Judith P. Hoyer Family Learning Centers, also known as Judy Centers, serve all children birth through kindergarten who live in designated Title I school zones. There are twenty-seven Judy Centers and three satellites throughout Maryland serving forty-four elementary school zones. The Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA) is conducted in the…

Associations among children's writing and alphabetic skills were examined in a sample of 502 prekindergarten children who were at risk of academic failure because they came from poor families, spoke a language other than English at home, or had an identified disability. In this sample of children at risk of school failure, 16% had an identified…

Internships are an effective way of connecting high school students in a meaningful manner to the sciences. Disadvantaged minorities have fewer opportunities to participate in internships, and are underrepresented in both science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors and careers. We have developed a Summer Academic Research Experience…

This study looks at attendance in the early grades of elementary school. In particular, the authors focus on students enrolled in Pre-Kindergarten (PreK) and Kindergarten (K). They follow these young students over several years to determine their pattern of chronic absence (CA), defined as missing more than one-ninth of days enrolled, and their…

Community schools are an approach that has been adopted to respond to this educational crisis. By partnering with local agencies, community schools provide students and families with access to healthcare services, educational enhancement and recreational opportunities, family economic supports such as workforce development and income tax…

Previous research has documented a substantial decline of standardized test scores of children from low-income backgrounds, relative to more advantaged peers, in later elementary grades, the so-called "fourth-grade slump." This article examines changes in reading achievement from first to fifth grade for students in a large urban school…

This study assessed the effects of attending an after-school program (ASP) on a range of outcomes for middle school youths. The program operated for 9 hr per week for 30 weeks and included attendance monitoring and reinforcement, academic assistance, a prevention curriculum, and recreational programming. Participants were 447 students randomly…

The authors of the "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001" anticipated that a majority of school districts or schools would not be able to attain state and national achievement standards without assistance. Consequently, the Act created a major tenet known as Supplemental Educational Services (SES) programs to improve the learning outcomes of…

Increased emphasis has been placed on children's ability to enter kindergarten ready to learn, a concept referred to as "school readiness." School readiness has been defined by the Maryland State Department of Education as "the stage of human development that enables a child to engage in, and benefit from, primary learning…

The document is a report on the goals, activities, and consultant topics for a three-week vocational education workshop for 29 teachers of disadvantaged students in Baltimore. The workshop, in session five hours each day for lectures, discussion groups, consultant visits, and individual work sessions and conferences, had eight goals for teachers…

Summarizes the literature on the adverse effect of environmental deprivation on Black children, especially during preschool years. Describes the author's study which suggests a relationship between a child's experiences at home and his/her ability to be familiar with common material which forms the experiential core of school activities. (RDN)

Three outside consultants were asked to evaluate the validity of current special education placement procedures and policies in the Montgomery County, Maryland Public Schools (MCPS) to determine their effect on minority students. Procedures for obtaining information included mailing questionnaires to 396 families and observing in-service staffing…

The objectives of this project were to determine (1) the basic dimensions of educational and career-related attitudes of black inner-city junior high school age students, and to compare these attitudes to those of their white counterparts, (2) how attitudes were related to the preference of educational programs expressed by these students, and (3)…