Too many young people cycle in and out of prison, jails, and detention centers and face probation and parole conditions that keep them locked out of opportunity. These interactions with the criminal justice system demand the need for both equitable practices and programs that support second chances and large-scale investments in decarceration.…

This toolkit is intended to help states create career pathways systems that integrate and expand partnerships between state human service agencies and postsecondary systems and institutions so that more people who want to train for a quality career can do so. Career pathways partnerships can help community colleges and human services work better…

Innovation in education is vital for responding to emerging challenges, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and for building progress on longstanding challenges in schools. The infusion of substantial, highly flexible pots of federal relief dollars created an opportunity to pilot new programs and initiatives. Many states and districts opted to invest…

It is a truism of American social policy that our nation has great success generating innovative programs that improve outcomes for participants--but that we are far less effective at moving from small, "boutique" programs into broadly applied solutions that improve the prospects of large numbers of individuals. This is certainly true in…

In Arkansas 110 adults were asked questions over the telephone about the quality of Arkansas' educational system. The use of the data gathered through the phone survey will help enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of educational decisions made by policymakers in Arkansas. Opinions of parents and the community are generally positive.…

Rural school districts in five Arkansas towns set up school-based development corporations (SBDCs) to provide vocational and career training relevant to the needs of rural high school students and the community and to improve the economic and social welfare of the community as a whole. Each SBDC owned and operated businesses using student labor…

This "Policy Alert" summarizes an earlier report, State Policy and Community College-Baccalaureate Transfer, which examined the role of state policy in influencing community college-baccalaureate transfer. The "Policy Alert" looks at the importance of two-year to four-year transfer, and offers recommendations for improvement to…

This publication provides governmental and higher education decision-makers a statewide perspective of Arkansas public higher education finance for the 2005-07 biennium, as well as trends for the past several years. It also contains a detailed financial profile of each institution and presents a basis for comparative assessments of revenue…

The purpose of this paper is to review the relative contribution of selected school-related variables to the output of the Arkansas public schools, as measured by Science Reading Associates (SRA) achievement test scores. Multiple step-wise regression and Pearson correlation were used to analyze the data. The most important finding was that very…

This report reviews the collaborative and evaluative efforts of an Arkansas education renewal consortium comprised of two universities and nine school districts. The reform originated from a smaller project that aimed to establish a broad communication base and systematic planning for meeting student needs. The current project, begun in 1985-86,…