The National Forum on Schools, "Partnerships in Education: Toward a Literate America," held in Washington, D.C., on September 20-21, 1989, was called as an impetus to forming educational partnerships in order to generate creative solutions to educational problems. The proceedings document begins with an introduction by Gilbert R. Herer titled "Communication: The Key to Education." It provides the text of a keynote address, "With Literacy and Justice for All: America's Unfinished Revolution" (Mary Hatwood Futrell), and two luncheon addresses, "Language and Literacy in an Information Age" (Senator Paul Simon) and "Federal Policy Briefing Session" (Terry Lierman). Other papers include: "The Young Child at Risk" (Jerome Kagan); "Assessing Young Children: Reconciling Conflicting Needs and Strategies" (Sharon Lynn Kagan); "Young Children at Risk: Language Development and Intervention" (Robbin Parish); "Iowa's Partnership To Help Young Children at Risk" (William L. Lepley); "From Language to Reading and Reading to Language" (Jeanne S. Chall); "Roles of the Speech-Language Pathologist in Disadvantaged Children's Pursuit of Literacy" (Annemarie Sullivan Palincsar); "Motivating the Unmotivated: Meeting the Nation's Literacy Needs into the Twenty-First Century" (S. Jay Samuels); "Education in a Multicultural Society" (Noma LeMoine); "Literacy in America: Cultural Challenges to Progress and Productivity" (Dwight M. Ellis); "Educating Language Minority Children: Politics, Research, and Policy" (James Crawford); "Speech-Language Pathologists and Educators: Time To Strengthen the Partnership" (Fay Boyd Vaughn-Cooke); and "Summary and Recommendations" (Shirley Jones Daniels). (Most papers contains references.) (JDD)