Improving the Odds for America's Children: Future Directions in Policy and Practice

This landmark volume commemorates the fortieth anniversary of the Children’s Defense Fund, which has been an uncompromising champion of American youth for all of those years. Yet the book looks not to the past but at our current circumstances—and at the challenges we must meet now and in the future on behalf of our young people. The book examines critical issues—prenatal and infant health and development, early child care and education, school reform, the achievement gap, vulnerable children, juvenile justice, and child poverty—and highlights crucial practical and policy measures we need to consider and undertake if we are to better serve American children.

An invaluable survey of the conditions facing American youth—and a call to action at the local, state, and national levels—Improving the Odds for America’s Children is an urgent, informative, and inspired volume that addresses shortcomings and challenges we cannot afford to ignore.

Contributors include Sara Rosenbaum, Partow Zomorrodian, Jack P. Shonkoff, Joan Lombardi, Deborah Jewell- Sherman, Jal Mehta, Robert B. Schwartz, Jerry D. Weast, Greg J. Duncan, Richard J. Murnane, Michael S. Wald, Jane Waldfogel, Robert G. Schwartz, Laurence Steinberg, Arloc Sherman, Robert Greenstein, Sharon Parrott, and Eric Dearing.

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.