National Youth Employment Coalition (NYEC) would like to alert you to our newest publication, Expanding Options: State Financing of Education Pathways for Struggling Students and Out-of-School Youth (2008). These profiles of state policy in Indiana, Massachusetts, and North Carolina examine how various education options are accessing public funds in three states. They contextualize the funding of education options within larger secondary education reform and dropout prevention and recovery efforts and provide a close look at state education funding policy in each of the three states. Building on NYEC's previous work, each profile begins with a one-page overview of the secondary education reform context, major dropout prevention and recovery efforts, and funding of education options in the state. Overviews are followed by more in-depth discussion of these areas, as well as detailed information on state funding of public education in each state and examples of how state policy affects programming at the local level. Copies are available at http://nyec.org/pn_tools/prodreg.cfm to download or you may order a free hardcopy.

Project Play is an initiative to inspire families and neighborhoods to play traditional backyard games like "Follow the Leader," "Treasure Hunt," or "Kick the Can"-games that demand imagination and foster creativity. Through a series of lively hardcover children's books featuring a group of active neighborhood kids, Project Play provides guidance to parents and children for getting back to basics and enjoying the joy and freedom of playtime. In addition, Project Play encourages parents to make play a priority-for as founder and author Marlene Byrne believes-it is as equally important to be creative and imaginative as it is to be smart.

The National Center for Special Education Research has released a dynamic website that lets the public generate tables and comparisons using data from the Pre-Elementary Education Longitudinal Study (PEELS). The system includes over 1,000 variables related to child and family characteristics; special education programs and services; and academic, social and functional performance for preschoolers with disabilities.

The New York Times has a downright gleeful article with reactions to Obama's pledge to invest $10 billion in early childhood education - "the largest new federal initiative for young children since Head Start began in 1965. Now, Head Start is a $7 billion federal program serving about 900,000 preschoolers."

The Brookings Institution is calling on the federal government to "change the game" in public education by creating a federal Office of Educational Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the Department of Education. The authors cite the achievement gap between poor and minority students and their more affluent peers, along with findings that US 15-year-olds perform worse than students in 23 countries in math and behind 11 countries in reading.

The federal Office of Special Education Programs has released a toolkit on teaching and assessing students with disabilities.

School touches children's lives and development across a range of areas: health, social support, civic engagement and more. This Child Trends brief offers national estimates from a variety of sources on the impact of the school environment on adolescent development.

The youth-generated site, What Kids Can Do (WKCD) has expanded its "First in the Family" site. Now, in addition to first-hand multimedia resources and advice for high schoolers, there's a major new section designed to help those in college make it to a four-year degree.

District leaders in cities around the country are creating promising strategies to re-engage students who are slipping off-track to graduation and get them on their way to a diploma. This guide from the Youth Transition Funders Group, helps districts plan a comprehensive reform process to increase graduation rates for all students.

Higher-income fifth grade students in suburban school districts are no more likely to have access to healthy or unhealthy foods than are their lower-income, urban peers, according to a new Child Trends study. However, schools attended by higher-income students offer their students a greater selection of both healthy and unhealthy food choices -- and more than half of elementary schools offer access to food that doesn't have to meet federal nutrition standards.