This volume tells the story of the concerned adults who have come forward to mentor disadvantaged urban youth, one-on-one, in cities across the country. It illustrates what middle-class volunteers can do to ameliorate the conditions of young people living in poverty. Mentoring can complement government efforts and contribute to the broader…

Urban conservation and service corps units, which provide jobs to disadvantaged youth and engage them in activities beneficial to the wider society, such as building or restoring city facilities, are discussed in this document, which contains two separate reports. Report 1 describes the origin and basic features of urban corps programs in New York…

Problems of unemployed youth are presented in the context of urban development in nine American cities: Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Kansas City, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. The migration during the 1950's of the urban white population to the suburbs initiated a significant change in the economic and…

This report summarizes the findings of some recent pivotal studies of class size, especially as they relate to students at risk. Of particular note is a large-scale study of class size, which was designed to test the conclusions of G. Glass and M. Smith (1978) and G. Robinson (1990) about the advantages of small class size. This study, Project…

The National Center for Education Statistics reported that in 1992 approximately 4.5% of all high school students dropped out of grades 10 through 12, and 11% of all persons in the age group 16 through 24 had not completed high school and were not currently enrolled. The Communities in Schools (CIS) network is a web of local, state, and national…

In the 1992 amendments to the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, Congress established incentive grants for local delinquency prevention programs, know as the Community Prevention Grants Program. This report is the third annual report on this program, which provides the framework, tools, and funding for communities to help divert…

No tool has promoted educational reform more completely than coordinated school-linked services. This paper integrates results of a cross-program analysis examining 6 coordinated school-linked service programs for widely implemented practices and results of a quantitative synthesis of 44 studies of the effects of school-linked programs on…

Using data from a large project on child abuse and neglect as predictors of violent criminal behavior, researchers investigated the connection between childhood maltreatment and later arrest for alcohol and drug-related offenses. After controlling for age, gender, and race, child maltreatment was found to be a significant predictor of delinquency.…

Through Title V Incentive Grants for Local Delinquency Prevention Programs (Community Prevention Grants), the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) allocated $20 million in fiscal year 1997 to states to complement law enforcement and justice system efforts by helping local communities foster strong families and nurture…

The Florida State Legislature and the Department of Education have generally addressed the 1997 recommendations of the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability (OPPAGA) for improving student performance in high-poverty schools. Recent legislation and department actions have established a stronger foundation for ensuring that…

Based on nearly 500 interviews and qualitative case studies of families in inner-city Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), this book reveals how parents and their teenage children managed different levels of resources and dangers in low-income neighborhoods and how families and communities contributed to the development of the children. The chapters are:…

The presence of young people in public spaces and the types of activities in which they engage have generated considerable debate and discussion in Australia in recent years. This guide provides brief descriptions of a range of public space projects that have been undertaken in Australia. The aim is to outline the key elements of a youth-friendly…

The largest single federal investment in schooling, Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (P.L. 103-382) has provided supplementary resources to schools with large numbers of low-income students throughout the past three decades. In 1994 the program was reauthorized according to the Improving America's Schools Act (IASA), which…

Proposes that metropolitan colleges be established to give disadvantaged inner city youth the cultural experiences that they would not otherwise have. The metropolitan college is seen "as an institution whose central purpose is the education of young people by any and all means necessary." (Author/JM)

Shares the perspectives of a black parent, herself a teacher at a school founded by the Black Panthers, whose daughter was educated in the public schools of Oakland (California) and Kalamazoo (Michigan) between 1986 and 1996. Many negative experiences, some centered around language, are described. (SLD)