This technical supplement to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Employment and Training (E&T) evaluation final reports presents details of the technical approach used for creating analysis variables and estimating impacts of treatment group services on outcomes, including employment, earnings, and SNAP participation. It also…

Positive school climate and supportive learning environments have a significant effect on a range of student outcomes. There are a number of assessment instruments that districts can use to measure school climate. These instruments are available from and recommended by national organizations that promote and support school climate interventions.

Principal preparation programs in Kentucky can use the items in the Dispositions, Dimensions, and Functions for School Leaders (EPSB, 2008) as mastery benchmarks to quantify incoming Educational Specialist (Ed.S) students' perceived level of mastery. This can serve both internal and external purposes by providing diagnostic feedback to students…

Advances in learning theory call us to examine ways to get students more actively engaged both inside and outside of the classroom. This report offers suggestions for encouraging and increasing student reading, writing, and collaborative development in a real analysis course.

This report is intended to help governors, legislators, department secretaries, and advocates find information on ways to strengthen the structure and function of their existing cabinets, or create a new cabinet. The survey in this report is the nation's only survey of state child and youth policy coordinating bodies. The biennial survey assesses…

Objective: We assessed changes in the frequency of self-reported physical activity (PA) among tween girls exposed and not exposed to the VERB [TM] Summer Scorecard (VSS) intervention in Lexington, Kentucky, during 2004, 2006, and 2007. Methods: Girls who reported 0-1 day per week of PA were classi?ed as having "little or no" PA. Girls…

The American Community Survey provides detailed demographic data on local communities and populations. While the American Community Survey provides data useful for Extension, the data are more complicated, users must understand data reliability, and many resources are designed to help the regular, not the occasional, user. The Kentucky: By The…

This report describes collaborations between the disciplines of museum education and art therapy, which inspired the implementation of a pilot art therapy program at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Tennessee (USA). Because relatively limited research has been conducted on this trend, the author reviewed museum exhibits and programming, as well…

Every state can create secure, robust linkages between early childhood and K-12 data systems, and effectively use the information from these linkages to implement initiatives to support programs and children, answer key policy questions, and be transparent about how the state's early childhood investments prepare students for success in school and…

REL Pacific at McREL, 1 of 10 Regional Educational Laboratories (RELs) funded by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), serves educators in American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia (Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei, and Yap), Guam, Hawai'i, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic…

Principals who are strong, effective, responsive leaders help to inspire and enhance the abilities of their teachers and other school staff to do excellent work. Such principals also tend to retain great teachers and create opportunities for them to take on new leadership roles. This leads to the following key question: What can state policymakers…

This report identifies the states with current or pending state-level end-of-course assessment (EOC) programs, the subjects in which EOCs are administered in the states, and the EOCs (if any) students must pass to graduate from high school. Twenty-two states currently administer one or more EOCs to all students in an EOC course. This number will…

This descriptive study sought to determine the attitudes of middle school teachers in Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio toward the current implementation of key components of the middle school concept within their schools. Researchers were asked to assess the relationship of state accountability programs to the implementation levels of such components.…

Until recently, states focused on ensuring the presence of a "highly qualified teacher" in every classroom. Under the 2001 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), this title described a teacher holding at least a bachelor's degree and the appropriate state license and…

Today, English language learners (ELLs)--students whose primary language is other than English--are the fastest-growing major school population in the United States. Between 2000-01 and 2010-11, the number of these students, whose level of English proficiency is not sufficient to support learning in a regular English language classroom, rose 18…