This annual report provides province-wide results for the entire school year (January, June, and August examinations combined) The graphs, tables, and text describe student performance for the entire school year to assist school personnel in identifying patterns of student achievement and evaluating program effectiveness. The diploma examinations…

The 49 member colleges in the Illinois Community College System provide annual reports on improvements in productivity to the state community college board. This document summarizes the improvements reported by the colleges for fiscal year (FY) 1997. Following a brief introduction, the first section reviews special focus issues for FY 1997 related…

Noting that there is a significant gap between the number of young children eligible for Medicaid and the number actually enrolled, this report describes a year-long effort to promote collaboration between local Head Start grantees and county Medicaid offices in New Jersey. The primary goal of the project was to define and implement policies and…

This document records the oral and written testimony concerning the Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) Act from a panel of witnesses representing health and human services and welfare departments in New Jersey, California, Wisconsin, and of program heads for employment development in those states. The witnesses, although having a variety of…

This publication presents the stories of 10 men and women who overcame seemingly insurmountable obstacles to become self-supporting citizens of Pennsylvania. Their stories tell how, through their participation in Pennsylvania's adult basic education and literacy programs, they were aided in their successful struggles to enhance their reading and…

In recent years, government has recognized that programs like Head Start are cost-effective investments that improve the school readiness of disadvantaged children. Over the last decade, states have been leaders in supporting services to infants and toddlers and their families. Examples of such initiatives include Hawaii's Healthy Start program,…

A survey determined people's perceptions of the relationship of vocational-technical education (VTE) to secondary school programs. Data were collected from 451 local school board members, school administrators, school business officials, and citizens from Illinois during a joint convention of the state associations of all three groups in November…

EQUAL (Educational Quality or Adult Literacy) is Pennsylvania's program improvement initiative that measures performance by the quality of education learners receive. For 3 years, Project EQUAL was piloted in adult education agencies throughout the state. Beginning in 1997, the pilot projects helped to develop a process for continuous program…

This report describes the first 2 years of Connecticut's Jobs First program operation. Chapter 1 describes the following: the policy context; the program's three main features--time limit, earned income disregard, and mandatory "work first" employment services; the evaluation and implementation analysis; and the research sites and target…

To help states learn from each other's experiences, this report focuses on what three states--Arizona, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania--are doing to improve and expand family literacy services. It also includes background information on family literacy, resources, and names and addresses of state directors of family literacy. The case studies show…

This report addresses two concerns of Congress: ways to reduce layoffs and the effectiveness of programs to assist dislocated workers. Section I discusses the reasons for layoffs, economic conditions of the 1980s that led to layoffs, and public policy responses to worker dislocation. Section II describes alternatives to layoffs: short-time…

Some facts about the homeless population in Florida are the following: (1) 40,000 persons in Florida are homeless on any given day, with 40 percent of the total being families; (2) 65 percent are new homeless (not chronic); (3) 30 percent of the homeless are addicted to drugs or alcohol and 20 percent are mentally ill; (4) causes of homelessness…

A study evaluated the economic outcomes of one state-sponsored training program--the California Employment Training Panel (ETP)--which captured the benefits of private job training within a public program. It examined the impact of ETP training on a new group of 41,959 ETP trainees trained in 1990-91 in the year after training and estimated the…

As a result of a mandate by the 1990 Legislature, an independent study was made of Florida's system of vocational education and employment and training. Staff of the legislature and the governor's office worked on requests for proposals, reviewed responses, and monitored the study, which ran from November 1990 until February 1991. The study's…

Four adult education programs serving homeless persons in Wisconsin were evaluated. Data were gathered through site visits, a review of program documents, and a survey of 43 homeless individuals served by the programs (7 percent of the total population served). Participants expressed very positive feelings about the programs. Many reported that…