In 2015, the U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded pilot grants to 10 States--California, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington--to test innovative strategies for providing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Employment and Training (SNAP E&T). As part of the pilots, all grantees…

With pandemic stimulus funding subsiding, efforts to boost achievement, stem absenteeism, and narrow outcome gaps in California's TK-12 public school system will rely on the level and sustainability of ongoing state and local dollars. First implemented over 10 years ago, California's Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) provides additional funding…

Since its implementation over a decade ago, California's Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) has targeted additional dollars to districts with larger shares of high need students--low-income, English Learners, and foster youth. The system has long used free and reduced-price meal (FRPM) enrollment as a proxy for income to allocate additional…

These Technical Appendices for the report "Funding Student Need: Evaluating Measures of Need in California's TK-12 Funding Formula" contain: (1) Data Sources and Definitions; (2) Universal School Meals Differences-in-differences; (3) Comparing FRPM and Other Poverty Measures; (4) LCFF Impact on Low-Income Identification; (5) Predictive…

As a result of patchwork policies, early childhood education (ECE) providers combine funding from multiple sources, known as blended funding. However, little is known about the consequences of blended funding for policy goals. We use national ECE provider data to identify the prevalence of blended funding models, and detailed state quality rating…

Early care and education (ECE) programs can provide a lifetime of benefits to children and families, but a lack of public support leaves these valuable services vulnerable to collapse during economic downturns. The COVID-19 pandemic was a particularly intense emergency for ECE providers: closures due to illness or shelter-in-place ordinances…

Early care and education (ECE) programs provide nurturing environments for young children--and the learning environments of children simultaneously serve as the work environments of early educators. In San Mateo County, there are approximately 465 family child care (FCC) providers operating in their own homes and approximately 280 child care…

Early care and education (ECE) programs provide nurturing environments for young children--and the learning environments of children simultaneously serve as the working environments of early educators. In Sonoma County, approximately 140 child care centers serve children from birth through age five, along with more than 330 family child care…

Internet connectivity has become a critical resource for teaching and learning. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) is a prime example, with schools expected to implement online assessments and use online resources for instruction. Yet there is little known about the extent to which local education agencies (LEAs) and schools are taking…

Income-share agreements (ISAs) are an emerging idea for helping students pay for college. Under an ISA, investors provide upfront sums of money toward students' college tuition and other associated costs in exchange for a fixed percentage of the recipients' earnings after graduation. This paper--the first in a series examining private financing in…

Summer learning loss creates a permanent drag on the US education system. With the generous support of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the National Summer Learning Association (NSLA) developed "Moving Summer Learning Forward: A Strategic Roadmap for Funding in Tough Times" to provide out-of-school time programs, school districts,…

When President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law in 2002, the U.S. national high school graduation rate was 72.6 percent. Today, the national high school graduation rate has reached an all-time high of 81 percent and the number of low-graduation-rate high schools has declined considerably. While this progress is notable,…

Universities develop strategic planning documents, and as part of that planning process, logic models are developed for specific programs within the university. This article examines the long-standing pecan program at New Mexico State University and the deficiencies and successes in the evolution of its logic model. The university's agricultural…

This brief examines how California is aligning education and training opportunities for people who are currently or formerly incarcerated. It is the first report in our series "Reconnecting Justice in the States," which will explore coordinated justice, education, and workforce policy and practice at the state level. It is part of…

Using two sources of representative data: the 2005 National Household Education Survey and the 2007 RAND California Preschool Study, this paper describes child care and early learning arrangements for the approximately 2.8 million California children ages 0 to 5 who are younger than the age at which they would enter kindergarten. The focus is on…