An array of family, school and community characteristics clearly work together in shaping students’ access to postsecondary education. Our research identified a number of factors, many of them interrelated, that act as barriers to students continuing their education after high school. These factors include: – Being from a family in which neither parents…
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We are all invested in the creation of safe and drug-free schools. As parents kiss their children good-bye in the morning, they want to know that their kids will return safely to them that afternoon. All teachers and principals want to enter their school building each day knowing that it will be a full day…
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Although we hail charter schools as a promising reform, the creation of these publicly financed but (mostly) independent schools remains one of the fiercest battlegrounds in U.S. education. Since many states today have statutes authorizing such schools, however, the fight is no longer about whether any should exist. The front line in the battle has…
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College costs have been rising quickly during the past two decades, and tuitions are rising even faster-much more quickly than family income. Such widening gaps cannot be sustained much longer, and our entire postsecondary education system may have to change radically to survive this economic upheaval. Our response to the current crisis will determine what…
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The concept of a cognitive apprenticeship can be successfully applied to early childhood instruction. An ongoing priority for American education is the systemic reform of urban schools to better meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student population. One general recommendation from policymakers is that school reform efforts target the early education of young children…
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American schools can no longer afford to operate in isolation. As a result, many school-linked and school-based health and human service programs have sprung up around the country. Schools are also reaching out to parents and the community to strengthen students’ educational foundations. State education agencies play a role in supporting many of these school-community…
Read moreWhile traditional heads of school are still key convenors and facilitators of the work of school improvement, they must also invite a new corps of school and community leaders to the forefront in building a collective vision for that work. Leadership isn’t pulling people along anymore: it’s about orchestrating ideas, people, visions, potential, and organizations…
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Evaluative research takes a critical approach to all types of early childhood programs, seeking to identify all their costs and benefits, strengths and weaknesses. Head Start, public school prekindergarten programs, and preschool child care programs define the landscape of early childhood programs in the United States today. Understanding what these three programs have in common…
Read moreDocumented efforts to enhance the development of children, especially to remediate the consequences of deprivation, have taken place since the early nineteenth century, when researchers learned that certain types of early experience were essential for the emergence of high intellectual functioning. More recently, studies of children in orphanages in the 1950s and 1960s initiated the…
Read moreEarly childhood development and education has been a major topic of discussion and planning at all levels—federal, state, and local communities — not only because of the widespread recognition of the research base on the importance of early development to long-term schooling success, but as a critical national investment strategy for the future of the…
Read moreAcross much of the world today there is an evident will to pursue the path of progress that has been pioneered in the United States of America. As an American, I am well aware that there is much to admire about my own country and its achievements. But I also know that there is much…
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Small schools have great variety. We learned that we don’t need standardized schools –- that kills the soul! In Chicago we saw fabulous small schools that were Afro-centric, schools that focused on phonics, fabulous small schools about whole language, small schools that are using the city as a place to investigate. Why? Because they were…
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