Purpose: The landscape of education loan repayment programs for health care professionals has been turbulent in recent years, with doubling of the funding for the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) and cuts in funding for some states' programs. We sought to understand how this turbulence is being felt within the state offices involved in…

Little is known regarding the social network relationships that influence dissemination of evidence-based public health practices and policies. In public health, it is critical that evidence-based guidelines, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's "Best Practices for Comprehensive Tobacco Control Programs," are…

State funded preschool programs were constantly faced with the need to change in order to address internal and external demands. As programs engaged in efforts towards change, minimal research was available on how to support continuous improvement efforts within the context unique to state funded preschool programs. Guidance available had…

The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 ("Fostering Connections Act") fundamentally changed the nature of federal support for young people in state care by extending entitlement funding under Title IV-E of the Social Security Act to age 21 beginning in FY2011. While the Fostering Connections Act provides…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify significant external and internal challenges that state organization leaders face in promoting science-based teen pregnancy prevention programs within their states. The state organization administrators were chosen because their organizations were funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control…

Through the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) subsidizes child care for low-income families whose parents work or attend education or training programs. In fiscal year 2009, the CCDF budget was $7 billion. States are responsible for determining program priorities and overseeing funds.…

Response to intervention (RTI) can be both a system for providing early interventions to struggling students and a special education diagnostic tool for evaluating and identifying students with specific learning disabilities. Contributing to the very limited literature on state-level approaches, this report describes how nine states define and…

This article explains how the Maryland public library community used data from a citizen poll to support increases in government funding. With a major grant from the Division of Library Development Services (the official name for the Maryland state library), the public library community hired a nationally known pollster, Potomac, Inc., to conduct…

This report provides an overview of selected state strategies for addressing personnel shortages in the area of visual impairments. Innovative or alternative routes to certification in six states (Texas, Hawaii, Iowa, North Carolina, Utah, and West Virginia) are profiled to give specific examples of state approaches to personnel preparation and…

The second of two volumes presents descriptive and statistical data collected in a study to determine the impact of the Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP) on special programs for exceptional children in 10 school districts and program development in five institutions. Case studies of the 10 districts give county code designation, date of…

Described in volumes 1 and 2 are the methodology, conclusions, and recommendations of a study to determine the impact of the Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP) on special programs for exceptional children in 10 school districts and on educational program development in five residential institutions. Noted are aspects of the FEFP Act (1973)…

This paper profiles nine model programs for supporting families who care for a child with a severe illness or one or more disabilities and discusses current trends as they emerged from interviews with key persons in the field. Core components examined include self-help, advocacy, parent education, respite care, family-centered case management, and…

When interviewed in spring 2003, officials in 16 states with a demonstrated commitment to job training provided data on 30 state-financed programs in their states. An analysis of the data yielded the following findings: (1) when recent, long-term, and projected declines are considered, funding is declining for 22 of the 30 programs studied; (2) in…

This paper presents a prototype for a comprehensive and coordinated child care training program that provides a flexible framework for administration and program design. The prototype is based on the findings of a pilot investigation of a sample of existing child care training programs. These findings suggest that there is a great need for more…

This document is comprised of two main parts: (1) Role and Nature of State Leadership; and (2) Developing Leaders. Issues related to state leadership for career and technical education (CTE) were studied. CTE-related research, policy, and practice were reviewed. State directors of CTE were surveyed, and 39 individuals considered opinion leaders in…