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This paper is a summary of the evaluation of the second complete year of the implementation of the Alabama Reading Initiative (ARI), which is designed to achieve 100% literacy by targeting reading performance of beginning reading and first-grade students, to expand the reading power for second- through twelfth-grade students and to intervene for struggling readers at all grade levels. In its second year of implementation, approximately 27,700 students, 2,354 teachers, 81 principals, 75 reading specialists, 64 higher education partners, and 221 preservice teacher education programs were directly involved in the ARI. The evaluation used information from student achievement data from surveys completed by teachers, reading specialists, principals, higher education partners, and higher education reading faculty. Both qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed. A pretest-posttest design was used to examine change over time for student outcomes. Results and recommendations regarding delivery of the ARI are: a large percentage of principals, teachers, reading specialists, and higher education partners reported the ARI had substantial positive impacts on student literacy; the principal should receive sufficient support, direction, and encouragement because their leadership role was related to gains in reading scores; the visibility and involvement of the reading specialist and higher education partner influenced teachers' attitudes toward the helpfulness of these individuals; higher education faculty in the program are often confronted with inadequate or competing reward structures; teachers involved in the first 2 years of the program felt that continued professional development would help sustain their enthusiasm; the Stanford Achievement Test, Level 9 is not the most appropriate measure for monitoring progress toward program goals; tests currently used to assess early literacy skills of kindergarten through second-grade students are inappropriate for use as tools for evaluating gains associated with ARI; and case studies of particularly effective schools should be conducted. (RS)

A study examined the effectiveness and the impact of preservice instruction of the second year of the Alabama Reading Initiative (ARI), which is designed to achieve 100% literacy by targeting reading performance of beginning reading and first-grade students, to expand the reading power for second- through twelfth-grade students, and to intervene for struggling readers at all grade levels. In its second year of implementation, approximately 27,700 students, 2,354 teachers, 81 principals, 75 reading specialists, 64 higher education partners, and 221 preservice teacher education programs were directly involved in the ARI. The evaluation used information from student achievement data from surveys completed by teachers, reading specialists, principals, higher education partners, and higher education reading faculty. Both qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed. A pretest-posttest design was used to examine change over time for student outcomes. Results and recommendations regarding delivery of the ARI are: a large percentage of principals, teachers, reading specialists, and higher education partners reported the ARI had substantial positive impacts on student literacy; the principal should receive sufficient support, direction, and encouragement because their leadership role was related to gains in reading scores; the visibility and involvement of the reading specialist and higher education partner influenced teachers' attitudes toward the helpfulness of these individuals; higher education faculty in the program are often confronted with inadequate or competing reward structures; teachers involved in the first 2 years of the program felt that continued professional development would help sustain their enthusiasm; the Stanford Achievement Test, Level 9 is not the most appropriate measure for monitoring progress toward program goals; tests currently used to assess early literacy skills of Kindergarten through second-grade students are inappropriate for use as tools for evaluating gains associated with ARI; and case studies of particularly effective schools should be conducted. (Contains 25 tables and a figure of data.) (RS)

The National Transition Demonstration Study was conducted to provide information about the implementation and impact of a federally funded program to enhance early public school transition of former Head Start children and their families by extending Head Start-like supports through the first 4 years of elementary school. The study design involved random assignment of schools to a Transition Demonstration group or to a Comparison group. A total of 7,515 former Head Start children and families participated in the study in 1992-1993 and 1993-1994. Key features of the program related to parent involvement, educational enhancement, family social support, health and nutrition, and close collaboration between public schools and Head Start programs. Findings indicated that local programs varied tremendously in how successfully they implemented services. Distinctive characteristics of the most successful programs included their positive relationship between public schools and Head Start; their highly committed, competent, and respected leadership; and a successful record of creating strong partnerships. Educational enhancement was found to be the most challenging area to implement fully. Former Head Start children showed good progress in reading and mathematics during their first 4 years of school, with largest gains in the first 2 years. By the end of second and third grade, they performed at the national average, with both treatment conditions exhibiting the same pattern of positive academic achievement. Children's social skills were rated at close to national averages. Demonstration classrooms showed some significant, although small, differences in characteristics and transition supports relative to Comparison classrooms. Many families in both groups steadily decreased in their need for public assistance. All demonstration sites reported that they strongly valued the program, and many instituted aspects of the program for continuation beyond the funding period. (KB)

Staff from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and the Jefferson County, Alabama, Department of Human Resources (DHS) worked together to create a "pipeline to employment" at UAB for welfare recipients by combining on-the-job training with educational opportunities. Welfare recipients referred to UAB by the Jefferson County DHS were given the opportunity to participate in a 1-year welfare-to-work program that included the following components: referral and screening; job placement; case management and employment monitoring; mentoring; and activities to develop educational and/or employability skills. Of the approximately 120 potential participants who were interviewed and assessed for the program, 67 moved through the program and 38 completed it. The project demonstrated the following: case management and mentoring are important components of welfare-to-work programs; obtaining a General Educational Development certificate is not a short-term process; and welfare-to-work programs must minimize competition between work and school. (The following documents are appended: welfare-to-work proposal; informed consent and release of information forms; confidentiality statement for project managers; class/work attendance policy and related forms; supervisor evaluation and project personnel evaluations; adult literacy curriculum; list of instructional materials and other documents used in implementing the curriculum; and pretest/posttest scoring sheet for program participants.) (MN)

This study evaluated the effect a developmentally appropriate curriculum, implemented as part of a Head Start Transition Project for public kindergarten through third grade to maintain and enhance the benefits attained by Head Start children and their families. Participating were two cohorts of students in demonstration and comparison classrooms from eight schools in Worchester, Massachusetts. Classroom observation data were collected at the end of each of the 5 years using the Assessment Profile for Early Childhood Programs: Research Version; the ADAPT: A Developmentally Appropriate Practice Template was added in Year 3. Children were followed from kindergarten through grade 3, with Cohort 1 beginning kindergarten in 1992 and Cohort 2 in 1993. At demonstration schools, monthly teacher in-service training was given during the first 2 years and additional funds were made available to purchase materials. Comparison schools did not receive any Transition Project resources, although some underwent considerable reform and received considerable classroom resources. Findings indicated that classrooms receiving resources to create developmentally appropriate classrooms and with a principal committed to the philosophy of developmentally appropriate practice were further advanced in providing a developmentally appropriate environment than classrooms which did not receive or fully implement these resources. Further, there was a general decrease in the use of developmentally appropriate practices over the years, but an increase within classes from year to year. (Appendices include descriptive data summaries. Contains 13 references.) (KB)

This final report describes major activities and outcomes of a one-year project in Birmingham, Alabama, which attempted to utilize quantitative record linkage methodology and a qualitative family interview to increase the available information regarding risk factors associated with special education placement for young children. The project involved identification of the special education population and random selection of first grade general education students; a computerized retrospective data linkage, linkage of Alabama birth certificate data and Child Count data; qualitative interviews with 42 parents of children in general education and 92 parents of children in special education; development of risk profiles for special education placement; and dissemination of information to local and state early intervention and special education officials. Appendices include the data sharing agreement, the training protocol for training interviewers, the family interview protocol, and results of case control analysis. (DB)

This report describes a three-year project aimed at improving mathematics education in grades 6-9 in Birmingham, Alabama. The purpose of the project was to enhance mathematical knowledge and improve the instructional skills of middle school mathematics teachers (n=58) through an innovative teacher enhancement program. Since the middle school years are considered crucial in the development of a student's view of mathematics, the study is aimed at developing well-trained mathematics teachers. The goals of the project were to focus on teaching behavior, knowledge, and attitudes of middle school mathematics teachers in order to enhance the quality of mathematics instruction, promote positive student attitudes toward mathematics, improve students' mathematics achievement, and increase the talent pool of underrepresented groups. Teachers believed the project was successful, stating that it helped them most in providing additional ways of making mathematics more meaningful to students. The teachers also believed the new skills revitalized them in their profession. Appendices contain the evaluation plan, the survey instruments, and the National Science Foundation Participation Project Information Sheet. (AIM)

The International Resilience Project was intended to determine the multidimensional, reciprocal, and dynamic factors--and relationships of factors--that parents, teachers, caregivers, and children themselves use to promote resilience in children. The samples were 589 children and their caregivers from 14 countries: Lithuania, Russia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Brazil, Thailand, Vietnam, Hungary, Taiwan, Namibia, Sudan, Canada, South Africa, and Japan. The ages of the children coincided with the first two of Erikson's developmental stages. Fifteen situations were developed, and adults and children's responses were measured. The major findings include the following: (1) resilience-promoting behavior is consistent with the familiarity of a situation; (2) younger children have a lower frequency of resilience-promoting responses than do older children or adults; (3) reports of a personal experience correlated with a higher percentage of resilience responses; and (4) more than half the responses showed no or only partial use of resilience factors. (Checklists for children's perceptions of resilience are included, and demographic data from 14 countries are appended.) (WP)

Three early educational intervention programs designed to prevent mental retardation and to improve school readiness are profiled. The Abecedarian Project was begun as an experiment to test whether mental retardation, allegedly caused by inadequate environments, could be prevented by providing intensive preschool programs to children from birth to entrance into kindergarten. Project CARE compared home-based and center-based early intervention. The Infant Health and Development Program was built upon the intervention techniques of the other two programs, but included infants who were born prematurely and at low birth weight. Results from all three programs indicated that children who received center-based intervention had higher IQ scores at 3 years of age than control group children. Children who received the early intervention in the Abecedarian Project continued to exhibit higher IQ scores than control group children at age 12. Suggested practices for improving disadvantaged children's everyday lives include: (1) encouraging exploration; (2) mentoring basic skills; (3) reinforcing developmental advances; (4) rehearsing new skills; (5) avoiding inappropriate disapproval, teasing, and punishment; and (6) providing a responsive language environment. A 16-item reference list is provided. Appended materials include policy recommendations of the National Health/Education Consortium (NHEC); a description of the NHEC; and a list of NHEC members. (BC)

In the late 1960's and early 1970's, attracting physicians to areas of rural Alabama was virtually impossible because of the lack of professional health care workers available to become part of the necessary health care team. To address this problem, the University of Alabama (UA) adopted a plan to create a consortium of higher education institutions throughout Alabama for the training of allied health care workers. In 1970, a formal agreement was signed between the State Board of Education, which is the governing body of Alabama's public two-year colleges, and UA, linking the two-year institutions with the Regional Technical Institute located at the UA campus. Under the agreement, interested and qualified students attend the two-year college in their area of the state to complete prerequisite courses for 1 year, and then attend UA's Medical Center for 1 year to complete training in a specific health care field. The final component of the training involves full-time employment at a clinical site, often in the student's home area. Program graduates receive a certificate from UA and an associate degree from their two-year institution. A survey of 1990 program graduates, which produced a 45% response rate, revealed the following: 93% were employed in their health care field; 59% returned to their home areas for employment; and 46% were employed at their former clinical site. These results of the 1990 survey are consistent with results since 1983, the first year of the survey. Other areas receiving special attention of the consortium council, include initiating efforts to improve communication between employers and educators in the health care field, and active recruitment of minority students. (PAA)

The major objective of this program was to maximize probability of success of beginning teachers in Alabama and, thereby, to improve the teaching-learning process for students. In this program, cooperating teachers worked with beginning teachers on a one-to-one basis in the schools. Evaluation of the program's effectiveness was a continuous process. Evaluation of process was conducted by means of cyclical interviews; product evaluation consisted of teacher attitude and achievement, measured by observation, tests, and/or questionnaires. Tentative conclusions derived from this study will form the basis for program revision. A significantly more direct relationship was found to exist between student attitude and teacher competency, and between student attitude and teacher attitude in the experimental group (those beginning teachers working with cooperating teachers) than in the control group. Principals in systems using cooperating teachers rated their first-year teachers significantly higher than did those in systems not using cooperating teachers. Control teachers (those without cooperating teachers) tended to be more authoritarian and to view education as a rigid coverage of subject matter. These tentative conclusions will be examined more thoroughly in the following school year. (Appendixes include descriptions of instruments and sample items, analysis of variance and covariance, and correlations.) (PB)

This five-part report evaluates the First-Year Teacher Pilot Program utilized at Alabama University in Birmingham. The program was designed primarily to improve teacher competence, thereby improving the teaching learning process in the elementary and secondary classrooms of Alabama. In addition, a research component was designed to obtain information which would be useful in improving education. The research considerations involved (a) identifying common and specific needs of first-year teachers, (b) determining effective and economical means for providing inservice assistance to meet these needs, and (c) determining effectiveness of the program. Part 1 discusses the origin of the program, its implementation, and summary of 1973-4 findings. Part 2 focuses on the activities completed during the second year of program operation. Part 3 examines the instrumentation and analysis of resulting data on outcomes. Part 4 discusses techniques used to determine people/time organizational and utilization patterns effective in the assistance of first-year teachers. Part 5 offers conclusions and recommendations for improving the program. Also attached is an extensive set of appendixes; included among them are the following: (a) competencies essential to first-year teachers' success; (b) instruments; (c) forms used to begin program activities; (d) team meeting report; (e) examples of techniques, problems, and suggestions; and (f) analysis and covariance of data. (Author/JS)

The Birmingham Experiment in Community Education was established to strengthen the role of the school in three disadvantaged areas of Birmingham so as to assist in the educational and social rehabilitation of the local neighborhood. The objectives of the project were (1) to foster cooperation and coordination between school staff and local voluntary agencies, (2) to foster the teachers' perception of their role in community education, (3) to improve interethnic attitudes, (4) to encourage self-generating community education, (5) to develop the educational resources of the neighborhood for the benefit of the school, (6) to develop the educational resources and facilities of the school for the benefit of the neighborhood, and (7) to improve parental childminding care for the preschool child. Interviews and observations of meetings were conducted by an evaluation team from Aston University to interpret the project's goal and raise issues connected with the project's objectives. This report of the evaluation team includes an analysis of the rationale and implementation problems for each of the project's objectives, as well as general conclusions and a discussion of problems encountered during the evaluation process. (Author/BE)