Discusses how preschool helps children develop pre-mathematics, social, and language skills as well as confidence. Claims low-income children have the greatest need for high-quality early care to overcome the disadvantages of poverty, and argues that high-quality child care prevents later costs for special education, welfare, or job training…

California funds 160 programs for children and administers them through 45 different agencies. Such piecemeal service delivery leads to duplication and fails to deal effectively with the multiple, interrelated nature of children's problems. Senator Pete Wilson, Republican gubernatorial candidate, has proposed that social services be unified and…

Asserts that Blacks must do more to solve their own problems through the creation of employment bases, through an emphasis on factors that have contributed to successes within the Black community, and through a greater effort to channel more of society's resources to the problems of low-income people. (MW)

An anecdotal account by a Queens (New York) school principal about serving homeless students and their families during the 1988-89 school year. (MLF)

Recent policy proposals have introduced need-based criteria, as well as the principle of wealthier older persons paying greater taxes or sharing more heavily in financing services and benefits than those who have less income and accumulated wealth. This article reviews emergence of new approaches and concludes with commentary on political…

Examines how widespread the "working poor" problem actually is and concludes that the Clinton administration's views on the dimensions of the "working poor" are seriously distorted. It argues that there are fewer "working poor" households: making up only 12% of all poor families. (GLR)

Summarizes a large-scale, systematic study that described and analyzed instructional practices in about 140 classrooms located in 15 poverty-area elementary schools. Teaching for meaning, or instruction promoting comprehension and conceptual understanding, was compared to more conventional methods. Students exposed to meaning-oriented instruction…

Discusses the passage in the United Kingdom of the Public Libraries Act of 1850 and its reflections of social and political attitudes prevalent at the time, particularly laissez-faire and utilitarianism. Individualism, national education, and middle class concern for the poor are discussed. (60 references) (LRW)

This paper describes procedures developed by Project Synergy, a federally funded project at Columbia University (New York) to identify economically disadvantaged, potentially gifted kindergarten students in urban schools. The procedures emphasize site-appropriate methods, observation, dynamic assessment, and the concept of best performance. It…

Much research comparing public and private schools infers that private schools' superiority is trivial, misleading, and results from skimming the best students. This article describes nontrivial private school advantages, such as a communitarian emphasis, greater influence on outside-class behavior, promotion of intergenerational bonding,…

An Open University (OU) course collected life histories of 60 female students from disadvantaged backgrounds, charting their multiple roles or "careers." OU courses appeared to help them take advantage of community and social opportunities and cope with social or economic instability. (SK)

Assesses the major claims and counterclaims in the debate on the desirability of attaching work-related obligations to the receipt of welfare benefits. Attempts to reach a balanced judgment on whether labor policy should continue moving in that direction. (JOW)

John Goodlad's article in the same "Kappan" issue provides a realistic picture of teacher preparation, but does not reveal new information. Perhaps teacher preparation programs and schooling are deliberately disconnected to guarantee the same dreadful outcomes for the poor and minorities that American schooling has always produced. (MLH)

This nation has spent billions of public dollars over the years on dropout prevention, with limited results. Inspired by Eugene Lang's successes, this article proposes that every state create a Student Incentive Plan for economically disadvantaged children designed to mitigate a legacy of poverty and increase these children's financial security…

When names of 24,000 children from migrant education censuses were cross-referenced with abuse registries, it was found that migrant children were significantly more likely to be maltreated than other children, although incidence rates varied from state to state. The paper emphasizes research methodology, access to central registers, and…