or educational bureaucrats, should be asked about where and when to cut expenditures. Centralized decision making, where the few…