Compared school readiness as understood by kindergarten teachers in 11 rural Missouri communities with results of national Carnegie study of 7,000 kindergarten teachers. Found that Missouri teachers judged their students as more ready than did the national sample, and a greater portion believed that children are more ready now than five years ago.…

Several large-scale research efforts imply that improving instructional quality rather than assessing student readiness is a better way to promote student performance in the early grades. (Contains 12 references.) (Author/MLF)

Research has shown that preschool education is a sound investment--academically, socially, and economically. Offers some options for integrating the existing patchwork of U.S. public and private programs into a uniform system that provides a high-quality early education to all young children. (Contains 13 references.) (MLF)

Model early education programs in Brattleboro, Vermont, and Leadville, Colorado, identify ingredients for success: serve families as well as children, collaborate with social service agencies, secure diverse funding, have universal eligibility, make programs part of the school system, seek parent input, and deal fairly with competitors. (SK)

Accomplishing the readiness (National Education) goal is contingent on cooperation with families, nonschool providers of care and education to young children (including Head Start, family day care, and for-profit programs), other community institutions (including health and nutrition, social services, welfare, employment and training, civic and…

Surveyed 31 state preschool programs to determine whether entrusting Head Start to the states would be a sound policy decision. Findings suggest that state initiatives vary widely in design, implementation, and quality. Finds reasons for serious concern regarding devolution of Head Start from federal to state control. (SLD)

Summarizes recent ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center) documents and journal articles that discuss issues related to children's age at entry into school. Includes details about ERIC and ordering ERIC documents. (EV)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently introduced a tool kit, "Changing the Scene," to help school personnel and community leaders change attitudes toward health and nutrition in public schools. The kit provides information on how the school environment affects children's eating and physical activity. (MLH)

The purpose of the current study is to describe the development and validation of a new measure of temperament, the Preschool Temperament Classification System (PTCS). The PTCS was developed as a typological measure that identifies children's temperament styles as undercontrolled, resilient, or overcontrolled. The PTCS is a time efficient…

We examined the role of the teacher-child relationship quality (close, dependent, and conflictive) on preschoolers' (N=95) academic readiness for kindergarten, and we tested children's prosocial and aggressive behavior and peer group exclusion as mediators of this relation. A unique feature of this study is the ethnically and socio-economically…

This volume explores whether the nation's early childhood programs are boosting child development and preparing children for schooling and proposes reforms that would improve the programs. The volume contains contrasting papers on the success of Head Start, Early Head Start, and home-visiting programs and on policies that would improve these three…

The purpose of this study was to learn more about the transition experiences of one group of high school students (N = 75) as they began attending one alternative pathway: an Early College High School program on a community college campus. A four-part conceptual framework of college readiness provided a structure from which to explore the…

This report summarizes the impact of Georgia's Prekindergarten Program on two cohorts of children and families. About half of Cohort 1, 214 children and families, now in first grade, attended the Prekindergarten Program for less than 1 year when it was a pilot program. Half of Cohort 2, 534 children and families, now in kindergarten, had a full…

SERVE, the SouthEastern Regional Vision for Education, is a coalition of educators, business leaders, governors and policymakers seeking comprehensive and lasting improvement in education in the five southeastern states. SERVEing Young Children is the early childhood project within SERVE. The first section of this resource booklet introduces the…

A series of eight videoconferences was designed to help educational professionals improve schools by applying knowledge gained from research. During the videoconference programs, which are transmitted by satellite to facilities with receiving capacity, viewers can interact by telephone with the program presenters. Each program covers a specific…