This document reports on a 1998 conference on technical assistance and dissemination attended by representatives from the Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), Technical Assistance and Dissemination (TA&D) projects, and regional resource centers. The conference was intended to increase knowledge concerning…

This guide for postsecondary education institutions provides guidelines for administering the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program. Chapter 1 describes general participation and origination criteria. Chapter 2 describes the electronic support the Department of Education provides, including information on Electronic Data Exchange (EDE),…

The Child Care and Development Block Grant Program (CCDBG) provides child care services for low-income families and activities to improve the overall quality and supply of child care for families in general. This report provides information on the characteristics of the children served at Arkansas CCDBG sites during 1996-97. Statistics are…

This document lists projects funded under the Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education's (FIPSE) Comprehensive Program from 1995 through 1998. Also included in this edition are abstracts of the three 1998 FIPSE focus competitions: Disseminating Proven Reforms, European Community/United States Joint Consortia,…

Federal funding sources available to school districts for meeting the needs of at-risk students are listed in this document. Each source is grouped according to its dropout prevention and retrieval strategy. These strategies include school-site management; student-oriented, teacher-oriented, and collaborative approaches; structured intervention…

This interim report on the implementation of Australia's Child Support Scheme and its short-term effects analyzes the entry experiences of a sample of the first 6,000 registered Child Support Agency cases. In November, 1989, after 18 months of operation, commonwealth authorities had established an infrastructure that facilitated the continued…

This document reports the text and analysis of the proposed Job Training and Basic Skills Act of 1992. The purpose of the act is to provide improved job training and education services to economically disadvantaged persons most in need of assistance. The act would maintain the federal-state-local partnership of the Job Training Partnership Act,…

Historically, policies and funding guidelines for most federal educational programs have not adequately recognized the diverse nature of rural schools. A dichotomy of rural and urban, or, even a tripartite classification (urban, suburban, and rural) would mask the internal diversity of rural schools. Current efforts to understand the condition of…

This paper analyzes the merits of proposals to encourage saving for college by permitting families to use funds accumulated in Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA's) to pay postsecondary education expenses. The paper argues that tax treatment of such expenditures might parallel that for expenditures of IRA's for retirement purposes--deferring tax…

This booklet examines the plight of homeless families who have children who need special educational services. It explores the magnitude of homelessness among families, provides empirical descriptions of homeless populations, and identifies factors contributing to the rising incidence of homelessness in the United States. Specific effects of…

This publication describes several national initiatives focusing on the need for cultural pluralism among professionals and support services for parents of young children with disabilities. The publication begins with a discussion of new laws, funding initiatives and programs, and special projects of the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S.…

A study examined the effectiveness of programs funded under Title II-A of the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) in raising female recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) above poverty. Data about the employment/earnings outcomes of nearly 6,500 women from 150 JTPA service delivery areas in 11 states who participated in a…

This report reflects the results of an evaluation of the coverage in the annual Public Library Statistics program, a joint federal-state information collection project. It is the first phase of a broader project of the Census Bureau and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to evaluate the overall statistics available from the annual…

This 18th annual report to Congress, covering the program year 1989-1990, outlines the status of children with disabilities in Head Start programs. The report states that the program's mandate of having 10 percent or more of the total number of enrollment opportunities in Head Start programs available for handicapped children was met in each state…

In October 1992, Congress passed legislation supporting American Indian tribal demonstration projects that would consolidate employment services, job training, and related services to improve the effectiveness of such services, reduce unemployment, and further tribal goals. In September 1993, a Senate hearing received testimony concerning the…