The United States does not have a coherent national rural policy. The federal government has focused on a sector-based policy that has only indirect impact on rural America. State governments have failed to move beyond their traditional focus areas of education, corrections, Medicaid, and other state services. The diversity of rural America makes…

This report of the Task Force on Urban/Metropolitan Schools begins with several key assumptions. The Task Force, a creation of two higher education presidential associations, assumes, like No Child Left Behind, that all children in this country deserve a good education, no matter where their school is located. Furthermore, and this is a key…

This document is designed to help accelerate and strengthen state policy initiatives that promote student success; and derive lessons from this work about strategies for influencing the allocation of resources, the transparency of and accountability for results, and the rules that shape how institutions make decisions about priorities and…

Resource-oriented organizational mechanisms focus specifically on ensuring the appropriate use of existing resources and enhancing efforts to address barriers to student learning. This report first explores such mechanisms at the school level, then in terms of a feeder pattern, and finally at the district level. We stress the fact that what we…

In New York City and state, charter schools are slowly gaining momentum through performance that speaks for itself, and with quick action by authorizers and charter advocates when schools fail. But as the New York charter experience should demonstrate to districts and states nationwide, meeting the urgent need for systemwide improvement is far…

Commissioned by the Foundation for Child Development, this report examines the state of universal prekindergarten in the United States and the challenges to its widespread implementation. The report describes socioeconomic and ethnic/racial differences in school readiness and maintains that policymakers need to identify mechanisms in addition to…

Noting that raising well-behaved, considerate children requires learning how to balance firm discipline with equal doses of love and humor, this book provides parents with effective and realistic solutions to countless parenting challenges. The strategies are organized into the following categories: (1) "Avoid Power Struggles"; (2) "Minimize Daily…

The purpose of this volume is to provide a current view of the evolving professional development movement in community colleges. Chapter authors provide descriptions of how their institutions have addressed issues through professional development, created institutional change, developed new delivery systems, reached beyond development programs…

Smart Start is an early childhood initiative in North Carolina designed to build a statewide system of coordinated services for children from birth through age 5 and their families. At the heart of the program are 82 public-private nonprofit partnerships representing North Carolina's 100 counties, each sharing the mission of promoting school…

This report calls for the phased closure of separate, special schools in the United Kingdom as a main task in developing inclusive education. It argues that the central problem in the development of inclusive education in the United Kingdom is the continuing philosophical, financial and legislative support of segregated schooling. The report…

During the 1999-2000 program year, the Division of Economic and Workforce Development attempted to further the North Carolina Community College System's (NCCCS) tradition of excellence by modeling key strategies of the business sector. These strategies included: (1) Economies of scale, a term that refers to unit cost decreasing as number of units…

This study investigated factors impinging upon the successful implementation of reform in New Jersey's special needs or Abbott districts. Surveys of 28 Abbott districts examined the extent to which districts embraced remedial measures in the Supreme Court's rulings; perceived compatibility between remedial measures embodied in the reform and prior…

Inclusion of students with disabilities into schools is mandated by law, but inclusion programs are often overlaid onto the school much as pieces of fabric are appliqued onto a preexisting cloth. Few programs have succeeded in interweaving inclusion into the tapestry of the school. Since research has shown a connection between inclusion and the…

Noting that research in New Zealand and internationally indicates the importance of the early years for children's well-being, learning, and social participation in the present and for the future, this long-term strategic plan offers a comprehensive and cohesive policy framework, goals, and strategies for early childhood education in New Zealand…

Noting that one of the most challenging tasks educators face in improving parent involvement, particularly among parents of English as a Second Language (ESL) students, this paper describes categories of parent involvement, examines several barriers to parent involvement, and offers suggestions for improving parent involvement. Suggestions for…