We report the use of action learning within a state-owned enterprise charged with delivering a large food security and poverty alleviation program in Mozambique. Successful management of the program requires the co-ordination of a wide variety of different stakeholders including both commercial and subsistence farmers, community leaders and…

This study drew data from a randomized trial of a statewide prekindergarten program in Tennessee and presents new evidence on the impacts of preK on third-grade achievement using administrative data on children's neighborhood environments. Results indicate that preK had no measurable impact on children's third-grade math achievement regardless of…

We know that students cannot learn if they are not in school, and that students with economic challenges miss school more frequently than other students. What obstacles create this attendance gap, and how can school districts provide the supports to improve attendance for these students? The authors of this article, who work with the Texas…

North Carolina's Smart Start and More at Four (MAF) early childhood programs were evaluated through the end of elementary school (age 11) by estimating the impact of state funding allocations to programs in each of 100 counties across 13 consecutive years on outcomes for all children in each county-year group (n = 1,004,571; 49% female; 61%…

By providing early access to education, early childhood and community-based programs are helping to close the achievement gap prevalent among children from impoverished homes.

Investigations of why students with emotional disturbance (ED) are underidentified in special education have often focused on economic factors and problems with the definition of ED. The present study focuses on variation in underidentification across states and its relationship to political ideology. State-level political, economic, and…

Considers the impact of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act and Virginia's initiative for welfare reform on poor families with disabilities. Suggests accommodations are necessary for fair implementation of the reforms. (SK)

Studied the implementation of school-based management in 30 of the poorest school districts in New Jersey (the Abbott districts). Findings show that genuine autonomy has been usurped by increased state power and authority, and that state elites allow little opportunity for capacity building at the district level. The level of democratization has…

Used administrative (for 20,237 adults) and survey data (from about 200 leavers per month) from Georgia to examine risk factors for recidivism among welfare leavers and the relationship between recidivism and leavers' ability to find sustained employment. Results show a threshold of earnings that welfare leavers need to survive at the poverty…

The operation of Medicaid, a joint federal-state program to fund medical services for disabled and indigent persons, over the last 20 years is reviewed with emphasis on evolving policies and practices in Massachusetts. Stressed is the trend toward integration of Medicaid clients into the medical care mainstream. (DB)

Because homeless students' problems reflect complex social problems, a multifaceted, collaborative approach is needed to address fundamental issues. This article provides a framework for examining four levels of collaboration, highlighting lessons learned from pursuing educational goals at the state level. Collaboration with professionals from…

Defining hunger on the basis of poverty or other nonphysiological criteria is misleading. With nutritional data used by human-service agencies, suggests programs with such conception of hunger hurt the efforts at nutritional change. Uses central Mississippi as an example to propose objective nutritional definition and assessment. (TES)

A 3-year study of welfare reform in Ohio's 29 Appalachian counties surveyed human services agencies, county commissioners, poor families, and employers and found that rural barriers to employment included lack of jobs, lack of child care, poor health, lack of education and job skills, and transportation problems. Many former welfare recipients…

Examined the links between the minority and poverty status of public secondary schools and course-taking patterns within those schools by looking at the 1984 Regents Action Plan in New York state to explore the role of standards-based policies in altering connections between schooling context and curricula. Finds show the beneficial effects of the…

Today more than half of the women in America raising children on their own get no financial support from the fathers. The article considers the following aspects of states' roles in dealing with that problem: (1) states' powers and alternatives for action; (2) difficulties faced by states in applying those powers; and (3) suggestions for…