Saltville, Virginia, is a former company town whose main employer, a soda ash plant, shut down on July 1, 1971. The closure of the chemical plant displaced 700 workers, and created a crisis that threatened not only the existence of the town, but of the entire region. In response, Virginia Highlands Community College (VHCC), in cooperation with the…

Families in urban areas struggle with drug abuse, poverty, increasing housing costs, and lack of affordable child care. The challenges confronting urban schools include a higher dropout rate, higher youth unemployment, and the need to address a variety of special needs of their student population, such as programs for pregnant students, dropouts,…

This monograph introduces a conference addressing the educational issues of the edge cities of the urban Pacific Southwest. Edge cities on the outside of urban cores (edge cities) are currently facing many of the problems formerly experienced only in urban areas. Of the 30 fastest-growing cities of over 100,000 residents in the country, 19 are…

This paper summarizes the overall theme of a collection of six papers (each with separate commentary) inspired by research in cognitive psychology. The dominant approaches to instructing educationally disadvantaged children have focused on the teaching of basic skills, with little regard for the more advanced skills of reasoning, problem solving,…

This booklet offers a set of guidelines for developing a community-based coalition dedicated to improving the education of at-risk minority students. The guide offers and is organized around the following nine-step plan for the development and implementation of strategies to mobilize a community: (1) "the initiation: build core support"; (2)…

This monograph examines effective schooling for language minority students through a review of current practices, an analysis of current thinking on related issues, and a look at actual exemplary schools and programs. The first section briefly reviews effective schools research as an introduction to the text. The second section looks in detail at…

Since 1969, Toronto's Metropolitan Separate School Board has been rewarding additional monies to "Special Needs" schools within its jurisdiction in the hope of raising educational opportunity in those schools to a more equitable level. The attempt to arrive at a fair system for determining which schools should receive such assistance led…

Several issues related to the implementation of vocational education programs for Hispanic Americans are investigated in this paper, material for which came from a review of literature on the subject, government documents, and interviews with public officials. Issues explored include: (1) The history and current status of vocational education…

The Los Rios Transfer Centers were established to provide adequate transfer resources, information, and intersegmental cooperation and articulation to increase the rate of transfer to four-year institutions among minority, disabled, low income, and other underrepresented students. In order to develop a profile of students who were using the…

Each year, the Office of the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges is required to submit a report to the state legislature on Extended Opportunity Programs and Services (EOPS). The 1990 report provides information on the data elements necessary for a statewide database for the periodic evaluation of EOPS programs and services and numbers…

Established by Assembly Bill (AB) 3103, the Cooperative Agencies Resources for Education (CARE) program, currently administered in 44 community colleges throughout the state of California, was developed to help low-income, educationally disadvantaged, welfare-dependent single parents break the dependency cycle. The program provides educational…

In 1990, a survey was conducted of students at Miami-Dade Community College (M-DCC) to determine their perceptions of their high school preparation for college. The survey was distributed to a 5% random sample of English classes. Surveys were returned from 502 students in 26 of the 31 sampled classes for a response rate of 84%. A comparison with…

A study investigated aspects of the problem of at-risk youth aged 9-15 in the public schools. Focuses were compulsory attendance education; school programs; demographics; developmental characteristics; patterns of behavior leading to academic success or failure; academic achievement; and school/community efforts. Evidence showed that compulsory…

Program results emerging from policy changes concerning identification and placement of limited-English-proficient (LEP) students in one school district are evaluated. The policy changes permitted students classified as bilingual, English-dominant, or English monolingual to be placed by committee in an appropriate instructional program (bilingual,…

This report evaluates the implementation and outcome of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act Title VII program, Choosing Optional Infused Career Education (Project CHOICE) in Springfield Gardens High School in Queens (New York) and Fort Hamilton High School in Brooklyn (New York) for the 1988-89 school year. The project was created to combat…