The federal role in higher education has grown over the past two decades, and now a new administration has the opportunity to strengthen policies that support students and their colleges and universities. To help inform these decisions, the Urban Institute convened a bipartisan group of scholars and policy advisers to write a series of memos…

Home visitation programs are designed to provide comprehensive services that promote parent's abilities to create stable, nurturing care environments for their children. In order for program goals to be met, parents must participate actively and be engaged with the programs' mission. However, promoting engagement and participation are complex…

The number of students attending afterschool programs has skyrocketed in recent years, currently serving an estimated 8.4 million children (Afterschool Alliance, 2009). Consequently, the demand for high quality afterschool programs, and to learn from successful ones, has never been greater. This "Making Afterschool Programs Better"…

Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a federal program to provide additional assistance to academically struggling students in high-poverty areas, has long contained a provision called the "supplement-not-supplant" requirement. This provision was designed to ensure Title I funds were spent on extra educational services…

A growing body of empirical evidence shows that some financial aid programs increase college enrollment. Puzzlingly, there is little compelling evidence that Pell Grants and Stafford Loans, the primary federal student aid programs, are effective in achieving this goal. In this paper, we provide an in-depth review of this evidence, which taken as a…

Policy decision makers, early educators, and early interventionists face numerous challenges as they develop and implement statewide accountability systems to evaluate and improve children's early intervention and early childhood special education outcomes. Kansas was an early adopter of the Child Outcomes Summary Form (COSF) developed by the…

The focus of this speech is a description of the process by which the National Institute of Education (NIE) will plan its research efforts in the area of teaching and curriculum. The first section of the document argues that the current relationship between funding agencies and researchers could be made more efficient if four essential types of…

The major issue of educational quality is linked to the potential of national and state assessment programs. It is suggested that changes in assessment design, analysis, and reporting can significantly contribute to improvement in the policy development process. The California Assessment Program illustrates how state assessment information may be…

This paper reviews the sections of the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) that provide for using competencies gained by youth as evaluation tools. The paper discusses the types of competencies that youths should gain by such programs and how they should be measured, as an alternative to traditional program-based evaluation. The paper is organized…

The concept of collaboration, which underlies the design and structure of the Teacher Center Policy Board, has been widely accepted as an effective mechanism, but this acceptance is to a large degree without sound basis. A number of assertions can be supported about the ineffectiveness of collaboration: (1) collaboration in teacher education is…

The result of extensive research addressing the unique needs and problems of American Indians, the report concludes that a singular solution to the multiple educational problems of the Indian is precluded by variances in location, tribal size, politics, and language and cultural disparities. Giving an overview of Indian education and problems, 7…

Historically, faith-based organizations (FBOs) and community-based organizations (CBOs) have been involved in the provision of social services, such as drug treatment, job training, community redevelopment, housing, and education. However, FBOs and CBOs have not often participated in U.S. Department of Education (the Department) grant programs. In…

For nearly 30 years the federal government has funded education programs to help disadvantaged children succeed in school. This book examines and evaluates three existing programs (Project Head Start, Project Follow Through, and the so-called Chapter 1 programs of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act) and describes the newly-created…

This paper presents Center for Law and Social Policy's (CLASP's) recommendations on how No Child Left Behind (NCLB) could better address the workforce challenges faced by this country. CLASP is a nonprofit organization engaged in research, analysis, technical assistance, and advocacy on a range of issues affecting low-income families. The…

Half of this paper is the text of a lecture based on the author's observation regarding the structure, nature, and emphasis of vocational research activities as affected by the Education Amendments of 1976. Focus is on consolidation, program improvement, low risk activities, research and development emphasis, and vocational research and…