Improving the Odds for America's Children

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. "In the past forty years, the Children's Defense Fund has tirelessly worked to improve the lives of children in America. There are dozens of laws on the books protecting children and supporting families that simply wouldn't be there if it weren't for the Children's Defense Fund. But the work on behalf of America's children is not done. This important collection of ideas about how to improve the odds for America's children should be required reading for policy makers across the country." -- Hillary Rodham Clinton, former secretary of state and U.S. senator Contributors: 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 former dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Hirokazu Yoshikawa is the Courtney Sale Ross University Professor of Globalization and Education. Laurie B. Forcier is senior academic projects manager at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.