In 2022, the Center for the Study of Social Policy and Project SPARC conducted research to better understand the barriers experienced by parenting students participating in CalWORKs, California's cash assistance program for families with children. This brief highlights findings from the research on who parenting students are and their experiences…

The Tuition Opportunity Program for Students (subsequently renamed the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, or TOPS) was created via ACT 1375 during the 1997 Regular Legislative Session. The first college freshman class to receive TOPS awards entered postsecondary education in the fall of 1998. ACT 1202 of the 2001 Regular Legislative Session…

In today's uncertain economy, states and regions are experiencing myriad workforce challenges. In the short run, layoffs and unemployment resulting from the current economic downturn dictate an immediate need for education and training to prepare workers for key occupations. In the long run, states and regions continue to exist in a global economy…

The Increasing Course Rigor Pilot Project, a joint initiative of the National Governors Association (NGA) Center for Best Practices and ACT, Inc., is one component of Phase Two of the NGA Center for Best Practices Honor States Grant Program. The project, which began in winter 2006 and concluded in summer 2007, was designed to improve the quality…

This report for the College Opportunity Fund (COF) covers the first two fiscal years of the COF program, FY05-06, FY06-07. It describes the implementation efforts of COF program stakeholders, the statistics of participation in the program, and concerns of the program. COF enables qualifying resident students to use higher education tuition…

"Why Rural Matters" is the fourth in a series of biennial reports analyzing the importance of rural education in each of the 50 states and calling attention to the urgency with which policymakers in each state should address rural education issues. The researchers framed this report around five gauges measuring: (1) the importance of…

This report presents, in chart form, information about the accountability reports and indicator reports from each state. State education staff were asked to identify and update descriptions of all current state reports that provide accountability or educational indicator information for K-12 education. As of August 1999, all state agencies except…

Since President Obama took office, he has repeatedly called for the United States to significantly improve its postsecondary education performance. One goal in particular has gained wide attention: the President's declaration that in an ever more competitive global marketplace, the United States must once again lead the world in college…

This report presents an assessment of the implementation and the two-year impacts of a program in Texas that aimed to promote job placement, employment retention, and advancement among applicants and recipients to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. The program in Texas is part of the Employment Retention and Advancement…

The Association for Children of New Jersey (ACNJ) is committed to ensuring that decisions about children's lives are made on sound information and that state leaders and the public are fully informed. It is the public debate that has kept reform moving forward and will be necessary to ensure success. ACNJ believes that it is critically important…

Achievement test scores and measures of district and pupil characteristics were analyzed for all California school districts. Achievement test scores were found to be highly correlated among each other. The best single predictor of achievement scores was a measure of family poverty. Scholastic aptitude scores were not used as predictors.…

This report documents the design and data analysis procedures of the Trial State Assessment Program of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Today the NAEP is the only survey using advanced plausible values methodology that uses a multiple imputation procedure in a psychometric context. The 1990 Trial State Assessment collected…

This "Profile" offers a snapshot of state assessment systems by describing some of their fundamental characteristics. Its focus is on what individual states are doing in terms of developing their own standards and assessments and how they report these results. Two pages of information are presented for each state (but not for the…

This report presents findings stemming from the first-year evaluation of the Governor's Educator Excellence Grant (GEEG) program, one of several statewide performance incentive programs in Texas. In the fall of 2006, the GEEG program made available non-competitive, three-year grants to 99 schools ranging from $60,000 to $220,000 per year. Grants…

The results are reported of the North Carolina Competency Testing Program. The Senior High Assessment of Reading Performance (SHARP) and the Test of Performance in Computational Skills (TOPICS), modified for the North Carolina program, have been administered to eleventh-grade students in public, nonpublic, federal, and special schools. Both tests…