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…

The School-to-Work Urban Opportunities Program represents a 5-year commitment by the Houston Independent School District (HISD) (Texas) and the Houston Community College System to establish a program to facilitate students' development of the skills and abilities necessary to secure meaningful employment. The program involves one high school and…

The primary purpose of the Student Literacy Corps Project is to: (1) improve the literacy skills of approximately 200 educationally disadvantaged children and increase the parents' involvement in their children's literacy development; (2) provide a tutoring experience for approximately 45 undergraduate students and a coaching experience for…

This document contains testimony and prepared statements presented at a hearing held on the initiative of the U.S. Student Association as the kick-off for a series of student-led regional hearings on the Higher Education Act and particularly the financial implications that students and families from across the United States to be held across the…

This paper demonstrates how jointly planned activities can provide an integrated system in bridging the quality gap between urban and rural education in Australia. A national communications policy and delivery system would provide a cost-effective way of improving services to rural areas. Rural schools and colleges can be transformed by developing…

In order to break the cycle of poverty for disadvantaged children and their families, action must be taken to redistribute income and other resources and improve services and institutions that serve the poor. Successful programs are the following: (1) comprehensive, flexible, and responsive; (2) staffed by workers who develop relationships of…

A proposed paradigm for restructuring public schools has at least two essential components: (1) schools and school personnel must recognize the strengths that students bring to school and draw on these capacities to nurture achievement; and (2) schooling should be based on collaboration among its many constituencies, including school personnel,…

Materials are presented for conducting a workshop on increasing participants' awareness of how to integrate assessment options into a comprehensive plan. A typology for assessment options is provided that includes: (1) paper-and-pencil tests; (2) performance assessments; and (3) personal communications options. Assessment options are discussed in…

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 essay examines the challenges that today's children and families face due to the rapidly changing nature of modern society, and suggests some solutions to help ensure the optimal development of children and adolescents. Rapid technological change, the decline of the extended family, the increased number of women in the workplace, and…

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:…

Part of a 3-year study of the Chapter 1 Neglected or Delinquent (Chapter 1 N or D) Program, which provides compensatory education services to youth in state-operated juvenile and adult correctional facilities, this report presents descriptive findings in the following five areas: (1) characteristics of youth; (2) correctional education; (3)…

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…

This book examines the threat to childhood development posed by living amid chronic community violence and the link between a child's response to growing up in an atmosphere of violence and danger and the social context established for that child by community and caregivers. The 11 chapters in the book are as follows: (1) "The Meaning of…

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…