This brief discusses issues of school finance equity as they relate to resources and services provided to special education students. It uses information obtained from a recent study of Chapter 1, which examined educational resources and expenditures in 95 elementary schools in 30 school districts across 5 states. The schools had students with…

This study presents findings from an ongoing study of urban childhood on public assistance. The study used interviews with aldermen, social workers, police, public housing and ghetto neighborhood residents, and medical personnel as well as the collection of field study data from local institutions and their representatives. The results appear in…

The Listening Partners project examined rural mothers' development of a sense of the power of their own minds and voices and the relationship between this sense of power and mothers' parenting strategies and their children's development. Two cohorts of 60 women from a rural, impoverished region of Vermont participated in the program. Half the…

This report summarizes information about Indiana's children and the institutions that touch their lives. Chapter 1 examines current demographic trends that relate to Indiana families. Chapter 2 reviews work and income patterns among adults and working teens, and reports on youths' aspirations for future careers. The growing issue of poverty among…

This report synthesizes research findings with observations of three Pacific Northwest sites attempting service integration in rural settings. At case-study sites in Washington and Oregon, rural schools, communities, and service providers collaborate to deliver services to students and community members suffering from high unemployment, alcohol…

Smart Start is a broad-based community initiative to ensure that all of North Carolina's children arrive at school healthy and ready to learn. This study examined the effect of Smart Start on the quality of child care from 1994-1996. Data were collected from child care centers in 12 counties implementing the initiative. Data collectors visited 180…

Helping urban principals and schools work effectively requires analyzing the urban school context. Ways in which schools can serve the poor are detailed in this study. The research employed three separate approaches: use of qualitative and quantitative methodologies to identify the primary concerns of residents from three economically depressed…

Federal block grants and consolidated programs related to poverty reduction may compel states to streamline administrative structures and approaches that have deterred collaboration in the past. This report considers the block grant environment in making key policy recommendations for reducing poverty in rural areas, formulated during a Pathways…

This report describes some of the ways in which Head Start agencies are helping to set parents on the path to self-sufficiency. The report is intended to illustrate the variety of initiatives that are underway and to highlight the important work all Head Start agencies are doing to support parents as they move from welfare to work. The…

This paper discusses three topics relevant to early child care and education: changing patterns in parenting; child care entitlements; and sex-role stereotyping and racism. Discussion of the first topic highlights the effects on parenting of such factors as: (1) high divorce rates; (2) poverty; (3) maternal employment; (4) shared parenting; and…

The One-Room-Drop-In-School (ORDIS) emerged as one of Tennessee's dropout prevention program innovations. A pilot ORDIS was started in Nashville (Tennessee), in a high density housing project where concentrations of poverty and illiteracy usually exist. A five-bedroom apartment in the housing project was set up as a school. A certified teacher,…

This book comprises 19 essays that attempt to tell the truth about urban poverty, social dislocation, and changes in American family life. They show that the rise in the percentage of children living in poverty is due to an increasing number of female-headed households and a decline in the earnings of young men. The following papers are included:…

This special report from the National Commission for Employment Policy on coordinating federal assistance programs for the economically disadvantaged contains two parts. Part 1 includes recommendations for improving public assistance coordination programs in general and employment and training programs in particular. Eight recommendations focus on…

The Literacy and Health Project was set up to determine how reading and health problems were connected. A research phase documented the relationship between literacy and health. Information was collected from community organizations, literature review, three case studies in Ontario, and key informant interviews. The consultation process involved…

Children in Africa starve to death or fail to thrive and achieve their full potential as a result of social problems that have their roots in both national and international issues. In many African countries, parents are unable to feed their children because farmers no longer grow enough food and prefer to cultivate cash crops that are exported to…