School choice reforms are increasingly common across the U.S. This symposium summarizes and presents the most recent research on the social effects of private school choice programs and public charter schools. All three papers consider heterogeneity in effects that can and should inform policymaking. The first paper, "Charter School Entry and…

Over the past four years, New America has been researching Grow Your Own (GYO) programs as a strategy for growing and diversifying the teacher workforce. GYO programs--partnerships between school districts, institutions of higher education, and community-based organizations to recruit and prepare community members to become teachers in local…

Public school districts across California, particularly those in low-wealth areas, experience significant funding shortfalls for their facilities. Industry benchmarks suggest the state's K-12 school districts should spend nearly $18 billion a year to maintain their inventory, ensure buildings are up-to-date, and to build new spaces to handle…

The 2020 General Assembly adjourned its regular session by providing over $390 million in additional general fund support for Virginia higher education institutions in the 2020-22 biennium. However, in March, the nation experienced the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to address the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic on state revenues, Governor…

The Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project conducted 15 randomized controlled trials of behavioral interventions across eight states, in the domains of work support, child support, and child care. BIAS used a systematic approach called "behavioral diagnosis and design" to develop the interventions and their…

To promote children's healthy development and give them opportunities to flourish, families need a wide range of support services. These services are often disconnected from each other. Early care and education (ECE) has a particularly fragmented system (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2018). Systems with myriad processes…

In 2007 the Colorado General Assembly established the Early Childhood Councils (HB07-1062) and charged them with "increasing and sustaining the quality, accessibility, capacity, and affordability of early childhood services for children five years of age or younger and their parents." In March 2016 Child Trends, a non-profit research and…

On July 31, 2018, President Trump signed into law a bipartisan bill that supports the work of states to prepare students of all ages for career success through career and technical education (CTE) programs. The new law, known as the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act, is the long-awaited update of the Carl D.…

The New Mexico (NM) higher education state attainment goal -- the Route to 66 -- has been a driving force for many of the initiatives undertaken in New Mexico. The New Mexico Higher Education Department (HED) works energetically and collaboratively with 31 public higher education institutions (HEIs) across the State. The HED also registers and…

This report presents the State Compensatory Education (SCE) report for the 201-2019 school year. Per Section 29.081 of the Texas Education Code (TEC §29.081), the SCE program is designed to reduce dropout rates and increase academic performance of students identified as being at-risk of dropping out of school. SCE operates as a funding source to…

This report describes the work done by the 48 State Deaf-Blind Projects awarded grants by the Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) in late 2013. The report documents the technical assistance and dissemination activities carried out by the Projects and their collaborative activities, describes the needs for…

This article describes some of the extraordinary accomplishments of the second cohort of states to participate in the Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Financing Policy Project (IECMH-FPP). The purpose of the IECMHFPP is to support states' advancement of IECMH assessment, diagnosis, and treatment policies that will contribute to the healthy…

In today's economy, a quality public education is the key to economic prosperity for young people. When Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau took office in 2009, there were 2,272 public school students who dropped out of school, and Montana had a dropout rate of five percent. For a state with a school population as small as Montana,…

This manual was designed primarily for use by people with disabilities. The hope is that it is also useful for families, as well as service coordinators and providers who directly assist families and individuals with disabilities. The focus of this manual is to provide easy-to-read information about available resources, and to provide immediate…

Early awareness strategies, from outreach campaigns to cohort-based learning groups to scholarships, are a group of efforts that help middle school students stay on the path to college and understand how to fund their education. These strategies become part of early awareness programs, which seek to put students on a college-going path by…