Teachers and administrators are not adequately prepared to address the range of children's social and psychological needs but must rely on parental and community assistance. Instead of merely referring students to social services and health departments, schools must become multiple-service brokers and forge broad community alliances to protect and…

The 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (Title I) embodies a 35-year national commitment to help educate economically and educationally disadvantaged children. Enhanced achievement expectations and a resurgent child poverty rate should spur Congress to renew Title I funding by the end of 1999-2000. (14 references) (MLH)

This article summarizes the efforts of legislators in studying up on what they might do to affect how well kids learn after the summer break. Some of the legislators' work leaned toward improving students' health, while some targeted dropouts or civic education. Most of the capitol-dome work appears to have matched the typical garden: a few…

Discusses implementation issues surrounding the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act of 1981 (Chapter 2), which consolidates 28 programs, including the Emergency School Aid Act (ESAA), the major federal desegregation program. Major concerns include reduced eligibility requirements, distribution of funds, administrative responsibility,…

For over 25 years, Title I and Chapter 1 programs have provided remedial services to children deficient in basic skills by instructing them separately. The most important future objectives for compensatory education are preventing early reading failure, enhancing regular classroom instruction, and improving assessment and accountability. (27…

Describes the Yellow School Bus Project, a community program jointly sponsored by religious, civic, fraternal, business, and nonprofit organizations in Durham, New Hampshire, to provide homeless children with supplies and clothes to help them succeed in school. (PKP)

A Non-fiction short story .

Born in rural Tennessee, 15-year-old Billy Charles Barnett is proficient enough at hunting and fishing to support himself by teaching his survivalist skills to others. His economic well-being is threatened by required school attendance. Given the impoverished state of American education, society would not necessarily benefit from a lower dropout…

Chapter 1 aims will not be achieved until disadvantaged youngsters are succeeding in the regular program and exhibiting grade-level proficiency. To succeed, Chapter 1 programs must be coordinated with regular instruction, emphasize more than basic skills, and abandon low learning expectations and stereotyped notions of poor and minority students.…

One of the main goals of recent education reform efforts, including NCLB, is to close the achievement gap between disadvantaged and minority students and their wealthier, white peers. In this article, the authors present data showing that closing those gaps once they have emerged is no easy task. (Contains 10 endnotes.)

Tackles the "floundering period" between high school graduation and noncollege-bound students' first career-entry job. Blames age, an unfavorable labor market, and disjunctions between the labor market and the school system. Describes West Germany's system of apprenticeship and part-time schooling and advocates exploiting experiential…

In poor, urban schools, so much time is spent controlling and disciplining children to obey authority (or to learn the hidden curriculum), that scant time is left for "real" teaching and learning. This article shows how school culture (conditions, norms, relationships, and structures) can be changed to educate all children adequately. Includes 10…

Since home is the most unequal environment in education, school should be an arena of equity. Alternative education can catalyze America's unrealized hopes by helping poor, discouraged youngsters overcome their most debilitating handicaps: rampant pessimism, failure to trust in effort, and mistrust of societal institutions. Doing nothing is not an…

According to superintendent of San Diego (California) City Schools, days are past when schools could concentrate simply on basic education and leave child's social, physical, psychological, and economic needs to others. New Beginnings, a collaborative effort to meet student and family needs, succeeds because participants developed shared…