Improving the Odds for America's Children

Kathleen McCartney is the president of Smith College and the former dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is a developmental psychologist who conducts research on the effects of early childhood education policy and practice, especially for low-income children. She has published more than 150 research articles and edited several volumes, including The Handbook of Early Childhood Development (Blackwell, 2008). She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science, the National Academy of Education, and the American Psychological Society. Hirokazu Yoshikawa is the Courtney Sale Ross University Professor of Globalization and Education at New York University. He conducts research on the effects of policies related to early childhood development, immigration, and poverty reduction on children in high-, middle-, and low-income countries. He is the author of Immigrants Raising Citizens: Undocumented Parents and their Young Children (Russell Sage, 2011). He currently serves as co-chair of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network workgroup on education; he also serves as a member of the presidentially appointed U.S. National Board for Education Sciences. Laurie B. Forcier is senior academic projects manager at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Previously, she was a research associate with the Program for Education and Equity Research in the Education Policy Center of the Urban Institute. She was also a member of the research team for the Congressional Commission for the Advancement of Women and Minorities in Science, Engineering and Technology Development, contributing to its 2000 publication Land of Plenty: Diversity as America’s Competitive Edge in Science, Engineering and Technology and co-authoring a paper on math and science teacher recruitment for the National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century.

"In Improving the Odds for America's Children, edited by McCartney (president, Smith College), Yoshikawa (New York Univ.), and Forcier (Harvard Graduate School of Education), the importance of investing in the future of the US by investing in the most vulnerable resource—the children—is superbly and clearly substantiated through the groundwork of scientifically based research and evidence-based practices...This collection of essays on the critical issues facing America's children is a mustread for educators, child and family advocates, and policy makers at all levels." — B. A. Perrachione, CHOICE Connect

• CONTENTS Foreword by Congressman George Miller ix Introduction Kathleen McCartney, Hirokazu Yoshikawa, and Laurie B. Forcier 1 Prenatal and Infant health and Development 1 Health Care for Children: Forty Years of Health Policy 13 Sara Rosenbaum and Partow Zomorrodian 2 A Healthy Start Before and After Birth: Applying the Biology of Adversity to Build the Capabilities of Caregivers 28 Jack P. Shonkoff Early Childhood Care and Education 3 A Great Beginning: Ensuring Early Opportunities forAmerica’s Young Children 43 Joan Lombardi 4 A Future for Preschool in the United States: Integrating Innovations from Global Perspectives 58 Hirokazu Yoshikawa and Kathleen McCartney School Reform 5 The Past as Prologue to the Future: Envisioning School Reform for the Twenty-First Century 73 Deborah Jewell-Sherman 6 Building a Twenty-First-Century School System: Creating a Teaching Profession and Multiple Student Pathways 84 Jal Mehta and Robert B. Schwartz The Achievement Gap 7 Confronting the Achievement Gap: A District-Level Perspective 101 Jerry D. Weast 8 Rising Inequality and the School Performance of Low- and High-Income Children 121 Greg J. Duncan and Richard J. Murnane Vulnerable Children 9 Beyond Child Protection: Helping All Families Provide Adequate Parenting 135 Michael S. Wald 10 Child Protection and Child Welfare: Meeting the Needs of Vulnerable Children 148 Jane Waldfogel Juvenile Justice 11 The Wheel Turns: Recreating a System of Justice for Juveniles 161 Robert G. Schwartz 12 Using Scientific Research to Transform Juvenile Justice Policy and Practice: A Modest Success Story and Some Suggestions for the Next Four Decades 174 Laurence Steinberg Child Poverty 13 Policies to Reduce Poverty: Supporting Family Income as an Investment in Children’s Futures 189 Arloc Sherman, Robert Greenstein, and Sharon Parrott 14 The State of Research on Children and Families in Poverty: Past, Present, and Future Empirical Avenues of Promise 203 Eric Dearing Afterword by Marian Wright Edelman 217 Notes 221 Acknowledgments 255 About the Editors 257 About the Contributors 259 Index 265