The Inter-University Consortium for Doctoral Courses in Public Budgeting, Finance, and Financial Management is the first collaborative project for online doctoral courses in public affairs. This article provides an account of the consortium's initiation, establishment, and operation for the pilot round. The consortium fills a niche in doctoral…

Over seven million children from birth through age 5 receive child care in home-based child care (HBCC) settings, the most common form of nonparental child care in the United States. Research shows that professional development can help child care providers improve the quality of care that they offer, potentially improving children's outcomes.…

This resource was prepared in response to a request for information from a Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) State about how other States are using a Shared Services strategy to support their child care providers, in particular family child care providers. By sharing common management, professional development, and infrastructure…

With the second-round deadline for federal Race to the Top Fund grants less than six weeks away, states are rushing to raise the stakes on their education reform plans as they fight over the remaining $3.4 billion in prize money. But in doing so, states from Massachusetts to Colorado are tangling with their teachers' unions as they test how far…

Despite some cuts to the nation's oldest Federal College Access Programs, known as the TRIO programs (e.g., Upward Bound), new education policies have emphasized college and career readiness. In 2010, Congress approved the College Access Challenge Grant Program, which aims to increase the number of low-income students who are ready for college.…

To investigate the current practices of schools and school counselors working with students with chronic illness and the protocols for providing these services, the authors conducted a mixed design, grounded theory study, with an eye toward pinpointing any trends or patterns in service provision. They identified a collaborative, developmental,…

This paper serves as the introduction to the State Children's Cabinets and Councils Series, a set of reports intended to capture and organize the decisions and experiences of more than 20 children's cabinets and councils and present them against an emerging set of expectations about what the public and policy makers could and should expect from…

This report concludes that for the U.S. to prosper and compete in the 21st century, the education system will need to change its goals and practices so all students may succeed. That is, as information has become ubiquitous, schools need to emphasize 21st century skills such as analyzing, synthesizing, and creating along with understanding and…

Educational Policy Improvement Center (EPIC) researchers visited 38 public high schools around the United States in 2007 and 2008 with the goal of validating and operationalizing a definition of college readiness. Schools in the sample were selected because they were demonstrating success at enabling more students from underrepresented groups to…

State and local program efforts for delivering coordinated services in adult education were investigated. This report presents findings from phase 2 of a two-phase study of federal funding sources and services for adult education. Site visits were made to five states during 1989-1991 to examine the coordination activities that were carried out…

Organizing for Student Success draws on data from more than 50 institutions to provide insight into how university colleges are organized, the initiatives they house, and the practices in place to ensure their effectiveness. Twenty case studies from 15 different campuses offer an in-depth understanding of institutional practice. Ultimately,…

The rising number of individuals returning to communities from prison and jail represents one of the defining issues of time. Individuals reentering society face myriad challenges, not the least of which is securing viable employment; in addition, each individual has a unique set of experiences, needs and resources. This project stems from the…

Drawing on lessons learned from Wallace-funded research and state-district work in strengthening education leadership, the foundation has produced a paper that discusses the potential as well as the challenges of an emerging concept of leadership called a "Cohesive Leadership System." This cohesive leadership system holds potential for…

This report examines how New York counties can systematically and programmatically improve approaches to managing persons in need of supervision (PINS), describing approaches to truancy prevention and diversion that have been instituted nationwide and may be applicable to the PINS operating system. Researchers surveyed truancy-specific programs…

Basic needs of children and youth which cannot be provided by small rural schools could be realized by combining the resources and pupils of a number of local districts. Four types of organization are presented as possibilities for providing cooperative educational services: (1) autonomous districts with line functions; (2) semi-autonomous…