This brief conducts a fiscal analysis of the West Virginia Hope Scholarship Program for fiscal year (FY) 2024, the program's second year in operation. The analysis estimates the net fiscal effects of the program on state and local taxpayers statewide and for each school district. It also provides fiscal context and basic data to help inform the…

This policy brief estimates the fiscal impacts of expanding New Hampshire's Education Freedom Account (EFA) program under two bills that were introduced in the state Legislature during the 2025 session. The analysis covers the first two years of each plan. The EFA program is currently open to public and private school K-12 students whose family…

Grow Your Own (GYO) programs are an increasingly popular strategy for strengthening and diversifying the teacher workforce. By focusing on recruiting and preparing teachers from the community for the community, GYO programs are highly localized and designed to meet the needs of teacher candidates and the school systems where they will work. This…

In the United States, state-funded preschool is a critical component of both K-12 public education and the early childhood education and care system. In 2021, 44 states and the District of Columbia operated 63 school/center-based preschool programs serving over 1.3 million children. The vast majority of state-funded preschool programs require two…

In Washington state, the Working Connections subsidized child care program, along with the Seasonal Child Care and Child Welfare Child Care programs, supports children from low-income households, fostering their early learning and development while enabling families to maintain employment. Within these programs it is important to monitor patterns…

This study examined the status of school orchestra and string programs in Louisiana. A manual web search for string programs in parish school districts, student school affiliations from honor orchestra lists, Louisiana members of the American String Teachers Association (ASTA), and members of the Louisiana Music Educators Association was conducted…

The Kalamazoo Promise (KPromise) is amongst the most well-known and generous tuition-free policies. This study advances the understanding of Promise student performance and persistence. We used a weighted-least square means and variance adjusted (WLSMV) SEM approach and k-nearest neighbors (k-NN) to deal with missing data. The main model suggested…

The 2010 health reform bill, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, included a provision that would expand eligibility of the public insurance program Medicaid. One concern raised about implementing the Medicaid expansion is that it would lead to reductions in state spending in other policy domains. In this study, we test whether adopting…

While research has documented outcomes for students served by promise programs, few studies have considered the behavior of institutions themselves in the promise era. A new source of revenue combined with larger and more diverse cohorts is likely to motivate changes in spending and staffing--decisions instrumental to student access and success.…

A 50-cent-per-pack tax on cigarettes and other tobacco products has been endorsed by California voters to fund early childhood services under Proposition 10, California Children and Families First Act of 1998. In compliance with the legislative requirement of Result-Based Accountability (RBA) on revenue spending, this report delineates evaluation…

Over the past few decades, we have witnessed a surge in publicly funded pre-K programs in the United States. Today, policy makers in 45 states and the District of Columbia have adopted them. Combining information from twelve datasets, we use event history analysis (EHA) to examine the influence of a set of predictors on states' decisions to adopt…

As statewide college promise programs continue to develop, emerging equity concerns necessitate interrogating whom programs benefit and how expense funds can be applied. Critical Policy Analysis (CPA) is used in this chapter to understand how statewide promise programs advance or hinder racial equity across eligibility and financial aid support…

California voters decided to collect a 50 cent-per-pack tax on cigarette and other tobacco products and use the money to fund early childhood services under Proposition 10, California Children and Families First Act of 1998. In compliance to the legislative requirement of Result-Based Accountability (RBA) on the revenue spending, this report…

In 2021-2022, Head Start served nearly 790,000 young children, primarily from low-income families. However, the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) estimates that far more children are eligible than can be served due to limited resources, heightening the importance of targeting services effectively. House Report 117-96 includes a…

Education savings accounts (ESAs) are education funding mechanisms that allow for families to receive a deposit of public funds to a government-authorized savings account. Using student-level longitudinal data, this paper examines how families participating in the Florida Gardiner Scholarship Program use education savings account funds. Results…