In the past few years, four states have established programs that provide public financial support to students who choose to attend a private school. These programs--a tax-credit-funded scholarship initiative in Florida and voucher programs in Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio--offer a glimpse of what expansive statewide choice might look like. What…

The literature on preparing teachers for urban schools provides a rationale for helping candidates understand the particular cultures of students. However, research has not sufficiently "unpacked" features of the setting that programs can address; nor has it discussed how programs tailor teaching approaches to their specific contexts.…

Graduation rates are a fundamental indicator of whether or not the nation's public school system is doing what it is intended to do: enroll, engage, and educate youth to be productive members of society. Since almost 90 percent of the fastest-growing and highest-paying jobs require some postsecondary education, having a high school diploma and the…

This report summarizes the efforts and successes of the Youth as Resources (YAR) initiative, a program that offers youth empowerment and leadership in community service. It utilizes all youth in an effort to address any social or community issue deemed important to a local area and provides opportunities for a wide range of agencies to host or to…

Two provisions in Title I--maintenance of effort (MOE) and supplement not supplant (SNS)--are designed to limit the extent to which federal funds can be used to replace state and local resources. To assess the quality of oversight of these provisions, the General Accounting Office (GAO) determined how Arizona, California, Florida, Indiana,…

Are students who attend full-day kindergarten better prepared for future academic success than their peers who attend half-day kindergarten programs? Much of the current research on full-day kindergarten programs suggests they are. Researchers cite gains such as increased academic achievement, lower grade retention rates, improved attendance, and…

The goal of the report is to provide useful information to Indiana policymakers as they debate the merits of full versus half day programs. This report sought to answer three questions: (1) What does the national research say about the effectiveness of full day kindergarten; (2) What does the Indiana data say about full day kindergarten; and (3)…

This book tells the stories of four urban middle schools that have undergone deep transformation while participating in the Middle Grades Improvement Program (MGIP), an initiative that has nurtured fundamental change in school climate, structure and classroom practice in 16 urban districts and 65 schools in Indiana. The support of the Lilly…

Jeb Bush campaigned for Governor on a clear and bracing set of education reforms in 1998. Having won office, he immediately pursued a dual track strategy of education reform: standards and accountability for public schools, choice options for dissatisfied parents. Florida lawmakers followed these reforms with additional measures, including…

A study was conducted of Indiana's Summer Programs for the Education and Development of Youth (SPEDY) to describe the program themselves and to study the programs' effect on participants' short-term career education attitudes, knowledge, and skills. SPEDY is a training for public-sector work program operated each summer for about ten weeks for…