On the Success of Failure is about the practice of grade retention in elementary schools, a particularly vexing problem in urban school systems. The book describes the school context of retention and evaluates its consequences by tracking the experiences of a large, representative sample of Baltimore school children from first grade through high school. It […]

Examines what historic transformations in power relationships can teach us about our own time–and about what lies ahead. In a period of dramatic political transformation and upheaval, as we wonder what the future holds, this book reminds us that the world has experienced enormous changes before and that an understanding of those changes may tell […]

Welfare mothers are popularly viewed as passively dependent on their checks and averse to work. Reformers across the political spectrum advocate moving these women off the welfare rolls and into the labor force as the solution to their problems. Making Ends Meet offers dramatic evidence toward a different conclusion: In the present labor market, unskilled […]