Smart Start Illinois is a multiyear plan to provide every child with access to preschool, increase funding to child care providers to raise wages and quality, and reach more vulnerable families with early support. Launched with a $300 million investment in the fiscal year 2024 state budget, Smart Start Illinois has already yielded results. The…

Pursuant to California Education Code provisions 17201(i)(1)(B)(C), 17203.5, and 66014.6, the California Community Colleges Student Housing 2024 report provides the following information: (1) the 2024 Annual Progress on California Community Colleges Affordable Student Housing; (2) the 2024 California Community Colleges Housing Insecurity; and (3)…

By the time Donald J. Trump was running for president in 2024, he had landed on a clear vision for the federal government's role in education. In short, he had concluded that the federal government's power over education should be relinquished to states, local communities, and, most importantly, families. Early into his second term, Trump has…

The Region 1 Comprehensive Center was asked to support the Maine Department of Education in implementing a Rethinking K-12 Education Models Grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The R1CC technical assistance activities prioritized supporting the Maine DOE in developing the infrastructure for the innovation grants, including serving as a…

Like many states across the nation, California is facing persistent teacher shortages. School districts continue to find it difficult to fill vacancies with fully credentialed teachers, especially math, science, special education, and bilingual education teachers. Teacher shortages impact student learning as districts resort to relying on a…

This report explains how State Entity (SE) Program grantees are using or proposed to use the technical assistance (TA) set-aside portion of their Charter School Programs (CSP) funds for these activities. This report also describes SE activities to ensure subgrantees are equipped to meet the needs of all students, and specifically students with…

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…

About 19 million people submit a Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) each year, making it one of the most commonly experienced federal administrative processes. The widespread reliance on the complicated form and underlying calculation of financial need have spurred efforts to simplify and improve the application process and…

In 2014, the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) thrust adult educators into a dramatically new landscape of service expectations and partnership requirements to increase the ability of providers to meet the employment needs of students and employers. The coronavirus pandemic created an accelerating demand for adult education…

The College Costs and Financial Aid Report provides an analysis of the total cost of college at all Indiana public institutions and analyzes the average debt load for college graduates and the impact state and federal financial aid has on reducing the cost for Hoosier students and families.

This toolkit is intended to help states create career pathways systems that integrate and expand partnerships between state human service agencies and postsecondary systems and institutions so that more people who want to train for a quality career can do so. Career pathways partnerships can help community colleges and human services work better…

This paper examines how colleges respond to the introduction of broad merit aid programs. Previous research has emphasized the impact of merit aid on enrollment, student choices, and post-matriculation outcomes. Yet much less is known about how state-implemented merit aid programs affect colleges' financial decisions. To explore impacts, college…

Grant aid -- whether based on financial need, merit, or a combination therein -- is the primary form of financial aid awarded by states. States use grant aid to encourage academic preparation, enhance access to postsecondary education, affect students' choice of college, support persistence, and reduce out-of-state migration. State grant aid…

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.…

Any organization--a small business or start-up, a large established company, a nonprofit, and every level of government--depends on leadership to achieve more than the sum of its parts. The same is true for schools, where a single principal shapes the practice of dozens of teachers and the learning of hundreds--sometimes thousands--of students.…