Making the case that breastfeeding provides essential and long-lasting benefits for children and should be one of California's first investments in the healthy development of every child, this report assists state and county commissions of Proposition 10 (Families and Children First Act) in the development of effective strategies and integrated…

The purpose of this article is to discuss strategies for secondary, public school educators to implement postmodern thinking in the United States of America. Postmodernism is a set of strategic practices that erase limits or norms to abide by placed upon people in society. Jacobs and Kritsonis say the time is now for educators to be recognizant of…

Organization development is an approach to planned change that is used in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. However, relatively little is known about OD in universities. This paper examines the challenges associated with the use of OD in universities that may not be present in the private sector and other non-university settings. Five…

This book focuses on redesigning teacher education. Chapter 1, "Composing a Life as a Teacher Educator," examines a teacher educator's early career and how he arrived at certain perspectives that underlie his thinking on what needs to change in the curriculum, organization, and administration of teacher education. Chapter 2, "Common Criticisms and…

Since two thirds of the country's children reside in the countryside, improving child development services in rural areas is one of China's most pressing concerns. This report details the current situation of children in rural and urban China and identifies problems related to child development. The report also presents evidence of the effect of…

This brief summarizes research on day care availability, quality, and costs and offers recommendations for improving these issues. Examples of summarized facts include: (1) children in poor quality child care are often delayed in language and reading skills and display more aggression toward other children and adults; (2) a large study of child…

This annual report details the activities of the National Association of Child Advocates (NACA) from June 2001 to June 2002. The report discusses the efforts of NACA to help members protect funding levels for programs supporting children and their families during the nation's economic downturn, including conducting focus groups to test specific…

The right to birth registration, the official recording of the birth of a child by some administrative level of the state as a permanent and official record of a child's existence, is enshrined in the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child. This digest examines birth registration, a right that opens the door to other rights, including…

At first glance, charter districts seem to offer an inventive way to conduct the business of schooling. While charter schools extend a new, but relatively small, building-focused alternative to educational consumers, charter districts have the potential to free public education at a much larger level and with a more comprehensive scope. This paper…

This book has been greatly revised and expanded to make it a definitive up-to-date reference for educational innovators involved in educational reform. Sixteen chapters incorporate new theoretical and empirical knowledge about change processes, provide powerful insights into the complexity of reform, and recommend inspiring and practical…

This report discusses lessons learned by the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI) about improving and maintaining safe, humane institutions. Chapter 1, "Why Focus on Conditions of Confinement?" explains that many facilities do not meet minimum standards of care, and discusses the role of institutional conditions and links…

This resource book reflects the assumptions, structure, and insights of the American Council on Education's Project on Leadership and Institutional Transformation, a 6-year study that involved 26 institutions involved in comprehensive change. The first section of the primer, "Creating the Context," focuses on key issues that form the backdrop for…

This guide was developed to empower individuals and organizations to solve social and educational problems. It is intended for use by anyone interested in leading groups in developing programs to improve education. The principles and methods that it contains are based on psychological theory and research, and it is intended to stimulate effective…

In the United States, the family is regarded as primarily responsible for financing the education and care of children under age 5 as well as the education of offspring in postsecondary education, with the intervening years of education publicly funded and considered the responsibility of society at large. This paper describes the student…

The New England Resource Center for Higher Education's (NERCHE) Civic Engagement Cluster is a multi-institutional model for strengthening civic engagement in higher education across ten institutions simultaneously. Reflecting NERCHE's mission to promote community, collaboration, and change in higher education, the Cluster is based on the premise…