Each year, effective federal programs give parents the power to provide their children with affordable healthcare, nutritious food, stable housing, and early childhood education. These programs lift millions of children out of poverty, but also have long-term benefits--children in families who accessed these programs have higher educational…

A major challenge for education policymakers and educators globally is the strong and persistent impact of student socio-economic status (SES) on learning. This is a challenge that will not be addressed solely by school-focused reform. However, one policy initiative that could make a positive difference in this regard, and could bring other…

In September 2000, building upon a decade of major United Nations conferences and summits, world leaders came together at United Nations Headquarters in New York to adopt the United Nations Millennium Declaration, committing their nations to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and setting out a series of time-bound targets--with a…

The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) is the second largest federally subsidized food assistance program, serving approximately 31 million lunches each day. Nearly all public and private schools offer the federally reimbursed school meals program, which cost the federal government $9.3 billion to operate in 2008. This Issue Brief highlights the…

In 1976, the Columbian Government set up PAN to combat the country's serious malnutrition through coordination of the public and private production, distribution, health, sanitation, and education sectors. After describing PAN, this report considers its problems and approaches relating to nutrition education for both PAN professionals and its…

The special needs of the homeless elderly are discussed, followed by the presentation of a program designed to augment the work of public shelters by coordinating medical, nutrition, and social services in a day center format that is structurally integrated within the local aging service infrastructure, utilizing existing resource patterns.…

This report contains summaries by representatives of major federal agencies of the ways in which their programs relate to children. Generally, each reporting agency provides a brief description of programs, information on authorizing legislation, appropriations and any recent program modifications as well as names of any programs that have been…

The final report of the Texas Childhood Hunger Identification Project (Texas CHIP), this document describes the most comprehensive study of childhood hunger undertaken in Texas. Through enumeration and interviewing methods, low-income families from 27 counties in Texas were analyzed in the areas of income allocation, food frequency, homelessness,…

Political changes underway at both the federal and state levels will dramatically affect public policies for children and their families in the years ahead. Drawing from over 550 budget line items in 10 state departments from 1990 to 1995, this report looks at spending on Illinois' children and families by program areas, with some specific…