Over the past few decades, we have witnessed a surge in publicly funded pre-K programs in the United States. Today, policy makers in 45 states and the District of Columbia have adopted them. Combining information from twelve datasets, we use event history analysis (EHA) to examine the influence of a set of predictors on states' decisions to adopt…

Interdistrict open enrollment is the nation's largest and most widespread school choice program, but our knowledge of these programs is limited. Drawing on 5 years of student-level data from the universe of public school attendees in Colorado, we perform a three-stage analysis to examine the dynamics of student participation in the state's…

Over the past decade states have surpassed the federal Head Start program as the primary public funder of preschool slots. This paper investigates trends in Head Start enrollment in the context of increased state investment in early childhood. Using national, longitudinal data I find no evidence Head Start programs in states with expanding state…

The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA) was the first legislation since 1991 to significantly revise federal funding for adult basic education (ABE). Federal ABE funds are distributed to state agencies that are in turn responsible for awarding the funds to local programs. In this role, the state agencies are in a pivotal in-between position in…