The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the nation's largest domestic food and nutrition assistance program for low-income Americans. SNAP-Education, commonly referred to as SNAP-Ed, is the nutrition education arm of SNAP benefits. SNAP-Ed aims to help individuals stretch their food budgets wisely while working to make healthy…

A series of recommendations to the Director of the National Institute of Education (NIE) is presented. In the main, these focus upon effecting compliance with Congressional intent by modifying the existing programs of the National Center for Educational Communication (NCEC) to conform with the mission, functions and program thrust of the NIE. The…

Both smaller and larger school districts allocate 3 percent of total budgets, or $4.00 per pupil, for program evaluation. Of this $4.00, $3.00 is spent on outcome or process evaluation, 60 cents on program planning/needs assessment, and 40 cents on dissemination/utilization. Findings are from an evaluation budget procedures survey of evaluation…

These proceedings of the Subcommittee on Juvenile Justice deal with the proposed abolition of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, which was marked for elimination in the proposed budget of the Justice Department. Testimony is presented that supports retention of this office along with the comments of senators, police and…

To maximize freedom from personal and political conflicts of interest, decentralized mechanisms of federal program evaluations are needed. Block grants mean that state legislatures and governors will become more responsible for oversight of funds. Three proposals are presented for helping the states deal with these increased evaluation…

Often federal legislation that creates educational programs also creates advisory councils to review and evaluate these programs. Such councils provide opportunities for close citizen participation in overseeing federal policy. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and describe the life of one such council, the National Advisory Council on…

PPBS is a way to improve the methods used in planning, programing, budgeting, and evaluating Federal programs. Careful analysis of proposed expenditures and investments are an explicit part of the PPB system. The process of examining various alternatives in order to assure efficient and effective allocation of resources is known as cost analysis.…

This paper estimates the costs of several approaches to increasing federal assistance to disadvantaged children and evaluates major funding strategies that could overcome the restrictions posed by the federal budget deficit. Approaches favored by conservatives, such as strengthening behavioral standards for children, sponsoring demonstration…

Three articles on evaluation in the Federal government describe a decline in budget and staff support, narrowing of the agenda to internal management issues, and the subordination of evaluation to other functions. Issues for the future of Federal government evaluation are discussed. (SLD)

The Office of Education has allowed schools participating in the National Direct Student Loan Program to hold more than an annual average of $63 million in federal funds in excess of their 30-day needs. The General Accounting Office estimates that if the Treasury had this money it could save the government interest costs of as much as $4 million,…

This book attempts to make the problem of budgetary choice at the federal level more intelligible by classifying, analyzing, and projecting into the future the components of the budget in a way which makes it possible to put together several comprehensive alternative budgets, each illustrating from a different view how the Federal Government could…

Despite claims that benefits for the needy have not been reduced, the Reagan Administration's final budget for fiscal year 1990 is marked by substantial reductions in programs for the poor. Actual spending for low-income programs would be sliced $6.75 billion below current levels. Medicaid, which provides health care coverage for poor families…

The impact of changing conditions in higher education on state higher or postsecondary education agencies, and the issues facing such boards were examined in a project that also reviewed systems of coordination, governance, and structure. Existing structures were analyzed, especially their strengths and weaknesses in addressing stresses and…

Offered in response to a request by the National Science Foundation for information on how knowledge affects policy, the document investigates federal support of social research and development and evaluates the relevance of this research to social policy. Social research and development (R & D) concerns the identification and solution of…