The investigators hypothesized that home environment variables--as measured by the Home Environment Review, administered upon entrance to kindergarten--account for the variance in children's reading achievement at the end of kindergarten, first, and second grade. One hundred fifty-three children representing a longitudinal, traced sample from two…

The situations in which young adolescents identify anger and the strategies they use in response to anger were studied with students from a midwestern urban middle school health class. The sample included 53 sixth graders, 41 seventh graders, and 41 eighth graders. Responses to a one-page survey indicated that students reported more anger…

The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation developed and sponsored the Middle Grades Initiative (MGI), which began in 1989, in five urban school systems: (1) Baltimore (Maryland); (2) Louisville (Kentucky); (3) Milwaukee (Wisconsin); (4) Oakland (California); and (5) San Diego (California). The purpose of MGI was to change the ways schools educate young,…

The Gang Membership Inventory (GMI) was developed for use with urban high-risk youth and administered as part of a larger survey. The GMI consists of 15 true/false items asking about the respondent's involvement in gang activities in the year just past. Activities range from peripheral involvement to more serious involvement in gangs (e.g., being…

Problems that beset urban education in general are analyzed, and solutions are discussed and evaluated by a policy working group of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges. The most acute problem in American education involves the unmet needs of disadvantaged students, who are heavily concentrated in urban school…

Project Survival was a special innovative project conducted by the Atlanta (Georgia) Public Schools in the summer of 1991. By combining instruction in basic skills, opportunities to learn and practice conflict resolution strategies, and work experience, Project Survival addressed some of the major problems associated with high dropout and…

This final report analyzes the research methods used in the identification of potential dropouts. This program was administered under Title I (ESEA, 1965) in the District of Columbia (see also ED 049 319). Three forms were used in the evaluation of Title I students identified as potential dropouts during the school year 1967-68: (1) Student…

The New York City Board of Education formed the Latino Commission on Educational Reform to examine issues of concern to Latino children who comprise an increasing segment of the students in the public school system. An interim report was submitted on the dropout rate, curriculum and instruction, support services, parent and community empowerment,…

The unstructured observations of a participant observer can point out areas of research interest overlooked by formal research instruments. This researcher's diary presents insights obtained while conducting a study regarding the home environments of 15 higher achieving and 11 lower achieving Puerto Rican fifth and sixth grade students residing in…

The Office of Educational Research and Improvement of the Department of Education has provided funding for four cycles of 2-year Star Schools distance learning projects. This report is based on the second-year findings of a congressionally mandated evaluation of the Star Schools initiative. The Star Schools program focuses on elementary and…

A program for increasing the social skills development of fourth grade students is described. The targeted population consisted of fourth grade students in a growing, low socio-economic status, urban community including a public housing development. The problems of poor social skills and disruptive behavior were documented through observations,…

This handbook focuses on five long-standing correlates for effective schools postulated by the late Ron Edmonds. Edmonds searched long and hard for those variables that were present in successful inner-city schools populated primarily by African American children. His work demonstrated that it is possible to educate so-called hard-to-reach…