In this study, children's participation (N = 1,420) in activities outside of elementary school was examined as a function of disparities in family income using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Child Development Supplement. Children's neighborhood and home environments were investigated as mechanisms linking income disparities and…

In this article, the author recounts how school taught him that he was poor. For him, third grade was the year in which he learned in school that he was poor. The author's story reminds everyone that all children do not experience school in the same way. Their social class (in the case described in this article), as well as their race, gender,…

Conversations are a primary tool for language development in preschool classrooms. Unfortunately, opportunities to have meaningful conversations between children and adults may not exist in preschool classrooms, especially those that serve children from high poverty contexts. Conversation Stations were implemented in preschool classrooms to ensure…

In his speech at the inaugural session of the 4th International Conference on Environmental Education, Ahmedabad, India, in November 2007, Charles Hopkins, one of the "founding fathers" of environmental education (EE) at the 1st International Conference on Environmental Education in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 1977, reflected on how EE has…

This article presents an interview with Ray Landers, the 2009 MetLife NASSP Middle Level Principal of the Year. Landers talks about how he and his staff members put programs in place to erase poverty gap at his school. He stresses the need to make sure that principals empower teachers so that collaborative decision making can take place.

Tumaini University at Iringa, Tanzania, started a new B.Sc. program in IT in 2007. In the course of planning and implementation of the program, we found out that standard ACM/IEEE IT curricula are not adequate for an IT program in a poor, developing country. The standard curricula describe, in detail, the competences that IT specialists in…

Community colleges in America are now very visible and highly respected institutions of higher education. More than 1,000 community colleges in all 50 states now comprise nearly 25% of all colleges and universities in the U.S., with over 6.5 million students, or about 45% of all college students.State and local governance and coordination of…

This paper discusses the advantages and challenges of using qualitative methods to elicit poor children's perspectives about threats and positive influences on their wellbeing. It draws on research carried out by the author on the subjective experiences of poor children in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia in terms of their understandings of…

In July 2005, President Mbeki announced the launch of the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA), a new development strategy designed to help the South African state meet the ANC's 2004 election pledges, namely: (1) halve unemployment; (2) halve poverty; (3) accelerate employment equity; and (4) improve broad-based…

This article focuses on the "missing class," the near poor whose incomes place them above the poverty line, but well below the middle class. Near-poor families with two parents and two children subsist on $20,000 to $40,000 a year, which disqualifies them for virtually all public subsidies, but is a far cry from what they need to be…

In classrooms across the country, when students hear the bell ring at 3 p.m., it signals the end of the school day and, for many, the start of an afternoon without supervision, without productive activities and without direction. Afterschool and summer learning programs are filling the invaluable role of providing essential services--such as a…

This appendix provides the details that underlie the analyses reported in the evaluation brief, "After Two Years, Three Elementary Math Curricula Outperform a Fourth." The details are organized in six sections: Study Curricula and Design (Section A), Data Collection (Section B), Construction of the Analysis File (Section C), Curriculum…

This report presents selected findings from the Public School District Data File of the 2011-12 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). SASS is a nationally representative sample survey of public and private K-12 schools, principals, and teachers in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. School districts associated with public schools and library…

Adolescents defined as at-risk typically lack healthy models of parenting and receive no parenthood education prior to assuming the parenting role. Unless a proactive approach is implemented, the cyclic pattern of dysfunctional parenting-- including higher rates of teen pregnancy, increased childhood abuse, low educational attainment,…

This study examines and compares the recruitment and retention of minority and White elementary and secondary teachers and attempts to empirically ground the debate over minority teacher shortages. The data we analyze are from the National Center for Education Statistics' nationally representative Schools and Staffing Survey and its longitudinal…