With the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather disasters, it is essential for Office of Head Start staff and Early Head Start/Head Start (EHS/HS) program leaders to prepare for and respond effectively to these challenges. This brief presents data on the number and percentage of EHS/HS sites located in extreme weather affected areas…

Background: Early care and education (ECE) has lasting, positive effects on children's school readiness (Phillips et al., 2018; Yoshikawa et al., 2013). Over the past several decades, access to city or state-funded prekindergarten (pre-K) has increased considerably (Friedman-Krauss et al., 2023) with well-documented, positive impacts on child…

Interventions targeting school meals have been used to combat obesity in rural youth. Parents play a powerful role in childhood nutrition; however, we know little about parents' perceptions of school meal programs. This study aimed to understand parents' perceptions of school meal programs. Surveys were administered to middle school parents (n =…

Head Start (HS) is our nation's largest two-generation program that provides early education services to children and a variety of family support services that may promote economic wellbeing. Yet, no prior research has documented or described the effects of HS on parental earnings. We explore whether the program promotes parental earnings on…

Since 2019, federal grants have supported a broad range of innovative efforts to address the critical shortage of school psychologists and other school-based mental health providers across the country. In collaboration with partner organizations and state school psychology associations, the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) has…

Annually, the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) prepares the Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (ECEAP) and Head Start Saturation Study to analyze access to Washington's ECEAP and Head Start programs serving 3- and 4-year-olds. This study estimates the number of eligible children living within each school district…

Growth-to-standard models evaluate student growth against the growth needed to reach a future standard or target of interest, such as proficiency. A common growth-to-standard model involves comparing the popular Student Growth Percentile (SGP) to Adequate Growth Percentiles (AGPs). AGPs follow from an involved process based on fitting a series of…

This report sheds a new light on the history of the U.S. Department of Education (ED), its abuses of policy, and recommendations for a path forward. The report's evidence, and the long-term political dispositions of America's citizenry, supports the wholesale reform of ED, but not its elimination. The authors have structured their report in this…

Single Stop is a U.S. nonprofit organization that offers U.S. colleges services and tools to help students achieve economic security. Its portfolio of options includes an online platform that screens students' eligibility for public benefits programs, a search tool that connects students to community and college resources, and case management…

This study examined Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) participants' perceptions of integrating digital literacy training with the TANF job readiness program to bridge the gap between TANF and earning higher wages to provide for their families without government assistance. A combination of qualitative content analysis and focus group…

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) invests in mentoring programs and services to help ensure positive outcomes for youth. Successful mentoring relationships have been shown to increase youth's self-esteem, improve academic achievement, and steer them away from delinquency, substance use, and other high-risk…

Head Start monitoring assesses recipients' compliance with requirements governing Head Start programs, including those specified in the Head Start Act (original authorizing legislation in 1965 and its subsequent amendments, most recently in 2007); HSPPS; and other applicable federal, state, and local regulations. HSPPS include provisions…

Multi-site randomized controlled trials (RCTs) provide unbiased estimates of the average impact in the study sample. However, their ability to accurately predict the impact for individual sites outside the study sample, to inform local policy decisions, is largely unknown. To extend prior research on this question, we analyzed six multi-site RCTs…

The problem that was addressed in this study was that Title I high school teachers, in Southeastern Michigan, are unclear about how to accommodate their students, who experience parental incarceration and without the intervention of appropriate strategies, these students face a high risk of never completing their high school education and a high…

Adequately preparing for retirement requires planning and knowledge about available savings and investment options. Teachers participate in a complex set of plan designs, and many do not participate in Social Security. While teachers represent a large part of the public workforce, relatively little is known regarding their knowledge and…