Understanding the consequences of growing up poor for a child's well-being is an important research question, but one that is difficult to answer due to the potential endogeneity of family income. Past estimates of the effect of family income on child development have often been plagued by omitted variable bias and measurement error. In this…

Bill Gates and the governors were quite vague about what makes the schools obsolete or what to do about it. What is it, exactly, that schools are not teaching that they need to? Bill Gates also claimed that American kids were at the top in fourth grade, but at the bottom by 12th. The author congratulates Gates for focusing some attention on…

This paper uses regression and matching techniques to evaluate Indonesia's Social Safety Net Scholarships Programme. The scholarships program was developed to try to prevent large numbers of children from dropping out of school as a result of the Asian financial crisis. The expectation was that many families would find it difficult to keep their…

This paper draws on two studies to consider theoretical, analytical, ethical, methodological, and representational questions about longitudinal case study research in literacy acquisition. Both studies drew on observations and interviews, as well as formal assessment data. The two longitudinal studies are: "100 Children Go to School:…

As of the 1997 Ohio welfare reform laws, families not receiving cash assistance and earning 135 percent or less of the poverty income were eligible for subsidized child care (non-assistance subsidized child care). This study sought to estimate the number of working families in Cuyahoga County, Ohio that could take advantage of non-assistance…

With many families facing difficult economic times, wealth is becoming increasingly concentrated among the rich. The tables in this "chartbook" illustrate the growing gap between rich and poor. There has been a general decline in economic growth as well as a change in the distribution of income. In addition, corporations have been taking a larger…

The revolution in telecommunications technology will be a driving force in the future economic growth of rural areas. Federal and state universal service policies requiring delivery of service to rural areas were major factors in how the telephone system evolved during the 20th century. In the 1990s, telephone penetration rates were similar for…

Standardized achievement tests as measures of school performance are an inescapable fact of life in U.S. public education. Critics of such tests hold that U.S. education policy has made achievement test scores more important than achievement itself. "No Child Left Behind," the centerpiece of the Bush Administration's domestic agenda, places a…

In the popular view, somehow, rural schools often just do not measure up. The world over, rural schools generally get short shrift in the allocation of resources and prestige, their lack of urbanness often a self-fulfilling indicator of deficiency. As a result perhaps, rural students may perform, on average, less well than others in terms of…

Presents the results of several studies dealing with dialect differences and offers a rationale for using the language experience approach for teaching dialectically different black children. (TO)

Discusses the new Appalachian movement, based on the assumption that mountain people are a distinct and maligned cultural minority; the people of Appalachia, white, black and red, have begun to strike back against the dam-builders, strip-miners, and others they say are gouging out the region's mineral resources by the cheapest means possible no…

Describes the West Riding Educational Priority Area Project, set up in December 1968, the purpose of which was to assess the social, educational and economic factors which might affect the children's academic performance, and to try to find ways of helping them develop their potential. (Author/JM)

The concept of the moral failure of the poor which was rooted in pre-colonial European assumptions, and modern American racism had become intimately entwined. Attitudes toward the poor in the 1960's simply reflected the knowledge, concerns, problems, and prejudices of the day. (Author)

Suggests that the major determinant of ghetto behavior and social organization is the relationship between the local population and higher level institutions; explores the failure of an organization in a ghetto area set up to destroy abandoned houses. (Author/JM)

The text of testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs concerning the participation of the San Diego Independent School District in the National School Lunch program, by the district superintendent. (JM)