ExpandED Schools National Demonstration: Lessons for Scale and Sustainability

Can schools and community organizations come together to provide children with critical enrichment activities that enhance knowledge and expand horizons beyond core academics during the school day? This report by Policy Studies Associates, Inc., highlights some ways in which they might.The report investigates schools' use of the ExpandED Schools model, which seeks to use partnerships between public schools, community organizations and intermediary organizations to increase enrichment opportunities for children. In the model, regular school staffers focus largely on core academics, while a community-based organization offers enrichment activities during expanded school hours. A third, intermediary organization often coordinates and supports the effort.Researchers studied the use of this model in 10 schools in three cities—New York City, Baltimore and New Orleans—over four years. In this report, they identify the parts of the model that were easiest for the schools to implement, parts that proved more challenging and strategies schools used to overcome hurdles along the way.It finds that the partnerships were generally most successful in adding new activities to an expanded school day and were able to coordinate efforts between school staff and community organizations. But many schools struggled to find reliable sources of funding and to use data to drive programming and instruction

Midcourse Corrections to a Major Initiative: A Report on The James Irvine Foundation's CORAL Experience

Draws lessons from the reorientation of the Communities Organizing Resources to Advance Learning (CORAL) Initiative, a $60 million initiative aimed at improving educational achievement in low-performing schools in five California cities

Dr. Larry Brewster and California Arts-in-Corrections: A Case Study in Correctional Arts Research

The correctional arts field is strong on supporting anecdotes but light on evidence-based research. In other words, it has more stories than numbers. One exception is the long-running California Arts-in-Corrections program. Not only does AIC have more studies demonstrating benefit, all but one of those studies were conducted by Dr. Larry Brewster, currently of the University of San Francisco. This case study tells the story of how that body of research came to exist. It juxtaposes the importance of having evidence-based research on correctional arts programs with the challenges of conducting such research. Readers will gain an understanding of how correctional arts can benefit rehabilitation and re-entry initiatives for prisoners as well as how rigorous research can aid that effort. This article lays the groundwork for discussion on how an important avenue for rehabilitation and re-entry can be developed by making sure the field has numbers to match the stories

Initial thoughts on rapid prototyping techniques

This paper sets some context, raises issues, and provides our initial thinking on the characteristics of effective rapid prototyping techniques.After discussing the role rapid prototyping techniques can play in the software lifecycle, the paper looks at possible technical approaches including: heavily parameterized models, reusable software, rapid prototyping languages, prefabrication techniques for system generation, and reconfigurable test harnesses.The paper concludes that a multi-faceted approach to rapid prototyping techniques is needed if we are to address a broad range of applications successfully -- no single technical approach suffices for all potentially desirable applications

Juvenile Justice in Florida: What Kind of Future?

The National Council on Crime and Delinquency conducted a study to determine the potential benefits to Florida of adopting a data-driven approach to juvenile corrections that is based on the best national research. This study seeks to complement the ongoing work of the Florida Office of Program Policy and Government accountability (OPPAGA). In this study, NCCD has assessed the potential impact of alternative program and policy options, and provided recommendations that move toward a model continuum of graduated sanctions

Redefining Workforce Development in Northeast Ohio: How National WorkAdvance Demonstration Made Local Impact

The Fund for Our Economic Future, Deaconess Foundation and The Raymond John Wean Foundation, along with grantee partner Towards Employment, are pleased to release a local impact report on WorkAdvance, a national pilot tested in Northeast Ohio over the last five years that demonstrated an ability to deliver workforce services more effectively for low-income individuals. Employers can be connected to talent they need, while individuals can enjoy better earnings and increased potential for career advancement. Coordinated locally by Towards Employment and supported by the Fund for Our Economic Future and other national funders, WorkAdvance showed that a comprehensive provision of services, focusing on targeted sectors and emphasizing advancement, could lead to better outcomes for disadvantaged jobseekers and employers. The local report builds off of analysis released by social policy research firm MDRC in August, titled "Encouraging Evidence on a Sector-Focused Advancement Strategy," that includes results for the test sites in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and New York, in addition to Northeast Ohio. Results show WorkAdvance is a clear winner. Northeast Ohio program participants accessed more services; were 49 percent more likely to work in a targeted sector (health care or manufacturing) and more likely to be working regular shift, fulltime, or in a permanent job, and in a job with opportunities for career advancement; and averaged a 14 percent increase in earnings after two years.

Spartan Daily, May 22, 1974

Volume 62, Issue 59https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/5883/thumbnail.jp

Five Questions about Demonstrating Impact

American foundations must do a better job of demonstrating the impact of their work, according to a dozen philanthropy leaders. In this Philanthropy Awareness Initiative Digest, they weigh in on how foundations can demonstrate impact and why they should. The stakes are high, the state of practice low. Consider it a wake-up call for the field

Adaptive service discovery on service-oriented and spontaneous sensor systems

Service-oriented architecture, Spontaneous networks, Self-organisation, Self-configuration, Sensor systems, Social patternsNatural and man-made disasters can significantly impact both people and environments. Enhanced effect can be achieved through dynamic networking of people, systems and procedures and seamless integration of them to fulfil mission objectives with service-oriented sensor systems. However, the benefits of integration of services will not be realised unless we have a dependable method to discover all required services in dynamic environments. In this paper, we propose an Adaptive and Efficient Peer-to-peer Search (AEPS) approach for dependable service integration on service-oriented architecture based on a number of social behaviour patterns. In the AEPS network, the networked nodes can autonomously support and co-operate with each other in a peer-to-peer (P2P) manner to quickly discover and self-configure any services available on the disaster area and deliver a real-time capability by self-organising themselves in spontaneous groups to provide higher flexibility and adaptability for disaster monitoring and relief