Tell me what you think about this...

A response to, "What can be done to make lower-income home environments more educationally stimulating for young children?" It is not the teachers place to go into the homes and make them more educational stimulating, rather it is the teachers job to make the classroom as stimulating as possible. You don't see teachers going in to middle to upper class homes and attempting to make their home life more educationally stimulating.

It is up to the individual communities, cities, and counties to be responsible for the education of their children. There needs to be less federal involvement and more local attention toward the children's educational stimulation.Churches, ministries, and local organizations must lead the way in providing for the community and their children.

Many people think that we can provide for our children through programs such as "No child left behind" or other government subsidies of its kind. Many people want help handed to them rather than taking individual responsibility. I think there needs to be a plan in providing assistance, yet it does not need to come through federal funding.

In response to "What kinds of parent training might be effective?" For starters, I agree that there needs to be parental training. The question is, how? It is the churches responsibility to care for the homes. This is a ministry opportunity as James1:27 says "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after> orphans and widows> in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." or in other words, take care of those in need.
It was never the federal governments job to take care of every persons educational experience. The federal government does not have a vested interest in every school of every community. Once again, in order to help the parents of the children, the individual communities must take responsibilities.

In response to "What kinds of early intervention programs might be effective?" The problem with this question is that, we expect a program to produce a certain outcome, programs don't do anything. Lacking people to perform it, lacking priority, and lacking a passion to help people, a program is useless.What the United States needs is less programs, and more individuals taking responsibility for their own community. Programs are impersonal, and therefore they do not understand the needs of individual communities. Education has become a government program/policy rather than a communal ideology and practice. We forfeited our right and responsibility to our children and given it to a government who is responsible to its constituents (middle-upper class).

Final thoughts:
We need to be less reliant on "outside assistance/programs" and more reliant on community involvement. We need less government and more individual assistance. Therefore it is our obligation as educators and Christians to help motivate and inspire our communities for service and the education of our children. Some communities have already done this, but it is the obligation of each community to care for itself. The church can help in leading the way, yet it is still up to individuals to have a passions for educating children. I know that I have not truly answered the question for a program, assistance, or intervention. My only hope is that we will focus less on the affor mentioned items, and focus more on the communities involvement of education (without the federal government's assistance).