America's Diversity of Children

Union City Public Schools has overcome the crippling effects of poverty and prejudice to close the achievement gap between its low-income Hispanic students and their wealthier peers across New Jersey.

There are significant disparities in the education, economic well-being, and health of children in the U.S. based on their race-ethnicity and whether or not their parents are immigrants, according to Diverse Children: Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration in America’s New Non-Majority Generation, the first report ever to draw these comparisons.

A new policy brief from the Center for Research on Children in the U.S. (CROCUS) by William T. Gormley, Jr., Karin Kitchens, and Shirley Adelstein at Georgetown University explores the effects of state-funded pre-K programs in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on different population groups to understand if middle-class families benefit from the program.

Federal safety net initiatives lift millions of children out of poverty and mitigate the scope and impact of problems ranging from illness to hunger.

The 2012 Annual Release of the CWI reports that American families’ economic decline preceded the recession, jeopardizing both middle class and low income children.

A special Child Well-Being Index (CWI) report from Duke University tracks trends over time in percentages and numbers of middle and high school students exposed to four forms of peer-to-peer adolescent violence in schools, specifically: threat without injury; threat with a weapon without injury; intentional injury without a weapon; and injury with a weapon.

This Foundation for Child Development funded volume: Improves the understanding of how the well-being of American’s children can be measured and improved The first book of its kind to address the issue of developing and Improving the Child and Youth Well-Being Index Includes a systematic description and presentation of a unified approach to these topics The volume attests to the evolution of the Child Well-Being Index and asks what it promises for understanding the progress — or lack of progress — in enhancing the life prospects of all American children.

This presentation was given by Linda Sullivan-Dudzic on March 13, 2012 as part of the U.S Department of Education webinar on PreK-3rd as a strategy to improve student achievement.