Children living in poverty face numerous challenges that negatively affect their wellbeing and thus their ability to learn. The consequences of poverty that interfere with students' learning include inattentiveness, demotivation, and feelings of powerlessness, shame, and anger. To reach these children, with the goal of helping them become healthy,…

Reviews evolution of workfare programs during the past 25 years. Summarizes both positive and negative outcomes of such programs, and identifies some key issues and unanswered questions resulting from these outcomes. Suggests a more viable direction for welfare reform in the areas of child care responsibility, balance of rights and obligations,…

Identifies underlying paradoxical bases for expansion and replication of early childhood care and education (ECCE) programs. Presents history of ECCE in the United States. Proposes typology of expansion and replication processes, and considers paradoxes associated with replication process. Offers recommendations for funders, policymakers, and…

Efforts to reform the welfare system in the United States have been gaining momentum since the late 1980s. Critics have been arguing that states should receive federal waivers to create their own programs to encourage welfare recipients to find work. The thrust of the 1996 welfare reform act transfers control over welfare spending to the states.…

Discusses successes and problems of Head Start. Suggests that Head Start's difficulties relate to its implementation, not its design. Proposes increasing the effectiveness of Head Start through a series of reform strategies that relate to interventions that address the needs of children in child care, preschool children, and school-age children.…

This issue of the Courier contains articles loosely connected to each other by the underlying theme of developing people's capacity to improve the quality of their lives. The following articles are included: "Development of Human Resources--A Basic Needs Approach," by Mohiuddin Ahmad; "Rural Poverty," by the United Nations Food…

Children who are raised in poverty currently run grave risks of educational failure. This paper approaches the issue, not through concentrating on special problems of, and programs for, the educationally at-risk, but through focusing on the educational problems of young people generally and on the effect that schools, not programs, play in…

This report reviews and analyzes programs to educate homeless children and youth. A look at the national perspective describes the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act of 1987, its passage and content. The paper argues that the Department of Education, charged with implementing the Act, failed to do so. Delays, inadequate monitoring, and…

The Chapter 1 program of the Educational Consolidation and Improvement Act would be made more efficient and effective by implementing the following recommendations: (1) improve the targeting of funds; (2) let good educational practice rather than accounting practice shape Chapter 1 programs; (3) establish systems of output accountability for…