This report is the third of three annual reports evaluating the implementation and effects of two Delaware weighted funding programs designed to support Delaware's 42 school districts and charter schools (also known as local education agencies [LEAs]) enrolling students experiencing poverty (SEPs) and multilingual learners (MLs) during the…

This paper examines the U.S. social insurance system, which we define broadly to include both programs supported by dedicated taxes and other federal programs that provide income support, assistance in meeting basic needs, or services to improve economic opportunity. The paper considers the social insurance system as a whole as well as its…

In the United States, public policy and expenditure intended to improve the prospects of children from low-income families have focused on better preparing children for school through Head Start and universal pre-K. This school readiness approach differs from the dominant model of public support for early care and learning in Northern Europe,…

Child care subsidies help make quality child care affordable for low-income parents, allowing them to attend work or school to support their families while ensuring their children's healthy development. Access to quality child care is also proven to strengthen families' economic security. The Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) is the…

At the beginning of 2009, with the country facing the worst of the economic crisis, the president and Congress understood that Americans needed help paying for child care to get back to work in the recession. As part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, they allocated an additional $2 billion for the Child Care and Development Block…

Chapter 2 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act (ECIA) of 1981 consolidated 29 federally funded categorical programs into an education block grant available to all state education agencies and, through them, to school districts. Chapter 2's legislative purpose was to transfer authority and responsibility to state and local education…

Intergovernmental grants are a significant part of both federal and state budgets. This report examines the federal grant-in-aid system from the perspective of fiscal impact. It focuses on the extent to which the grant system succeeds in two objectives: (1) encouraging states to use federal dollars to supplement rather than replace their own…