Focusing Welfare Reform on Parenting and Child Development: A Strategy for Urban Economic Revitalization

The principal barrier to economic revival in declining American cities is the huge number of poorly educated children who emerge from the public schools in these cities every year. Through utilization of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, this situation could be resolved. The Act provides the opportunity for states and local governments to train welfare recipients in parenting skills and to create work opportunities for those so trained in neighborhood-based child-development, child-care, and parenting-assistance programs. If such programs could employ large numbers of welfare recipients and other low-income parents, the cultural environment of poor neighborhoods could be changed, and children from such neighborhoods could flourish in schools. The above is financially feasible. AFDC dollars heretofore given to welfare recipients with no quid pro quo could become salaries for those employed in programs noted in 2a above.