Reviews the child poverty rate in the United States over the last several decades and examines the impact of economic and demographic trends and changes in government programs on the poverty status of children. (MDM)

Reviews statistics on children in foster care. Examines the definition of foster care, the reasons children are placed in foster care, the various living arrangements that constitute foster care, and the rapid growth of the foster care population. (MDM)

Explores the situations of "missing" children and discusses sources of information about these children. More than 99% of all missing child cases reported to police in 1996 were successfully resolved, but data suggest that about 150,000 children each year are hurt physically or mentally during the time they are missing. (SLD)

Reviews measures of dental health in children and the evidence on child dental health. Although children's dental health has improved over the past two decades, many poor children do not receive necessary dental health services, and reasons for this failure are summarized. (SLD)

Examines three concepts of school readiness and national survey data on parent and teacher ideas about what constitutes readiness for individual children. The authors then examine some of the indicators and benchmarks that have been proposed to measure progress toward the readiness goal as proposed in Readiness 2000. (GR)