The Family Support Act of 1988 is based on the assumption that education, training, work experience, and support are the way to reduce welfare dependence. The Job Opportunities and Basic Skills Training program in the act requires participation of many welfare recipients in state job training programs. Comprehensive welfare reform programs in California (Greater Avenues to Independence) and Massachusetts (Employment and Training CHOICES) have had some success, but the needs for basic skill remediation and a healthy economy for job placement cannot be matched in all states. Results of these and other programs in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, Florida, and New Jersey underscore the importance of a primary focus on long-term educational rather than short-term goals as well as the danger of rhetoric that attributes educational/employment problems to lack of motivation or abdication of parental responsibilities. A basic flaw continues to be the lack of data on education-welfare links. (A listing of questions for the media to focus on concentrates on the capacity of the education system to gear up to improve the literacy of those on welfare. Addresses and telephone numbers are provided for seven resources in the area of linking welfare and education.) (CML)