Following the major expansion of day care provision in Germany in recent years, the quality of these programs has increasingly also been the subject of public debate. When evaluating the quality of German day care centers, experts have frequently concluded that there is considerable room for...

Nach dem starken Ausbau der Kapazitäten von Kindertageseinrichtungen in den letzten Jahren wird in jüngster Vergangenheit in der Öffentlichkeit auch vermehrt über die Qualität dieser Angebote diskutiert. Vielfach beurteilen Experten die Qualität in deutschen Kindertageseinrichtungen...

Mentoring programs such as Big Brothers Big Sisters of America have been providing positive role models and building social skills for more than a century. However, most formal mentoring programs are relatively novel and researchers have only recently begun to rigorously evaluate their impact on...

As global migration flows increase, so do the number of migrant students in host country schools. Yet migrants' achievement scores lag well behind those of their native-born schoolmates. Performance gaps are explained largely by differences in migrant parents' socio-economic background, cultural...

Concerns about poor student performance have led schools to diverge from traditional teacher compensation and base a portion of pay on student outcomes. In the US, the number of school districts adopting such performance-based financial incentives has increased by more than 40% since 2004....

Numerous economic studies have considered the relationship between class size and student achievement, the majority of which have focused on elementary schools in the US and Europe. While the general finding is that smaller classes are associated with increased student achievement, a few...

Children from disadvantaged families have lower levels of school readiness when they enter school than do children from more advantaged families. Many countries have tried to reduce this inequality through publicly provided preschool. Evidence on the potential of these programs to reduce...

Durch die Elterngeldreform 2007 und den Ausbau der Kindertageseinrichtungen der letzten Jahre sind in Deutschland Rahmenbedingungen geschaffen worden, die eine gleichmäßigere Aufteilung der Erwerbs- und Familienarbeit erleichtern sollen. Dieser Beitrag untersucht, ob die Länge der Elternzeit...

We sketch a visionary strategy for Europe in which full employment is quickly regained by 2020, income inequality is reduced and the economies are more sustainable. We call this scenario "vibrant". It is contrasted with what would happen if present policies continue within the European Union...

Investments in education are of great importance for the competitiveness of the German economy. In particular, early childhood education programs promise high returns - because children can benefit from them even years later and find it easier to acquire new skills. These are the results of...