Describes the Public Assistance Comprehensive Education (PACE) program, a vocational training program established for individuals receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children. The PACE program was designed to assist public assistance recipients with many financial and personal problems in obtaining education and jobs. (TE)

Reviews trends in Black economic progress and compares data for Black and White families. Describes how structural changes in families and income inequalities are symptoms of a growing Black underclass. Calls for policies to reduce joblessness among underclass men and increase child support by absentee fathers. (MW)

Studies the degree to which psychiatric and substance abuse problems and victimization place families at elevated risk of requiring emergency housing and prevalence of these problems among 677 mothers in families requesting shelter and 495 comparison-group housed mothers in New York City. Problems, reported infrequently, correlate with…

The characteristics of migrant students that place them at risk educationally are described and reasons for low special education delivery rates are examined. Guidelines for educational intervention are offered, with the goal of increasing migrant children's economic options and opportunities. Three methodologies are recommended: learning…

Examines issues surrounding the nation's concern about its economic well-being and the resulting movement to reform U.S. education. It is argued that it is wrong to blame the nation's economic woes on the educational system or to expect the schools to bail the country out of its doldrums. (SLD)

Describes the Vaughn Street Elementary School in San Fernando (California) plan to become a family services delivery site. Plans include cooperation among agencies; a family center for coordination of services, child care, and educational resources; a social network of mutual assistance; and a parent service exchange bank. (JB)

Although every school must develop its own dropout prevention programs, the framework for multifaceted solutions can be similar, involving a systemic approach consisting of the following: (1) identification and intervention policies; (2) interventions by educational leaders, teachers, and parents; (3) academic and support programs; and (4)…

The General Accounting Office (GAO) investigated the effects of educational reform on approximately 61,000 disadvantaged urban students (focusing on Black and Hispanic-American students) in 4 districts. Excerpts from GAO findings and implications of the mixed results, with overall modest gains, are provided. (SLD)

Suggests ways to improve child support enforcement. Getting the child support system out of the courts to the extent possible and providing government guarantees of child support are two types of proposals that must be considered. A final necessity is increasing welfare benefits to a subsistence level. (SLD)

Explores income inequality during declining African-American employment, examines current welfare systems, and suggests ways to improve the economic disadvantages of minority groups. Letting markets work can improve the economic status of African Americans. The present dual African-American economy, a market economy and an entitlement economy, is…

Focuses on issues relevant to educating homeless adolescents, including barriers to education, historical trends in homelessness, and reasons adolescents become homeless. The unique problems of this group, such as victimization and street life, are discussed with implications for educators. Recommendations are made for program and policy in this…

The B. F. Day Elementary School in Seattle (Washington) exemplifies positive changes that can be made with principal leadership and teacher involvement. The school is one of six Seattle urban schools receiving federal and state support for educating homeless children under the McKinney Homeless Assistance Act. (SLD)

Describes positive results coming from Trinity University's active support of educational reform efforts at Hawthorne Elementary School (Houston, Texas). Trinity's teacher education agenda focused on preparing teachers for the real world of the elementary school and pursuing a teacher-selected school reform project. (GR)

Provides an evaluator's view of the quantitative effects of the Core Knowledge Sequence, a content-based K-6 curriculum model, and other reforms at Hawthorne Elementary School (Houston, Texas). Pretest and posttest results show increased academic performance in reading, writing, and mathematics, based on Texas Assessment of Academic Skills…

Focuses on a low-performing school district to review the problems of school reform and accountability, and to reveal the set of prevailing conditions and themes that make change more complicated. It is argued that the politics of race, poverty, the vacuums in communication and leadership, and the uncritical mass of human resources dramatically…