April 28, 1999
Head Start is effectively preparing young children for kindergarten, a federally funded study of the program concludes. But there also are areas where improvement is needed in the 34-year-old preschool program for low-income children, the research shows.
Last summer, Sen. Bill Frist introduced a measure that he thought would give schools a bit of relief from bureaucracy by expanding the popular, but little-known, "Ed-Flex" program from 12 to all 50 states.
In a hotel meeting room here at the annual conference of the world's largest educational research group, four actors are putting on a play. Garbed in black, they clutch their scripts and launch into their lines. The standing-room-only crowd watches, enthralled.
Poor college students would receive larger federal financial-aid packages under a plan offered last week by House Republicans that Democrats contend could divert money from K-12 initiatives.
Many behavioral and learning problems of students with disabilities can be prevented if elementary schools focus on special services and discipline in the lower grades, according to a top federal special education official.
Florida lawmakers are expected to cast a final vote this week on an education plan that would give students in failing public schools state-paid vouchers to attend any qualified private, religious, or public school.
As those responsible for, among other tasks, finding better ways of training principals and teachers, education researchers themselves could use some of that treatment. At a panel discussion here at the annual convention of the American Educational Research Association, experts zeroed in last week on the training of researchers as a factor in many of the well-documented problems in the field.
