The federal government has a long history of investing in programs for feeding children, starting with federal aid for school lunch programs in the 1930s. Today, federal child nutrition programs support food served to children in schools and a variety of other institutional settings. The child nutrition programs support meals and snacks served to…

Early childhood has always been the most critical developmental period of the life cycle. Yet for most of history, that essential early foundation for all subsequent learning and development was laid in the home, largely through full-time maternal care. Today, though, an unprecedented number of American mothers are in the workforce. Almost…

This is the seventh in a series of hearings to inform this committee's reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. The focus of this hearing, teacher preparation, is profoundly important for all students, from the very youngest to adult students. Study after study shows that teacher quality is the decisive in-school factor in boosting student…

Federal funding for early childhood education and care promotes three overarching policy goals: (1) increasing children's access to services; (2) raising the quality of early childhood programs; and (3) fostering greater coordination among the many providers--public schools, center-based child care, home-based child care, Head Start, and more--of…

In the past decade, the federal government, some states, and numerous communities have initiated programs to help couples form and sustain healthy marriages and relationships in order to increase family stability for children. Thus, the authors value the attention given to this emerging policy area by the "American Psychologist" in a recent…

The federal government devotes roughly one-sixth of its spending to 10 major means-tested programs and tax credits, which provide cash payments or assistance in obtaining health care, food, housing, or education to people with relatively low income or few assets. Those programs and credits consist of the following: (1) Medicaid; (2) the low-income…

Background: In 2009, the Obama Administration announced its intention to rapidly "turn around" 5,000 of the nation's lowest-performing schools. To do so, it relied on the School Improvement Grant (SIG) program to provide temporary funding for states and schools, and to mandate drastic, school-level reforms. Most of these reforms require…

This article explores social policy developments in the arena of intellectual and developmental disabilities. It begins by summarizing the challenges facing persons with intellectual disabilities and their caregivers in 1945. Families depended on a patchwork of over-crowded and under-funded large state institutions. Children with intellectual…

How government spends money, and who benefits, reveals the priorities. How, then, do children fare in the competition for public resources? While families have long been the primary caregivers of children, all levels of government--local, state, and federal--invest in the growth and development of children, whether through education, family…

In 1965, appalled by the racial disparity with respect to access to higher education, the federal government implemented the Higher Education Act. After more than 40 years of programmatic intervention, gaps persist. As such, this study analyzes two of the three original HEA programs--Upward Bound and Talent Search--focusing on race/ethnicity and…

Every parent recognizes the inextricable connections between where we live and the quality of our children's education. Although public policies have historically contributed to disparities in both neighborhood affordability and school quality, federal programs focused on affordable housing rarely take public schools into account and school…

What has happened to poor families with children and corresponding changes in Federal expenditure for antipoverty programs between 1980 and 1984 are the subjects of this study, prepared by the staff of the House Ways and Means Committee. The study attempts to recreate the experience of a "typical" welfare-receiving family, a mother and…

This report presents information from a study on the needs of homeless people which (1) identified and described characteristics of federal programs targeted for homeless people and key nontargeted programs available to assist low income people generally; (2) identified amounts and types of funding for these programs in fiscal year 1997; and (3)…

The National High School Debate Problem Area for 1973-74 centers on the questions, "What is the role of the federal government in extending public assistance to all Americans living in poverty?" This collection of federal government documents and periodical articles supplements the "ERIC First Analysis" of the topic (CS 500…

This testimony on federal assistance for homeless people is based on issued reports and testimony over recent years. It highlights: (1) the federal approach to assisting homeless people; (2) actions of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to overcome coordination and administrative challenges posed by its homelessness programs;…