According to testimony delivered by Franklin Frazier, Director of Education and Employment Issues at the U.S. General Accounting Office, at a Joint Economic Committee hearing of the U.S. Congress, the United States falls short in preparing noncollege youth for employment. The foreign countries reviewed in a study (England, Germany, Japan, and…

This collection describes over 340 projects in which the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) at the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis) has played a role in the past two years. The CURA offers a program of research and outreach on urban problems, which brings the resources of the university to bear on the problems of urban communities.…

The five essays in this volume address broad trends and issues in foreign language education. "Bandwagons Revisited: A Perspective on Movements in Foreign Language Education" (Frank M. Grittner) suggests that the bandwagons flourish because of lack of standardization and centralized authority in American education. Characteristics and results of…

The perception that the United States is falling behind in the skills race has prompted experts to look abroad for policy ideas. Of particular interest has been the German "dual system," which alternates 2 to 3 years of highly structured work-based training with classroom teaching for young people, beginning at age 16. Buoyed by the success of the…

Two surveys, one qualitative and one quantitative, were conducted of the opinions and experiences of New York State parents of children with learning delays and disabilities regarding parental labor force participation, child care options, and preferences in state policies. A total of 141 parents responded to the quantitative survey and 210 to the…

This document, prepared for an ongoing assessment on adult literacy and new technologies, reports on a study that examined the scope and suitability of software for adult literacy programs, available sources of information concerning software use in adult literacy programs, and the implications for federal policy. First, a quantitative analysis of…

There is mounting evidence that the most significant deficit of new work force entrants is not an "academic skills gap" but rather poor attitudes concerning work. Despite growing recognition of their fundamental link to the quality of the work force, work attitudes have received virtually no detailed discussion in the public policy arena. Research…

More of Britain's young people finish formal schooling earlier than in most other industrialized countries. This lack of formal educational attainment is not offset by higher than average vocational training in later years. The low level of education and training is not primarily the result of supply constrains, but is caused by a low level of…

This resource manual was produced to assist the South Carolina Technical College System's efforts to improve institutional effectiveness and accountability. The first two sections of the manual provide a brief foreword, a description of state initiatives for research and academic excellence in South Carolina, the text of state legislation…

The United States confronts the problem of a large and growing prison population, the majority of which is insufficiently literate. Added to the general effects of educational disability are the marginalizing factors of ethnicity, class, socioeconomic deprivation, and other handicaps. Historically, the situation in prison literacy is 150 years of…

Rising competition in world and domestic markets for the past 2 decades has necessitated that U.S. companies undergo significant transformations to improve their performance with respect to a wide array of efficiency and quality indicators. Research on the transformations recently undertaken by some U.S. companies to boost performance revealed two…

A discussion of family and intergenerational programs promoting literacy reviews selected research, current policies, goals, models for program design, and curriculum approaches. Research informing both family and intergenerational literacy programs includes early research on literacy in school-age children and more recently, studies of literacy…

Since 1973, families headed by someone younger than 30 years of age have experienced a collapse in the value of their incomes, a surge in poverty, and an erosion of employer-provided health benefits. This report details the deep economic losses among young families with children and warns of consequences from these losses for young and old…

In the past, post-secondary education has been an option for welfare recipients wishing to increase their earning power. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) shifted federal policy and made it more difficult for welfare recipients to pursue a college education. Nevertheless, several work activities…

This annotated bibliography focuses on materials published after 1991 about cultural competence and children with special health care needs. It is divided into the following sections: (1) epidemiology and demographics (11 publications); (2) cultural competence (15 publications); (3) cultural competence and children and youth with disabilities (29…