Through its commodity program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) provides commodity foods at no cost to schools taking part in the national school meals programs. Commodities include raw ground beef, cheese, poultry, and fresh produce. Like federal food safety agencies, the commodity program has taken steps designed to reduce microbial…

Current U.S. policy initiatives to improve the U.S. education system, including No Child Left Behind, test-based evaluation of teachers and the promotion of competition, are misguided because they either deny or set to the side a basic body of evidence documenting that students from disadvantaged households on average perform less well in school…

In 1982 civil rights activist Rev. Jesse Jackson criticized President Ronald Reagan's attacks on busing to coerce school desegregation for targeting "not the bus, but us." Two decades later, the United States Supreme Court ended the thirty-two-year-old Charlotte, North Carolina, plan which had launched the era of court-ordered busing…

Achieving the goals of federal education legislation depends on how federal funds are distributed and used. Since the enactment of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) in 1965, various federal programs have been created to support educational improvement and target additional resources to meet the educational needs of children who are…

Since the 1960s, there have been continuing federal efforts to bring reform to scale in high-poverty elementary and secondary schools across the U.S. This paper traces the evolution of these efforts and discusses their impacts on achievement outcomes. Drawing on evidence from meta-analyses of the Title I evaluation literature and the Comprehensive…

American Indian organizations in Chicago grew both in size and number during the 1970s. The lasting impact of War on Poverty programs and the passing of the Indian Education Act of 1972 and the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act of 1973 served as significant factors for the development of these organizations. Alternative American Indian…

This document reports on a congressional oversight hearing on the Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) Program on its 25th anniversary. This hearing is also the opening hearing toward the reauthorization of VISTA, the Federal Government's only full-time domestic volunteer service to alleviate poverty-related problems. Testimony includes…

Despite both Congress and Court, top administrators of the Office of Economic Opportunity have poverty programs and community action agencies on a self-destruct course by June 30. (DM)

The Navajo-Hopi Long Range Act and the War on Poverty, had much in common in terms of assumptions and patterns of interaction between reformers and those being reformed: part of this consistancy may be attributed to a failure on the part of the reformers to examine and profit from the experiences of previous reformers. (Author/JM)

Examines the development of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program and analyzes workfare reforms proposed by Senators Moynihan and Armstrong and the National Service program proposed by Senator Nunn. Argues that all of these programs are based on racism, sexism, and classism. (FMW)

IN THIS HANDBOOK PROCEDURES FOR THE DESIGNATION, RECOGNITION, AND STRUCTURE OF COMMUNITY ACTION AGENCIES UNDER SECTIONS 210 AND 211 OF THE ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY ACT, AS AMENDED BY THE ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY AMENDMENTS OF 1967 ARE OUTLINED. ADDITIONAL POLICIES REQUIRED BY THE 1967 AMENDMENTS WILL BE ISSUED IN THE FUTURE. DETAILED TIMETABLES FOR…

This document presents the record of a hearing on the reauthorization of the Demonstration Partnership Program (DPP), part of the Community Services Block Grant Act. The program offers community action agencies the opportunity to test new methods for reducing dependency and fostering self-sufficiency among the poor. Six agency representatives…

The school lunch program has not responded to national needs: the greater the need of the child from a poor neighborhood, the less the community is able to meet it. Of about eight million children whose families cannot afford the cost of a school meal, three million receive a lunch free or at reduced cost; of the five million denied reasonable…

Noting the while there may be much support for the principle that families on welfare should have access to 2 years of education and training and then be expected to work, this paper contends that it will be extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, to design a coherent and constructive program within the probable federal budget constraints. In…

This 60-item annotated bibliography focuses on case management as it relates to welfare, Medicaid, and/or the Family Support Act of 1988. While specific definitions, types of practice, and goals of case management vary greatly, the term here refers to a strategy of coordinating or integrating services for a client or group of clients in the social…