The "Policy to Performance Toolkit" is designed to provide state adult education staff and key stakeholders with guidance and tools to use in developing, implementing, and monitoring state policies and their associated practices that support an effective state adult basic education (ABE) to postsecondary education and training transition…

Behavioral definitions are provided for the following four basic values that drive state educational policymaking: (1) choice; (2) efficiency; (3) equity; and (4) quality. How these values are distributed by the priorities of policymakers is discussed and illustrated through examination of the values of Illinois and Wisconsin. (SLD)

Wisconsin's Task Force on Early Education, Child Care, and Family Involvement identified the early education, child care, and family support services that will be needed in coming years and determined how these services should be implemented and coordinated. The task force began its work with an invitational conference involving about 100…

The school community resource book on child abuse and neglect is the result of a 12-month project to aid Wisconsin school districts in developing community teams who would in turn work with the schools in setting up a policy and procedure concerned with the identification, reporting, referral, and prevention of child abuse/neglect. Sections…

An executive summary of a study of early intervention policies for young children at risk of academic failure in state education agencies (SEAs) in the North Central United States is provided. The SEAs selected for the study were located in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Policies developed before January, 1989…

This paper describes the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction's (DPI's) efforts in the area of education for employment. The efforts grew out of the Parker Project's attempt to determine the needs of business and industry in the state. This report contains the following components of the Education for Employment program, under the following…

This report from the governor-appointed Council on Library and Network Development (COLAND), which makes recommendations for updating the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction's library automation policy, comprises a summary of the council's recommendations and 14 issue papers. These papers, which make up the major part of the report, are…

The policy statements reported here were developed to assist decisionmakers in the improvement of vocational education in Wisconsin through the clarification of philosophy, restatement of principles, and categorization of statements of policy. First, a preamble sets the framework for what follows by defining some basic concepts, including…

Summarizes remarks made by the Governor of Wisconsin about welfare reform, supporting more flexibility at the state level to enable states to try new approaches that will help people get off welfare. Initiatives undertaken in Wisconsin are reviewed, with emphasis on work programs and apprenticeships for high school students. (SLD)

This paper is one in a series of research papers related to the state role in youth employment and training. It describes seven state-sponsored youth employment and training programs, representing a varied range of approaches that states have undertaken to address their youth employment problems. The first section of this paper provides capsule…

Many of Wisconsin's working families face economic distress, living from paycheck to paycheck and being forced to choose between paying their rent or buying food for their children. Parents under stress often cannot support their children with time, energy or resources. In order to affirm the importance of children in the state, and to help build…

It is becoming increasingly clear that "work first" solutions to welfare reform such as Wisconsin Works (W-2) are problematic for families with a disabled parent or child. Wisconsin's existing policies are especially ill-tailored to meet the special needs of the following broad categories of low-income families: (1) W-2 families that…

Income replacement and reemployment programs in Michigan and its neighboring states were examined in the context of recent changes in federal policy regarding compensation and services for individuals who have lost their jobs or sustained job-related injuries. The analysis focused primarily on the following programs: (1) Unemployment Insurance…

Wisconsin's welfare reform program, which is called Wisconsin Works or W-2, emphasizes work over education. Wisconsin's welfare reform policy caused the numbers of Wisconsin welfare recipients attending college to shrink by thousands in the mid-1990s. In contrast, increasing numbers of states are coming to realize how much flexibility they really…

The effectiveness of state enterprise zone programs was examined by using a hypothetical-firm model called the Tax and Incentives Model-Enterprise Zones (TAIM-ez) model to analyze the value of enterprise zone incentives to businesses across the United States and especially in the 13 states that had substantial enterprise zone programs by 1990. The…