A school facility's quality and accessibility have important impacts on schools' functionality to serve as places of high-quality education. While these challenges are familiar to most schools in the United States, charter schools are responsible for acquiring and paying for their educational facilities, a responsibility that local school…

The California Teacher Residency Grant Program provided essential, one-time funding to jump-start new and to expand existing teacher residencies, which are pathways into the teaching profession that integrate a residents' coursework with a yearlong placement in the classroom of an expert teacher. In spring of 2021, WestEd collected data through…

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…

With more children and young adults experiencing mental health emergencies over the last 10 years, state and federal leaders made millions of dollars available to school districts for developing school-based mental health services and hiring and training school counselors, psychologists, and social workers. Yet schools still face considerable…

We report the use of action learning within a state-owned enterprise charged with delivering a large food security and poverty alleviation program in Mozambique. Successful management of the program requires the co-ordination of a wide variety of different stakeholders including both commercial and subsistence farmers, community leaders and…

Child care plays a vital role in our nation's economy. COVID-19 has largely shut down child care programs and schools across the nation, presenting challenges for working parents. Child care closures are a particularly acute problem for frontline and essential workers--health care personnel, grocery store staff, postal and delivery service…

This report was written in compliance with Senate Bill 5437 Section 6, to explore the development of a Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (ECEAP) Tribal Pathway that meets the needs of Tribal Sovereign Nations in providing ECEAP in their communities and decreasing the opportunity gap…

California's K-12 school facilities require significant new and ongoing investments to address aging infrastructure, changes in educational programs, and federal and state regulations. Funding for facilities comes mostly from local sources and depends on local property wealth. The state provides some funding through the School Facility Program…

On March 11, 2021, President Biden signed into law the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act of 2021, which included an $800 million reservation within the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) fund to address the specific and urgent needs of children and youth experiencing homelessness, in light of the challenges of the COVID-19…

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…

State need-based financial aid programs are a key driver of college access and completion for lower-income students and racially marginalized students in California, most of whom attend public two- and four-year colleges and universities and come from families with annual incomes of less than $40,000. As the state's largest need-based financial…

Importance: Children experiencing parental opioid use disorder are a growing population at heightened risk of physical and mental health issues over the life course. Yet these children are less likely to receive comprehensive, ongoing health care and their parents are more likely to report barriers to access health care for their children.…

Many welfare programs give greater benefits to unmarried individuals than to a married couple of otherwise identical income. The resulting marriage penalty discourages marriage and rewards single parenthood. Combined marriage penalties across federal and state welfare programs can reach tens of thousands of dollars per year for a given family. One…

This playbook provides ways in which Higher Education Agencies (sometimes referred as the State Higher Education Executive Officers) and teams can blur the lines between high school, postsecondary education, and the workforce. Higher Education Agencies (HEAs) play a significant role to Raise the Bar for student success by developing an…

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…