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The "Closing the Achievement Gap" series explores the Casey Foundation's education investments and presents stories, results, and lessons learned. This publication presents an in-depth look at the Foundation's multi-year investment in a school district feeder pattern in Atlanta, and stories about Casey contributions to district improvement in Oakland and Philadelphia. Foundations contributions include: (1) Bringing partners to the table, enabling schools to provide multiple coordinated programs; (2) Funding a student success strategy consultant; (3) Civic Site team to enable school leadership to envision itself as part of an entire pattern to graduate young people prepared to succeed as adults; and (4) Funding work on curriculum assignment and school transition. [For the entire "Closing the Achievement Gap" series, see ED500487 through ED500493.]

The "Closing the Achievement Gap" series explores the Casey Foundation's education investments and presents stories, results, and lessons learned. This publication provides an in-depth look at Foundation support of community schools, including selected results and lessons learned. It also includes stories about one California school district's innovative parent engagement policy, the Harlem Children's Zone Practitioners Institute, parent organizing in Texas and Denver, and the Foundation's contributions to results measurement in the connections field. In today's funding environment, few programs can expect ongoing support from government agencies and foundations unless they can demonstrate that their services are achieving desired outcomes. Boards of directors, community members, and the people served also want to know if programs are getting results. The issue of results measurement can be thorny for school/community/family connections strategies, because it is difficult to define and demonstrate a causal link between program activities and improved student outcomes. To contribute to advancing meaningful results measurement among connections grantees, the Casey Foundation has invested roughly $600,000 in the development of results frameworks, reflection tools, and evaluation for connections programs. [For the entire "Closing the Achievement Gap" series, see ED500487 through ED500493.]

This report summarizes the results of California Proposition 227 so far based on standardized test scores (the Stanford 9) of Limited-English-proficient (LEP) students in reading, math, and language. It also analyzes the redesignation rates of students by district. California Proposition 227, also known as the "English for the Children" initiative, passed in 1998 with 61% of the vote and reversed 20 years of state-mandated bilingual education for LEP children. Based on 3 years' test scores, this report concludes that California's LEP students were not only not harmed by English immersion, but they made significant gains in reading and writing in English as well as math. The greatest gains were made in school districts that chose the strictest interpretation of the initiative and implemented the most intensive English immersion programs. Scores in bilingual programs that remained were largely stagnant. Most interesting is that the youngest students as measured by test scores benefited the most from English immersion while older students, who had already spent years in bilingual education programs, benefited least. This report contains a wealth of detailed data on the test scores of several school districts covering every area of California. Overall, it is argued that hard evidence exists that the law has been a huge success, not the catastrophe that critics predicted. (KFT)

The experiences of five California school districts in implementing English immersion instruction for all limited-English-speaking students are described and compared. The districts range from populous urban settings to small, isolated rural communities. The first part of the report profiles the five districts, and the second part sets forth three significant issues that made planning for English immersion difficult: defining the terminology used in designing, implementing, and describing the programs; specifying the characteristics and elements of immersion instruction so they could be applied consistently; and designing the program itself, including population, placement, proportion of instruction in English, and nature and quantity of contact with native English speakers. The third part outlines some program implementation issues that occurred in all of the districts, and how they were resolved. The article concludes with a description of the common evaluation design used in all of the districts and presents some preliminary student achievement data. (Contains 16 references.) (MSE)

The reading program planning procedures presented in this manual are based upon material developed by the National Right to Read Program. The contents include: "Introduction"; "Step One: Right to Read Center Data," which discusses the establishment of baseline data for a particular school; "Step Two: Needs Assessment Summary," which is designed to assist individual schools as they evaluate their current reading programs, personnel, and student achievement; "Step Three: Objectives Array," which discusses the preparation of written objectives; "Step Four: Program Review," which discusses selection of the programs most related to a school's particular needs; "Step Five: Diagnosis-Prescriptive-Evaluation," which looks at how to begin the design of the new program; "Step Six: Instructional Approach," which discusses how to develop the instructional approaches for the school in relation to needs, priorities, learning objectives, and program review; "Step Seven: Teacher Assignments and Program Organization," which discusses the allocation of instructional time and personnel resources; "Step Eight: Personnel Cost"; "Step Nine: Staff Development," which discusses staff development in relation to program design; and "Step Ten: Materials and Services," which discusses materials and services necessary to support the reading program. (WR)

This document consists of an application form and a job description for the short term positions of state regional Right to Read directors for the state of California. The application form asks for demographic facts and information on academic background, employment experience, and other professional experience. The job description defines the professional functions of a regional director which include attending a four week Right to Read training session, establishing a Right to Read office and training site in a designated region, keeping updated records of the region, arranging technical assistance as needed, and planning training sessions or workshops. Also listed are desirable qualifications which include a minimum of five years of elementary and/or secondary teaching experience with emphasis in reading education, a minimum of two years of experience in an administrative capacity, a letter of approval from the applicant's superior for participation in these plans, and at least one letter of recommendation. (WR)

This document consists of three parts: (1) an application form for local education agencies (LEA) wishing to apply to participate in the California Right to Read Program; (2) evidence agencies must submit of a formal Board Resolution encompassing the following elements: commitment to reading as a curricular priority in the district; designation of an LEA director with certain qualifications; support of the designated LEA director in terms of the use of the program planning procedure and the scheduling freedom needed to carry out program planning; designation of at least one school as a target school for involvement; support of reasonable changes in the school's reading program once the program planning is completed; compliance with the evaluation procedures developed; and the hosting of visitors who wish to discuss or observe the reading program in the LEA; and (3) twelve job functions of a local education agency director in a Right to Read program, among them showing an interest in and commitment to reading, attending training sessions and workshops, serving as liaison, forming an advisory council, providing communication systems for disseminating information, and arranging for target schools as needed. (HOD)

This visitation form for the reading task force of the California Right to Read program consists of eight categories. "Needs Assessment" asks for information on student performance, teacher performance, resources, and decision making; "Reading Programs" includes philosophy, goals, objectives, and priorities; "Program Review" asks if staff visited other programs; "Program Design" includes prescriptive procedures, evaluation procedures, reading in content areas, and community involvement; "Instructional Approach" provides a space for reporting on basic approaches, instructional techniques, and teacher/student organization; "Teacher Assignments and Organization" includes personnel required, teacher/student ratio, and reading instructional time; "Direct and Indirect Costs" asks for information on personnel costs, staff development costs and plans, materials and services, and program cost per student; and "Comments" allows for additional information. (WR)

The California Right to Read program is for schools interested in changing or revising their reading programs. Right to Read offers services and materials designed to guide schools through program planning. This approach is based on the philosophy that California Right to Read can most effectively serve a school by working with its staff to plan and implement a total school reading program. California Right to Read, however, does not provide certain services. Right to Read does not offer or recommend any particular reading program. Right to Read tries to help schools, teachers, and students develop the program that is best for them. Also, Right to Read helps schools allocate their reading funds more effectively. The California Right to Read budget is devoted to the provision of services and materials. Among these are the Program Planning Procedure and the services of the regional directors, the Local Education Agency Directors, and the state consultants. (WR)

The definitions in this document are organized in four sections in order to facilitate their use with the Program Planning Manual and Needs Assessment Tables. "Teacher/Student Organization" defines the classroom teacher, reading teacher, team of teachers, aide (working for salary), volunteer aide, cross-age teaching, peer tutoring, content area teachers, and differentiated staffing. "Basic Approaches" defines the basal reader, meaning emphasis, code emphasis, linguistic approach, modified alphabet, responsive environment, programed learning, individualized reading, language experience, eclectic/skills sequence approach, and reading in the content areas. "Instructional Techniques" defines machine based reading, other programed instruction (materials other than those used with computer based machinery), dramatization, instructional television, interactive media, discussion group, demonstration performance, lecture, contracts, supplementary materials, and learning materials. "Definition of Other Terms in the Manual" defines adaptability, other directed staff development, school directed staff development, single-teacher-multi-subjects, staff development materials/services, and startup costs. (WR)