The Department of Veterans' Affairs (VA), previously named the Veterans Administration, has been providing veterans' educational assistance (GI Bill®) benefits since 1944. Since 1947, State Approving Agencies (SAAs) have been an important component in the administration of GI Bill benefits, along with the VA, educational institutions, and training…

To help state educational agencies (SEAs) learn about and adapt best practices that exist in other SEAs and other organizations, the Building State Capacity and Productivity Center (BSCP Center) working closely with the Regional Comprehensive Centers will create multi-state groups, through a "Collaborative Benchmarking Best Practices Process" that…

CHILDREN AT RISK, a nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization, undertook a year-long effort to study the subsidized child care system in Texas. This included an in-depth analysis of the system's local and state partners, as well as the promotion of the study's findings and key recommendations. This report is one of the products of this…

Extension faculty and agents/educators are increasingly collaborating with local and state agencies to provide and evaluate multiple, distinct programs, yet there is limited information about measuring outcomes and combining results across similar program types. This article explicates the methods and outcomes of a state-level evaluation of…

The South Dakota Legislature, being aware of the impact of culture on a stable economy, desires to stimulate, encourage, and give recognition and assistance to the arts which, in order to grow and flourish, depend upon freedom, imagination and individual initiative. While the development of the arts has long been considered a matter of local…

The Coordinating Board for Higher Education and the Department of Higher Education are pleased to present this Annual Report of accomplishments, benchmarks and statistics related to Missouri higher learning for fiscal year 2008. Chief among this year's accomplishments is the coordinated plan, "Imperatives for Change: Building a Higher…

The federal Maternal and Child Health Bureau has launched a five-year initiative that will support state efforts to build comprehensive early childhood service systems. This initiative--the State Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems Initiative (SECCS)--provides two year planning grants followed by three year implementation grants to the 50 state…

If early childhood systems are to be effective at the population level then they must be able to provide family-centered care to all the racial, ethnic and cultural groups that they serve. Despite major policy driven and technological advances in healthcare, health disparities across different races and ethnicities persist. For example, the infant…

There are many thousands of people who are in a position to exert great influence in the work of Americanization, through their leadership or membership in State legislatures, State bureaus and departments, and State organizations, official and voluntary. The primary purpose of this book is to lay before that body of men and women some concrete…

In 2003, the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) released a "Strategic Plan for Early Childhood Health." In recognition of the critical role states play in the development of early childhood initiatives and of the unique contributions that state Title V programs can make to these initiatives, the Bureau operationalized their…