Reviews three books on welfare reform: "The Poverty of Welfare Reform" (Joel F. Handler); "The Politics of Welfare Reform" (Donald F. Norris, Lyke Thompson, editors); and "Living on the Edge: The Realities of Welfare in America" (Mark Robert Rank). (JOW)

Explores what "The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration" study by the National Research Council actually says about the effects of immigration, considering the negative wage effects of immigration on the poor and the fact that immigration is not the benefit to the economy it once was thought to be. (SLD)

Reviews three books on street gangs that examine the formation of gangs between the 1940s and 1970s (a period that predates their connection to drug trafficking), look at masculinity in gang culture following the advent of their connection to drug trafficking, and highlight the role of the gangster in American culture in the 1920s and 1930s. (SM)

Reviews Toni Morrison's novel "Sula" as a celebration of the working-class African American. The characters of this novel provide an understanding of the social, psychological, and sociological issues that might otherwise have been evident only to African Americans. (SLD)

Articles in recent periodicals are reviewed. These articles concern (1) the education of children in poverty; (2) the exposure of children to violence in and out of school; (3) recommendations for the Head Start program for the 1990s; and (4) child care in Germany after reunification. (BC)

This essay examines the educational opportunities of people in poverty who receive social welfare assistance. The dominant political theory underlying social policy (including education policy) in the United States has evolved from 1960s and 1970s welfare liberalism into 1980s and 1990s style neo-conservatism -- a theory that embraces principles…

A literary review of 10 books that concern the culture wars being waged in schools and politics. (MLF)

Reviews "Health Care Reform and Child Welfare" (DeWoody) on addressing the needs of abused and neglected children; and "Deadly Consequences" (Prothrow-Stith and Weissman) on the violence destroying the teenage population and ways to begin solving the problem. (HTH)

Reviews nine notable education books of 2000, including Jeannie Chall's "The Academic Achievement Challenge," Jonathan Kozol's "Ordinary Resurrections," Chester Finn's "Charter Schools in Action," Neil Howe and William Strauss's "Millennials Rising," Meredith Maran's "Class Dismissed," Paul T. Hill's "It Takes a City," and Diane Ravitch's "Left…

Critiques Hirsh's book, "The Schools We Need and Why We Don't Have Them," which suggests that progressive education is rampant in today's school, and all students should learn important subject matter content that should be appropriately sequenced and uniformly paced, with achievement objectively measured. Critiques Hirsh's minimization…

This brief summarizes some of the highlights of the book "State Tax Relief for the Poor," by David S. Liebschutz and Steven D. Gold. It examines the policies that states can adopt to provide tax relief for the poor. Although poor families are generally exempt from the federal income tax, they still pay a large amount of taxes to state and local…

"Teaching for Social Justice," by Ayers, Hunt, and Quinn, advocates inclusion of social-justice concerns as part of schools' official curriculum. Although the authors do not move some issues far enough, the book can serve as a primer for teachers concerned about social justice and democratic values. (MLH)

Reviews "The Market Approach to Education: An Analysis of America's First Voucher Program" (John Witte), which examines the Milwaukee Parent Choice Program (MPCP) and describes school voucher politics that have focused significant national attention on the MPCP since its inception. Suggests that the book understates the inadequacies of…

This paper presents a comprehensive review of Richard Rothstein's book "Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic, and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap" (Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute, 2004). The insights offered in this book are timely in light of the No Child Left Behind legislation that puts the…

According to Herrnstein and Murray's "The Bell Curve" (1994), public education cannot alter the economic, social, or political stratification of American society. Intelligence is supposedly being combined and concentrated, and there is no inexpensive, reliable method to raise IQ. Actually, the book justifies the economic status quo and a…