Here are a number of links to interesting research, theory or reports:
2006 Media Analysis on Coverage of Low Wage Work: In its efforts to raise public awareness about the barriers facing low wage workers in the U.S., Douglas Gould and Company followed up the 2001 analysis, Between a Rock and a Hard Place with an assessment of the current climate on media coverage.
Titled, Working Press, this latest media analysis looks at the coverage of key issues and policies associated with low wage work, including the Earned Income Tax Credit, health insurance, minimum and living wage, job training, child care, family leave and Wal-Mart, whose practices have been challenged by several advocacy organizations and broadcast news personalities over the past few years. To view the Executive Summary, please click here. http://www.douglasgould.com/resources/FEW_media_analysis2006_ExecSummary.htm
For the full report, please click here.
http://www.douglasgould.com/resources/WorkingPressFEWMediaAnalysis.pdf.
Effective Preschool Curricula and Teaching Strategies: Pathways to Early School Success - This new report from the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) provides information from research and practice about curricular and teacher support strategies that are critical to reducing the achievement gap for young, low-income children. Two versions (full text, summary) are available online at http://www.nccp.org/pub_pes06b.html.
Full-Day vs. Half-Day Preschool: Recent Research: The NIEER report "Is More Better? The Effects of Full-Day vs Half-Day Preschool on Early School Achievement “discusses a randomized trial that compared children from low-income families in half-day and full-day public preschool programs. Results show that children attending full-day programs did better on mathematics and literacy tests than children in a 2.5 to 3-hour public preschool program and the achievement gains continued at least until the end of first grade. The paper is available online at http://nieer.org/resources/research/IsMoreBetter.pdf
After-School Programs That Promote Social Skills Better for Youth, Report Finds: Youth who participate in after-school programs using evidence-based approaches to enhance personal and social skills show significant improvement compared to their peers, a new report from the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning in Chicago finds. Funded by the New York City-based William T. Grant Foundation, the report, The Impact of After-School Programs That Promote Personal and Social Skills (50 pages, PDF), is the result of meta-analysis of seventy-three evaluations of after-school programs by researchers Joseph Durlak and Roger Weissberg. They found that youth programs were most successful at improving outcomes when their activities were sequenced, active, focused, and explicit (SAFE). When compared to programs that did not have these characteristics, SAFE programs showed improved feelings of self-confidence among participating youth as well as positive feelings toward school, grades, and achievement test scores. http://www.casel.org/downloads/ASP-Full.pdf.
CHOICES: War in Iraq Or 47,487,032 Children Attending One Year of Head Start?: The cost of war in Iraq has exceeded $350 billion and the cost to American taxpayers continues to increase. Federal funding requests by President Bush to support his new plan to send more than 20,000 additional troops to Iraq remind the American people of the important tradeoffs in continuing to wage war. The National Priorities Project estimates that $350 billion would have built more than 35,000 new elementary schools nationwide or hired 6 million teachers. Click the link below to view comparisons of war costs to funding Head Start, expanding health insurance to children, funding public education, providing college scholarships, and building safe and affordable public housing. http://costofwar.com/index-public-education.html.
Task Force Recommends Seamless Learning Day for School Age Children: No one believes that when the bell rings at the end of the school day, children stop learning. Curiosity bubbles inside the minds of children from the moment they wake in the morning until they go to bed at night. Our challenge is to encourage, connect, and foster learning throughout a child’s day. How do we help children make sense of all the information and experiences in their lives? Policymakers face a challenge: How do we ensure that all children have opportunities to reach their full potential in a competitive world where thinking skills are the most important asset of a society? According to an urgent report from the Time, Learning, and Afterschool Task Force funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, we can start by organizing learning time more effectively. The paradigm in this report is unique. It requires us to think beyond our individual responsibilities and consider the organizational, policy, and traditional barriers we impose on creating a seamless learning day for children. We are not getting very far, very fast because we persist in placing all the responsibility for teaching on the schools and on a short school day. The aspirations of every community -- affluent to low income, homogeneous to widely diverse -- are limited by these habits. Without a broader view of learning, all American school-age children will be denied access to experiences that will help them be successful lifelong learners. Based on extensive research and emerging policies and practices, the Task Force envisions a system rich with multiple ways to learn and develop, anchored to high standards, and aligned to educational resources throughout a community. http://www.edutopia.org/pdfs/ANewDayforLearning.pdf.
How to Talk Like a Researcher: New Briefs for Out of School Time Practitioners Struggling with “Research Speak”: Practitioners know research is important to their work. But oftentimes, just trying to understand "research speak" discourages its use. Child Trends has written an easy-to-read, easy-to-understand glossary of common research and evaluation terms. http://www.childtrends.org/Files/Child_Trends-2007_01_05_FS_ResearchGlossary.pdf. Logic Models can be powerful tools in designing, planning, and evaluating out-of-school time programs. Child Trends' newest research brief highlights what they are and why they are important. http://www.childtrends.org/Files/Child_Trends-2007_01_05_RB_LogicModels.pdf.
NPP now has available state-level factsheets that provide both an overview of the President's budget request for next fiscal year and breakdowns of how his proposed cuts will impact each state in seven different program areas. The factsheet also provides the cost of the Iraq War for each state based on the new request for an additional $100 billion in war spending.
Online Collection of Effective Practices
Sloan-C’s Effective Practices collection is a steadily growing work in progress that enables educators to share effective practices for teaching and learning online. The Sloan-C framework identifies five pillars as key principles for achieving quality, and to be included in the collection an effective practice must demonstrate evidence of effectiveness in these areas
View the Sloan-C Effective Practices at www.sloan-c.org/effective.
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