The article ''Transforming Educational Experiences in Low-Income Communities'' analyzes the efforts of a highly impoverished small elementary school to provide the kind of wrap-around services children in very poor communities need to give them a fair chance to succeed. For a child from a low-income family, what happens in the non-educational part…

Many states are looking at effective ways to use financial incentives to encourage students to complete a postsecondary credential. JFF's new report, "Statewide Aid Policies to Improve College Access and Success", originally commissioned by the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education's Vision Project, has provided valuable…

Robert Hummer and Erin Hamilton note that the prevalence of fragile families varies substantially by race and ethnicity. African Americans and Hispanics have the highest prevalence; Asian Americans, the lowest; and whites fall somewhere in the middle. The share of unmarried births is lower among most foreign-born mothers than among their U.S.-born…

Federal social programs in the 1960s allowed for the emergence of a Black middle class. Current government proposals for massive budget cuts in social programs limit the traditional avenues of access to the middle class and deny many poor Blacks the opportunity to attain the American dream. (Author/MJL)

The number of employed Americans increased but so did the number of those without jobs, as recovery from the 1980 recession proved to be brief; the family income of high-wage workers exceeded the poverty level, even when unemployed. (Author/SSH)

Discusses U.S. economic trends for the past century. Notes that distribution of wealth is more concentrated at top than is distribution of income, with income inequality growing worse in the 1990s. Maintains that wealth disparity explains achievement test score gaps between white and minority students. Presents proposals for asset-building,…

Noting that access to higher education has expanded dramatically in the past several decades, Sara Goldrick-Rab and Kia Sorensen focus on how unmarried parents fare once they enter college. Contrary to the expectation that access to college consistently promotes family stability and economic security, the authors argue that deficiencies in current…

Presents five principles of environmental justice to promote procedural, geographic, and social equity: (1) guaranteeing the right to environmental protection; (2) preventing harm before it occurs; (3) shifting the burden of proof to the polluters; (4) obviating proof of intent to discriminate; and (5) redressing existing inequities. Includes…

Examines economist Finis Welch's hypothesis that the observed convergence in earnings between Blacks and Whites is due primarily to similar productivity characteristics between young Black and White workers. Argues that although among employed Black and White youths earnings may be similar, data on higher joblessness among Blacks overturn the…

One of the most persistent inequities in U.S. education is the gap in math achievement along income and race lines. Yet some secondary schools beat the odds, producing consistently strong math performance with students who likely would fail in traditional settings. This report advocates that the math achievement gap is not the result of poor and…

This paper maintains that increasing Hispanic-American participation in higher education is a desirable public investment. It points out that the educational attainment of Hispanic-Americans has not kept pace with their increasing share of the population and the labor force, and that high school and college completion rates are lower than for…

Over 35 million Americans were officially poor in 1983, 15.2 percent of the total population-the highest figures since the mid-1960s. Some attribute continued poverty to government social welfare policies. But poverty among the nonelderly is linked much more to economic trends. The number in poverty dropped from 39.5 million (22.4 percent of the…

Shifting focus from typical data and information about the status of educational achievement in the United States and about gaps in achievement among the nation's students, this report undertakes investigation of less-frequently-asked questions. As required by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), educators are continuously monitoring whether more…

As Harold Lasswell and his colleagues observed of the rhetoric of power (Language of Politics, 1965), some words become magic, with "inexplicable powers" attributed to them. "Access" has become such a word in the discourse of higher education. The sloganistic use of the term implies that someone, somewhere, is preventing somebody from doing…

An analysis was done of recently released 1990 Census data on wage levels for full-time workers. The analysis found that the proportion of full-time, year-round workers who are paid low wages jumped between 1979 and 1990. In 1979, 12.1 percent of full-time, year-round workers were paid low wages, but 18 percent were paid low wages in 1990. Low…