The Indiana Commission for Higher Education (ICHE) has adopted goals and policy strategies focused on increasing college access, success, and completion for underrepresented students. In 2013, the Commission passed a resolution to eliminate achievement gaps among Indiana's learner populations by 2025. Designed as a companion piece to the…

This report provides a descriptive comparison of the early care and education (ECE) landscape across rural, moderate-density urban (suburban), and high-density urban areas. The goal of this comparison was to understand whether ECE availability and characteristics in rural areas differ from those in more densely populated communities. We used…

Research on academic achievement has demonstrated the important role that teachers play in improving student outcomes and has also revealed wide variation in teachers' qualifications and experiences across schools. Schools serving low-income students in urban areas, for example, have fewer well-qualified teachers than schools in nonurban settings…

This report provides statistics about juveniles in the criminal justice system, whether handled as adults in criminal courts or handled in juvenile courts. In the 75 largest U.S. counties, juveniles transferred to criminal courts represented about 1% of all felony defendants. Two thirds of juveniles transferred to criminal court were charged with…

This paper focuses on why metropolitan areas vary in their capacity to translate generally high employment rates into economic opportunity for the disadvantaged. Data come from the Urban Institute's Urban Underclass Database, which includes poverty and employment data for 1980 and 1990 for the 100 largest metropolitan areas down to the Census…

Examines census data from five major U.S. metropolitan areas relative to age-adjusted, per capita receipt of funds that show spending in central cities increasing at a faster rate than in their suburbs. It notes concerns of direct payments to individuals that are not need-based and with direct loans and insurance programs that strongly favor the…

A comparison of the Mid-Atlantic region (New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) with the nation from 1974 to 1984 revealed that this region trailed New England and the nation in rate of employment growth between 1974-79 and 1979-84. The region had an above-average share of employment in the national fast-growth sectors (services, finance,…

This report shows that 30 years after the enactment of the federal fair housing law and despite favorable circumstances, housing markets in the Boston metropolitan area remain strongly segregated. The report is based on Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data and census data. The HMDA data provide information about the race, ethnicity, income,…

This report, fourth in a series, recounts the most recent data on indicators of the social and economic vitality of U.S. cities and positions the Administration's urban policy agenda to address challenges confronting cities. This year the report identifies four megaforces that are shaping the future of U.S. cities and presents findings showing…

This report describes the process of drawing up a national urban policy, summarizes the views presented at various forums, and sketches much of the data and analyses relied upon by urban policymakers. Part I summarizes the process of American urbanization leading to the emergence of a new stage in urban development. Part II describes changing…

This report concludes the main portion of MDRC's Project on Devolution and Urban Change, an eight-year effort to chart the course of welfare reform in four big urban counties: Los Angeles, Cuyahoga (Cleveland), Miami-Dade, and Philadelphia. The goal of the study was to find out whether federal welfare reform would lead to meaningful changes in…

New Jersey GEAR UP has met, or nearly met, its recruitment and retention goals beginning in 1999-2000 and sustaining cohorts through 2003-2004. Student participants are members of low-income families and communities in four urban locations with high unemployment rates and high numbers of children living in poverty. The evaluator finds that New…

This report describes the United States' Hispanic population in 2000, profiling demographic and socioeconomic characteristics such as geographic distribution, age, educational attainment, earnings, and poverty status. These characteristics are compared with those of non-Hispanic whites, and because Hispanics are a heterogeneous group, variability…

This publication presents the best available data on children living in the 50 largest cities in the United States. Each city is assessed in terms of 10 key indicators of child well-being. These indicators focus, as they do in the annual "Kids Count" report, on outcome measures of children's educational social, economic, and physical well-being.…

This publication provides the objective data needed to track and monitor the well-being of children in different types of American communities. It is part of the ongoing work of the Casey Foundation -- advanced primarily through our KIDS COUNT initiative -- designed to give policymakers data that can help them better understand how conditions of…