Does Pre-K Make Any Difference?

The United States has rising childhood obesity and schools deal with kids who are picky. Through innovative school gardens and kid taste testing food, entrepreneurs across the nation are getting children to eat vegetables at school and love it.

Often social programs at schools fail because they are not implemented fully or over a long enough period. One school in Philadelphia attributes their success in decreasing violence to having a long-term principal, a stable teaching force, and formal training in anti-violence programs.

Students in a small town in Michigan are outperforming their peers statewide. Over half of the students are American Indian and many come from low-income families. Because the town's reservation can't be taxed, the school receives additional federal funding. And teachers have put it to good use - by hiring more staff, decreasing class sizes, and frequently evaluating students' progress. One fourth grader offered her own theory: "Well, everyone's accepted here for who they are, no matter if they're Irish, Native, African American or just French."

Unlike the honors colleges at most universities, the Honors Living-Learning Community at Rutgers University-Newark recruits students based on "grit" and commitment to social justice. The Community creates a supportive experience within the larger campus and focuses students' studies on issues ranging from civil rights to environmental justice. “For the first time these students are learning about themselves and about that corner where they come from,” an assistant dean commented. Honors students' freshman GPAs are on average half a grade higher than the grades of non-honors students.

In 2004, the Media Initiative set out to develop a trauma-informed curriculum for preschoolers in Northern Ireland. Using puppets, cartoons, and professional development, the social-emotional lessons have empowered students to better address conflict and communicate more effectively with each other. A Boston-based teacher education program is one of many who travel to Ireland to observe the program in action each year.

Journalist Marcella Bombardieri calls community college "one of America's largest and most important anti-poverty programs." The president of Amarillo College in Texas is testing just how far community colleges can go to fight systemic issues - day care, social workers, and emergency funds for students' daily expenses are part of his plan. Other administrators are looking on at the dramatic experiment with mixed views and takeaways.

In California, half of school-aged children are the children of immigrants. Among many other initiatives in the city, a community-wide training project in Fresno aims to improve how adults in the city work with students of immigrant families. One of the challenges of the renewed push for a bilingual approach - finding sufficient bilingual teachers after years of the state's English-only education policies.

Across New Hampshire, youth are leading the fight against substance abuse. Programs like Dover’s Youth-to-Youth, Stand Up Sachems, Youth Leadership Through Adventure, and the Making it Happen Coalition, are all youth-led, adult-supported initiatives that are empowering young adults to create and disseminate substance abuse awareness and prevention campaigns. Fundamental to each of these efforts effective communication and creating a sense of community as key to prevention.

A number of barriers prevent young children in Appalachia from enrolling in formal preschool classes. In response, a fleet of buses is traveling to remote communities to teach students academic and social skills.

Within the Latino community, there are often miscommunications between schools and parents that have a big impact on students' education. To help build a bridge, some schools are hosting forums for Spanish-speaking families and including more inclusive language in messaging to allow parents to be more involved in their children’s education.