In anticipation of the 35th anniversary of Project Head Start, the National Head Start Association (NHSA) launched a national initiative to discover how Head Start can best serve children and families in the new millennium. A series of hearings and open forums were conducted throughout the country in 1999, along with a special session featuring…

Current programs to deal with childhood lead poisoning, the primary environmental disease of U.S. children, screen individual children, treat those with serious cases of lead poisoning, and subsequently return children to hazardous environments. This approach has led to repeated diagnoses of lead poisoning. This handbook is designed to convince…

This textbook analyzes successful innovations in education. The first chapter provides an overview of the book, which is followed by a review of classical studies and disasters that have accompanied innovation. Chapter 3 offers a series of separate stories about the different ways teachers have responded to changes, and chapter 4 tries to reverse…

This paper discusses the designs and effects of emerging state-level accountability systems. It claims that in a few years' time, state-level policymakers will be faced with recognizing that a substantial number of schools in their states will have failed to progress toward academic standards at the rate their reform plans demand. The paper has…

This monograph reports on a collaborative initiative between Four Oaks, a private nonprofit family service agency in Iowa, and the Iowa Department of Human Services. The collaboration provided a series of community forums of local representatives to examine services available to delinquent youth and their families, to increase community awareness…

This video discussion guide is intended for use in groups working toward large-scale systems changes in schools. It is designed to be appropriate for use in a three-hour workshop, an undergraduate or graduate course, or a training seminar. The guide and proposed workshop are both structured into eight sections. Recommended time allotment,…

This booklet highlights some of the insights that five mothers of children with developmental disabilities have gained after a generation of working together to improve the lives of people with developmental disabilities in Wisconsin. It discusses civic activism, the critical importance of organized parent support, difficulties in collaborating…

Noting that the spread of small firearms worldwide creates a serious global problem, especially for children, this pamphlet presents information on the physical and emotional damage done to children from small arms and light weapons and describes the work of UNICEF to counteract the damage. Highlighted in the discussion are the use of child…

This guide is designed to be a catalyst for social change, and to transform attitudes, policies, and services concerned with suicide prevention to reflect current knowledge. It involves a comprehensive and integrated approach to reducing the loss and suffering from suicide and suicidal behaviors in the United States. Representing the combined work…

This handbook is for those seeking to improve children's education, especially those organizations that work closely with children, parents, and teachers. It sets out a way of approaching advocacy work with the understanding that advocacy groups have a greater impact on the direction of educational change if they have a well-thought-out advocacy…

This book examines why most charter schools will fail. It opens with a historical overview, describing the fate and significance of the precursor to charter schools: President Nixon's Experimental Schools Program. It then turns to the author's personal experiences in educational theory and practice, presenting and discussing the essential features…

This book is part of a series of case studies that demonstrate better ways to educate Ohio's students. The case study is part of the Transforming Learning Communities (TLC) Project, designed to support significant school-reform efforts among Ohio's elementary, middle, and high schools. The text describes an elementary school serving a homogeneous…

This book is part of a series of case studies that demonstrate better ways to educate Ohio's students. The case study is part of the Transforming Learning Communities (TLC) Project, designed to support significant school-reform efforts among Ohio's elementary, middle, and high schools. This report describes the implementation of an innovative…

This Feasibility Study to Develop a Methodology to Monitor the Impact of Changes in Competitive Food Policies had two main goals: (1) Design and test a plan for collecting and analyzing data about competitive food policies and all foods offered and served to students at school; and (2) Provide a methodology for assessing the impact of changes in…

This newsletter discusses how in many ways the development of the school reform concept parallels with the evolution of thinking about principal leadership over the past decade. Under Comprehensive School Reform (CSR), schools are increasingly being asked to use data to plan for improvement and to fortify instruction and professional development…