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Program Effectiveness

• Advancing Foreign Language Education at Community Colleges. AACC Special Reports
  This report by the American Association of Community Colleges summarizes the results of a nationwide year-long study on foreign language education. Programs, called Improving Foreign Language Education projects at Community Colleges, were implemented at a total of 36 American colleges to enact proposed changes in curriculum and foreign language instruction.
• Assessing Students' Attitudes and Achievements in a Multicultural and Multilingual Science Classroom
  Takes a qualitative and quantitative look at the curriculum and teaching of a two-way immersion eighth-grade solar energy science classroom and examines its implications for education policy and reform. Results for a class of 25 students indicate that the approach increases the retention rate of Hispanic students.
• Assessing the Impact of a Prejudice Prevention Project
  Reports on the effectiveness of a prejudice prevention intervention that was used among a culturally diverse group of students in Hawaii. Results indicate that teachers observed significant improvement in the students' cooperative social skills as a result of participating in the multicultural guidance activities.
• Confronting White Privilege and the "Color Blind" Paradigm in a Teacher Education Program
  Reports on an effort developed in 1997 to expose elementary education majors to issues of social inequality through immersion in a 2-day symposium. Responses of 527 participants suggest that the impact of the symposium on student attitudes was significant.
• Cultural Competency Training at a Distance: Challenges and Strategies
  Televised instruction and a movement to integrate cultural-competency training into counselor education represent the convergence of two major forces in counselor training today. The challenges associated with providing cultural-competency training via interactive television are outlined.
• Cultural Diversity Programs to Prepare for Work Force 2000: What's Gone Wrong?
  Diversity training in organizations is too often driven by federal mandates, has a low priority, and faces backlash and employee fears. Many employers have not integrated diversity initiatives into long-range plans or missions.
• Curricular Modifications, Family Outreach, and a Mentoring Program: Impacts on Achievement and Gifted Identification in High-Risk Primary Students
  A study investigated the efficacy of specific interventions (mentoring, parental involvement, and multicultural curricula) on academic achievement of 273 elementary students from low-socioeconomic environments. The interventions had no statistically significant effect on student achievement in any grade.
• Dumping Ground or Effective Alternative: Dropout-Prevention Programs in Urban Schools
  Focusing on students’ perspectives, this article examines whether an urban dropout-prevention program offers students effective alternatives to regular classes or if, instead, the program is simply a dumping ground for unwanted students. Findings generated from interviews and observations suggest both.
• Evaluation of an Intervention To Change Attitudes Toward Date Rape
  Describes the design and evaluates effectiveness of a program at a private college to change freshman (n=615) attitudes about date rape and sexual assault. Intervention for the experimental group involved viewing a play performed by students; the control group viewed an alternative play addressing multicultural issues.
• Learning Communities, First Year Programs and Their Effectiveness: The Role of the IR Office. AIR 2002 Forum Paper
  Several learning communities and first-year programs have been developed at Bowling Green State University, a public doctoral-research intensive university in the midwest, over the last few years.
• Markers of Multicultural/Antibias Education
  Contends that creating a program that reflects diversity and equity is an evolving process. Presents common markers whereby programs can judge individual levels on the multicultural and antibias education journey.
• Multicultural Education Program Evaluation, 1995-96. Assessment/Accountability Report
  In 1993-94, the Board of Education of the City of New York distributed more than $1 million to augment existing multicultural initiatives in professional or curriculum development. Districts and superintendencies in the city also designed a 3-year program to facilitate the planning and scope of these initiatives.
• Multiculturalism and the Community College: A Case Study of an Immigrant Education Program
  Analyzes the goals and effectiveness of the Nuevos Horizontes program at Chicago's Triton College, an outreach effort to provide educational opportunities to Triton's diverse communities. Cites the general success of the program, suggesting that the two-way exchange between the college and communities served provides a model for multiculturalism organizational change.
• Multiculturalism and the Community College: A Case Study of an Immigrant Education Program
  Analyzes the goals and effectiveness of the Nuevos Horizontes program at Chicago's Triton College, an outreach effort to provide educational opportunities to Triton's diverse communities. Cites the general success of the program, suggesting that the two-way exchange between the college and communities served provides a model for multiculturalism organizational change.
• On the Power of Separate Spaces: Teachers and Students Writing (Righting) Selves and Future
  Studied the effect of programs within desegregated schools that serve an identified population of students for cultural affirmation and advancement. Ethnographic data from a girls' group at an urban magnet school and a Vietnamese students' homeroom, focusing on 20 high school students, in an urban comprehensive school demonstrate both the power of such "spaces" and the contradictory impulses within such arrangements.
• Preparing Administrators to Meet the Challenge of a Multicultural Society
  It describes the preliminary research, developmental process, and midpoint evaluation of Los Angeles Unified School District and Pepperdine University's restructured Educational Leadership Academy for entry-level administrators and other school leaders. The academy's mission is to prepare administrators who are committed to creating and leading schools that work for everyone in our diverse society.
• Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers: The Field Experience. Teacher Education Yearbook IV
  This yearbook provides educators with current research and practical guidelines for improving the education of teacher candidates and beginning teachers. The book has four sections, each on a particular topic and containing an overview and a response (reflections and implications).
• Preschool Children's Classification Skills and a Multicultural Education Intervention To Promote Acceptance of Ethnic Diversity
  Examined the impact of an 8-week intervention program designed to reduce racial/ethnic stereotyping among preschoolers varying in classification skill. Found that children in the experimental group had increased in classification skills at posttest and were less likely to sort photo cards by race/ethnicity and more likely to sort them by gender and age than were control group children.
• Professional development school trade-offs in teacher preparation and renewal
  Examined the preparation of student teachers at four Professional Development Schools (PDSs) longitudinally, comparing their experiences with those of traditional student teachers. Data from meetings with administrators; site visits; document analysis; graduation and professional status information; student teacher surveys; and graduate surveys indicated that students appreciated PDSs' camaraderie, support, collaboration, and effectiveness.
• Professional Development School Trade-Offs in Teacher Preparation and Renewal
  Examined the preparation of student teachers at four Professional Development Schools (PDSs) longitudinally, comparing their experiences with those of traditional student teachers. Data from meetings with administrators; site visits; document analysis; graduation and professional status information; student teacher surveys; and graduate surveys indicated that students appreciated PDSs' camaraderie, support, collaboration, and effectiveness.
• Sharing the Responsibility: A Study of a Comprehensive Approach to Teacher Preparation for Cultural and Linguistic Diversity in Urban Middle Level Schools
  Examined effectiveness of a teacher education program emphasizing skills and knowledge needed in multicultural, multilingual urban middle school settings. Found that candidates were already culturally/linguistically sensitive, and became more so during the program; felt prepared to meet student needs; and still had difficulty envisioning the "practice" of these new teaching methods.
• Supporting Teachers in Becoming Multicultural Educators: A Model Staff Development Program
  Describes a model of implementing multicultural education that uses a four-step process of awareness, knowledge, skills development, and action. Professional education is a key component of this program, which was evaluated in 1995 and 1996.
• Teacher retention, teacher effectiveness, and professional preparation: A comparison of professional development school and non-professional development school graduates
  Compared Professional Development School (PDS) and non-PDS graduates regarding retention in teaching, teaching effectiveness, and perceptions of professional preparation.
• Teacher retention, teacher effectiveness, and professional preparation: A comparison of professional developmnet school and non-professional development school graduates
  Compared Professional Development School (PDS) and non-PDS graduates regarding retention in teaching, teaching effectiveness, and perceptions of professional preparation.
• The Colorful Flags Program: A Proactive-Interactive Approach to Bridging Cultural Differences
  Describes the Cultural Flags program, which teaches students to be proactive in engaging in cultural learning through learning a few basic phrases in the five most spoken languages in their community along with cultural facts about other countries. Some program evaluation results and project guidelines are presented.
• The Colorful Flags Program: A Proactive-Interactive Approach to Bridging Cultural Differences
  Describes the Cultural Flags program, which teaches students to be proactive in engaging in cultural learning through learning a few basic phrases in the five most spoken languages in their community along with cultural facts about other countries. Some program evaluation results and project guidelines are presented.
• The Decline of Youth Suicidal Behavior in an Urban, Multicultural Public School System following the Introduction of a Suicide Prevention and Intervention Program
  Reports a five-year longitudinal study of suicidal behavior of students in southern Florida. Describes a district-wide suicide prevention program and offers statistical data organized into annual, monthly, grade-level, and school-level classification of the degree and direction of self-destructive behavior among youth.
• The National Conversation on Youth Development in the 21st Century. Final Report.
  To commemorate 2002 as the centennial year of America's 4-H Movement, the National 4-H Council held a national conversation to identify ways of improving youth development programs. The conversation process included the following activities: 1,577 local conversations that yielded more than 10,000 specific action items; a review of those items at 63 state conversations; and a national conversation at which 1,200 youths and adults representing 600 organizations developed specific national strategies and action steps based on the findings of the local and state conversations.
• Waging Peace in Our Schools
  The Resolving Conflicts Creatively Program (RCCP) described in this book asserts that schools must educate the child's heart as well as the mind. RCCP began in 1985 as a joint initiative of Educators for Social Responsibility Metropolitan Area and the New York City Board of Education.