Challenging the Norm in Welfare Reform Reporting
Danielle Hollar and Julia Coffman of HFRP reveals the results of HFRP's review of the ethnic media's coverage of welfare reform and how it suggests the messages can be framed for a greater effect.
Changing the Conversation About Home Visiting: Scaling Up With Quality
The purpose of this paper is to determine what the evidence and conventional wisdom say about scaling up home visiting as one of the best ways to support parents and promote early childhood development. To answer this question, we examined the available research evidence, interviewed leaders from six of the national home visiting models, and interviewed researchers who have studied home visiting. The area of interest for guiding future research, practice, and policy is whether home visiting can be delivered at broad scale and with the quality necessary to attain demonstrable, positive outcomes for young children and their parents.
Free. Available online only.
Characterizing and Measuring Participation in Out-of-School Time Programs
Sandra Simpkins Chaput from HFRP summarizes recent developmental research examining dimensions of participation in out-of-school activities.
Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies: Training Child Care Providers to Support Families
Presents a framework of family-centered training.
Children and Youth
This issue of The Evaluation Exchange is devoted to the evaluation of youth programs that support positive youth development. Topics include evaluating strength-based approaches to youth development, youth participation in evaluation, lessons learned from the international community on evaluating youth programs, and foundation grantmaking for children and youth.
Civic Participation and the Citizens Research Method
Serene Fang of Harvard Family Research Project explains the Citizen Research method to better inform and engage citizens in understanding and influencing policymaking.
Classroom Observation, Professional Development and Teacher Quality
Robert Pianta from the University of Virginia describes a classroom assessment scoring system that measures teacher–child interactions and serves as the basis for individualized professional development to strengthen teachers' classroom practice.
Closing the Achievement Gap: Head Start and Beyond
Ed Zigler, Ron Haskins, and G. Reid Lyon discuss the past and future of Head Start, the country's first federally funded early childhood program.
Cluster Evaluation
James Sanders of the Evaluation Institute discusses the utility of cluster evaluation as a way to examine multiple programs.
Co-Constructing Family Engagement Roles in Federal Way, Washington
Through open communication and a mutual investment in solving a problem, one parent, school principal, and district-level family advocate helped bring about positive change in a Federal Way, Washington, middle school. Kelley O’Carroll and Angela Griffin write about the shared responsibility of co-constructing an effective solution and how this effort inspired a parent to advocate for the entire student body, not just her own child.
Co-Constructing Family Involvement
M. Elena Lopez, Holly Kreider, and Margaret Caspe from HFRP discuss the co-construction of home-school partnerships to support children’s learning and development.
Coaching for Quality
Sarah Jonas describes the Children's Aid Society's model of site-based coaching for quality after school programming and the supports they provide to build the capacity of their coaches.
Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Social Inquiry
Book chapter on using mixed methodology in the social sciences. In B. Somekh & C. Lewin (Eds.), Research methods in the social sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Combining Research Rigor and Participatory Evaluation
Anju Malhotra and Sanyukta Mathur from the International Center for Research on Women describe a study in Nepal that compared participatory and more traditional approaches to evaluating adolescent reproductive health interventions.
Coming Full Circle: Drawing On Personal Experiences to Create a Vision for System-Wide Change
Mishaela Durán, Interim Executive Director of the National PTA, sets the stage for this special issue about the emerging leaders in our field by getting at the heart of why family and community and engagement is so important in education: giving students the opportunity to succeed.
Coming of Age in the Information Age
Jacqueline Dugery of the Pew Partnership for Civic Change offers some innovative ways to build on organizational learning to engage in strategic communications campaigns.
Commentary from Harvard Family Research Project on the Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund
HFRP submitted recommendations to the National Register Notice regarding the i3 fund’s proposed priorities, requirements, definitions, and selection criteria. The recommendation included an endorsement of the comments submitted by the National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group, a collaborative of leaders in the family engagement field including HFRP’s Heather Weiss, and emphasized the need to direct development and validation grant funding toward promising family and community engagement initiatives, isolate and recognize the added value of parental involvement in interventions, and take a nuanced view of effect size when selecting innovations for funding.
Free. Available online only.
Commentary from Harvard Family Research Project on the Promise Neighborhoods Program
Harvard Family Research Project submitted recommendations to the National Register Notice regarding the Promise Neighborhoods program's proposed priorities, requirements, definitions, and selection criteria.
Free. Available online only.
Commentary from Harvard Family Research Project on the Race to the Top Fund
Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP) submitted recommendations to the National Register Notice regarding the Race to the Top Fund’s proposed priorities, requirements, definitions, and selection criteria. HFRP both endorsed the comments submitted by the National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group, a collaborative of leaders in the family engagement field including HFRP’s Heather Weiss, and asserted that a priority criterion for awarding Race to the Top dollars should focus on the quality and depth of family engagement, especially to achieve the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's goal of turning around struggling schools.
Free. Available online only.
Commentary from the National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group on the Extending the Grant Period for the Parental Information and Resource Centers
The National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group, a collaborative of leaders in the family engagement field including Harvard Family Research Project’s Heather Weiss, submitted recommendations for the U.S. Department of Education's proposal to extend the grant period for the National Parental Information and Resource Centers (PIRC) program. This extension period would allow the centers to operate through fiscal year 2012. The Working Group recommended that the extension place an emphasis on data collection, research, best practices, and program outcomes that will assist in the development of a strengthened PIRC program.
Free. Available online only.
Commentary from the National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group on the Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund
The National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group, a collaborative of leaders in the family engagement field including Harvard Family Research Project’s (HFRP) Heather Weiss, submitted recommendations for the Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund’s proposed priorities, requirements, definitions, and selection criteria.The National Working Group’s recommendations provide a framework for the integration of family involvement into how potential recipients of i3 funds are assessed and selected, as well as how initiatives are evaluated.
Free. Available online only.
Commentary from the National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group on the Promise Neighborhoods Program
The Working Group submitted recommendations to the National Register Notice regarding the Promise Neighborhoods program's proposed priorities, requirements, definitions, and selection criteria.
Free. Available online only.
Commentary from the National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group on the Race to the Top Fund
The National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group, a collaborative of leaders in the family engagement field including Harvard Family Research Project’s (HFRP) Heather Weiss, submitted recommendations for the Race to the Top Fund’s proposed priorities, requirements, definitions, and selection criteria. The recommendations provide a framework for elevating and integrating family involvement into how the Race to the Top Funds are disseminated, governed, and evaluated for effectiveness.
Free. Available online only.
Community Collaboration 90806: A Partnership to Increase School Readiness in Long Beach
Marielle Bohan-Baker describes the instructive and collaborative approach to planning and evaluation of six community partners in Long Beach, California.
Community Education as a Home for Family Support and Education Programs
Public policy makers and program developers who are considering family support programs need to find appropriate administrative and service-delivery organizations at local and state levels. This study provides examples of family support programs.
Hard copy out of stock.