Creating more comprehensive, community-based support systems and reforming early childhood financing systems are critical to advancing the goal of having all children enter school ready to learn. The Finance Project is a national initiative to improve effectiveness, efficiency, and equity of financing for education, children's services, and…

As part of its 1996 welfare reform bill, the U.S. Congress enacted a $50 million per year program to fund abstinence education. The welfare reform law addresses the problem of births to single adolescents by enforcing child support payments, giving states financial incentives to reduce nonmarital births, and creating the abstinence education…

Federal law now allows billions of education dollars, for a variety of programs, to go to states under a single, consolidated state plan. The goal is to develop integrated, coordinated plans for meeting the requirements of the various programs in a way that best serves children's educational needs. Achievement of that goal depends a great deal on…

This statement to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce discusses the state of American higher education and the importance of community colleges in providing access. The author presents specific examples from her vantage point as President of Howard Community College (Maryland). She calls the two-year institution the "Ellis…

States can use Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) and state maintenance of effort (MOE) funds to foster access to postsecondary education (PE) for low income parents. Access matters because success of welfare reform depends on helping welfare recipients work steadily and find better jobs; neither of the two most commonly tried…

Describes ways in which the collaborative efforts of the Head Start and Job Opportunities and Basic Skills (JOBS) programs help welfare recipients become employed and self-sufficient. (BB)

Describes what is known about current funding levels and funding sources for special education, projected trends of increasing demand for special education services, concerns about the current efforts to reform funding, and movements toward census-based funding. Criteria for evaluating state special education funding formulas are proposed. (GR)

This publication summarizes information provided during 1995 and early 1996 in an informal survey of state and land-grant universities concerning the direct and long-range economic impacts of public universities on their immediate communities. Items considered under direct impact include: expenditures by the universities on supplies, materials,…

Intergovernmental grants are a significant part of both federal and state budgets. This report examines the federal grant-in-aid system from the perspective of fiscal impact. It focuses on the extent to which the grant system succeeds in two objectives: (1) encouraging states to use federal dollars to supplement rather than replace their own…

Based on data submitted by Michigan's 28 community colleges for 1995-96, this report describes instruction, personnel, revenues, and expenditures at the state's colleges and reviews the state funding formula. Section 1 provides historical data from 1985 to 1996 on state appropriations, property tax revenue, tuition and fee revenues, state…

This policy update presents key aspects of the statutory language of the School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994 (Public Law 103-239), which provides states and localities with federal funds to be used as venture capital to underwrite the initial costs of planning and establishing statewide School-to-Work Opportunities systems. The paper focuses…

Through State Legalization Impact Assistance Grants (SLIAG), California is projected to receive almost $2 billion to help deal with the impact of the nearly 1.7 million immigrants who received amnesty under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. The California State Education Plan for SLIAG, developed by the California Department of…

This report provides an Arizona perspective on the implications and effects of homelessness on children and youth, whether they live with their families or on their own. Statistics on homeless families are provided, and issues affecting homeless families are discussed. These issues involve shelters, child care, education, and health. Issues that…

In response to a 1978 mandate, this concluding volume of the School Finance Project's final report concentrates on the broader intergovernmental issues relating to the design and transmission of federal policies and programs, and on the effects of federal activities on state and local education agencies and on schools. The specific Department of…

This annual report, prepared by a Delaware State Advisory Committee in response to federal requirements, evaluates programs assisted under Chapter 2 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act of 1981 (ECIA) during the 1984-85 school year. The first of five sections provides a financial overview of programs supported during this time and…