Many welfare programs give greater benefits to unmarried individuals than to a married couple of otherwise identical income. The resulting marriage penalty discourages marriage and rewards single parenthood. Combined marriage penalties across federal and state welfare programs can reach tens of thousands of dollars per year for a given family. One…

This qualitative case study extends the literature on urban district instructional policymaking by analyzing the ways in which normative and political pressures shaped district leaders' instructional policy decisions. Drawing on concepts from the politics of education, it shows how teachers and principals repeatedly nullified policies that aimed…

One goal of the National Forum on Education Statistics is to improve the quality of education data gathered for use by policymakers and program decision-makers. One approach to furthering this goal has been to pool the collective experiences of Forum members to produce "best practice" guides in areas of high interest to those who…

The papers reproduced in this collection were originally prepared for presentation at a February 1976 symposium at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The symposium summarized a series of three regional seminars on National Energy Policy in a Regional Context; these seminars were held in Minnesota, New…

Results of evaluation research studies, even those that are meticulously designed and carefully executed, often are not implemented. This article examines some of the critical factors that mediate between the carrying out of evaluation research and the utilization of findings. To illustrate these factors, two case studies are analyzed. (Author/EGS)

The Experience Based Career Education (EDCE) program serves as a focal point of a cast study documenting how the National Institute of Education secured Office of Education funds to demonstrate an R&D innovation. Serious questions are raised about the regulations-writing process and the use of evaluation information. (Author/LC)

The histories of five multisite, qualitative policy studies were examined to see how much variation in formalization reflected the technical requirements of the research problem, the demands of the federal client, and the preferences of the project team and its professional network. (Author/PN)

To inform researchers and provide guidance to policy-makers inside and outside government who participate in federal decision-making affecting children, a study was conducted under the auspices of the Administration for Children, Youth and Families. Specific objectives of the study were (1) to develop a better understanding of how federal policies…

Part of a special issue on organizational research utilization, this article analyzes two National Institute of Education programs--the Research and Development Utilization Program and the Experimental Schools Program--and finds that a key reason for nonutilization of research is the "policy vacuum" in which research is conducted.…

This study is a political analysis of federal interagency policy processes in a diffusion project involving a national educational laboratory, a state department of education, and nine local districts. Data were collected through ethnohistorical procedures over one and one-half years for summative evaluation reports of the project and the…

A study analyzed characteristics of 392 University of Dayton (Ohio) students borrowing through the Perkins Loan Program to discover their relative impact on loan default behavior, and developed a model to help predict individual potential defaulters. Financial aid policy recommendations aimed at reducing default costs at the institution are…

Curricular domains relevant to work experience programs are motivation, sequencing, and goals. A case study of a project of institutional collaboration on peer counseling for work experience students (forming a consortium between a city school board of education and a community college) was made through data generated from the Youthwork National…

This document is one of a series of reports which describe the experiences of six state agencies that are developing systems to affect the development and implementation of policy in the federal/state program for vocational rehabilitation. The state programs are developing model program evaluation/management information support units. This second…

This monograph includes two reports describing the results of three years of field research on the implementation and impact of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) in Eastern Massachusetts. They represent a thorough and detailed study of the problems faced by prime sponsors in the initial years of CETA. The first report, CETA in…

A comparative case analysis of four urban school districts--Baltimore (Maryland), Dade County (Florida), Milwaukee (Wisconsin), and San Diego (California)--studied the effects of fiscal capacity and local interest group organization and influence on district program compliance and the degree of integration of federal categorical aid programs into…