For the first time, this book brings together three controversial topics: homogeneous grouping of students within classrooms by ability or achievement criteria, tracking of students into courses of study by the same criteria, and retention of students in their present grade so that they repeat a year's work instead of being promoted. The editors solicited syntheses of research on these topics from outstanding scholars with a variety of views. Initial versions of the chapters were discussed at a national invitational conference sponsored by the Laboratory for Student Success, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Educational Laboratory, at Temple University Center for Research in Human Development and Education (CRHDE) through a contract with the former Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), now the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education. At the conference, the chapter authors benefited from discussions with one another, other scholars, policymakers, educators, and parents. Their recommendations are reported in the last chapter.

Hardbound. This volume is the seventh in an annual series of works on educational productivity centered on how more can be accomplished in education without consuming additional human, economic, and social resources. In Evaluation Research for Educational Productivity a key question addressed by the authors is: How do current developments in evaluation research enhance our capacity to come to conclusions useful to policy makers and program professionals? Reynolds and Walberg have brought together exemplary contributions from leading scholars who describe their evaluation approaches in education and reflect on their research methods and lessons learned from what went right and wrong in real world efforts. This volume will be most useful to program administrators and policy makers.

How gains from early childhood experiences are initiated, increased, sustained, and affect life-course development are fundamental to science and society. They also have increasing policy relevance, given public investments in early learning programs and the need to measure their effectiveness in promoting well-being. With contributions from leading researchers across many disciplines, this book emphasizes key interventions and practices over the first decade of life and the elements and strategies through which gains can be enhanced by schools, families, communities, and public institutions. Three critical themes are addressed: firstly, the importance of documenting and understanding the impact of investments in early childhood and school-age years. Secondly, increased priority on elements and principles for scaling effective programs and practices to benefit all children. Thirdly, a focus on multiple levels of strategies for sustaining gains and promoting long-term effects, ranging from early care and family engagement to school reform, state, and federal policy.

Childhood Programs and Practices in the First Decade of Life presents research findings on the effects of early childhood programs and practices in the first decade of life and their implications for policy development and reform. Leading scholars in the multidisciplinary field of human development and in early childhood learning discuss the effects and cost-effectiveness of the most influential model, state, and federally funded programs, policies, and practices. These include Head Start, Early Head Start, the WIC nutrition program, Nurse Family Partnership, and Perry Preschool as well as school reform strategies. This volume provides a unique multidisciplinary approach to understanding and improving interventions, practices, and policies to optimally foster human capital over the life course.

Health and Education in Early Childhood presents conceptual issues, research findings, and program and policy implications in promoting well-being in health and education in the first five years of life. Leading researchers in the multidisciplinary fields of early learning and human capital formation explore the themes of the integration of health and education in promoting young children's well-being; the timing of influences on child development; and the focus on multiple levels of strategies to promote healthy early development. Through this, a unique framework is provided to better understand how early childhood health and education predictors and interventions contribute to well-being at individual, family community, and societal levels and to policy development. Key child outcomes addressed in the chapters include nutritional status, parenting, cognitive development and school readiness, conduct problems and anti-social behavior, obesity, and well-being in later childhood and adulthood.

Health and Education in Early Childhood presents conceptual issues, research findings, and program and policy implications in promoting well-being in health and education in the first five years of life. Leading researchers in the multidisciplinary fields of early learning and human capital formation explore the themes of the integration of health and education in promoting young children's well-being; the timing of influences on child development; and the focus on multiple levels of strategies to promote healthy early development. Through this, a unique framework is provided to better understand how early childhood health and education predictors and interventions contribute to well-being at individual, family, community and societal levels, and to policy development. Key topics addressed in the chapters include nutritional status, parenting, cognitive development and school readiness, conduct problems and antisocial behavior, obesity, and well-being in later childhood and adulthood.

Childhood Programs and Practices in the First Decade of Life presents research findings on the effects of early childhood programs and practices in the first decade of life and their implications for policy development and reform. Leading scholars in the multidisciplinary field of human development and in early childhood learning discuss the effects and cost-effectiveness of the most influential model, state, and federally funded programs, policies, and practices. These include Head Start, Early Head Start, the WIC nutrition program, Nurse Family Partnership, and Perry Preschool as well as school reform strategies. This volume provides a unique multidisciplinary approach to understanding and improving interventions, practices, and policies to optimally foster human capital over the life course.

How gains from early childhood experiences are initiated, increased, sustained, and affect life-course development are fundamental to science and society. They also have increasing policy relevance, given public investments in early learning programs and the need to measure their effectiveness in promoting well-being. With contributions from leading researchers across many disciplines, this book emphasizes key interventions and practices over the first decade of life and the elements and strategies through which gains can be enhanced by schools, families, communities, and public institutions. Three critical themes are addressed: firstly, the importance of documenting and understanding the impact of investments in early childhood and school-age years. Secondly, increased priority on elements and principles for scaling effective programs and practices to benefit all children. Thirdly, a focus on multiple levels of strategies for sustaining gains and promoting long-term effects, ranging from early care and family engagement to school reform, state, and federal policy.

For the first time, this book brings together three controversial topics: homogeneous grouping of students within classrooms by ability or achievement criteria, tracking of students into courses of study by the same criteria, and retention of students in their present grade so that they repeat a year's work instead of being promoted. The editors solicited syntheses of research on these topics from outstanding scholars with a variety of views. Initial versions of the chapters were discussed at a national invitational conference sponsored by the Laboratory for Student Success, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Educational Laboratory, at Temple University Center for Research in Human Development and Education (CRHDE) through a contract with the former Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), now the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education. At the conference, the chapter authors benefited from discussions with one another, other scholars, policymakers, educators, and parents. Their recommendations are reported in the last chapter.

This book is a valuable source of information on the long-term effects of early intervention programs on the education of children living in economically disadvantaged areas and in other contexts. Early intervention programs such as Head Start enjoy popular and legislative support, but until now, policymakers and practitioners have lacked hard data on the long-term consequences of such locally and federally mandated efforts. Success in Early Intervention focuses on the Child-Parent Center (CPC) program in Chicago, the second oldest (after Head Start) federally funded early childhood intervention program. Begun in 1967, the program currently operates out of twenty-four centers, which are located in proximity to the elementary schools they serve. The CPC program's unique features include mandatory parental involvement and a single, sustained educational system that spans preschool through the third grade. Central to this study is a 1986 cohort of nearly twelve hundred CPC children and a comparison group of low income children whose subsequent activities, challenges, and achievements are followed through the age of fifteen. The lives of these children amply demonstrate the positive long-term educational and social consequences of the CPC program.