The federal role in higher education has grown over the past two decades, and now a new administration has the opportunity to strengthen policies that support students and their colleges and universities. To help inform these decisions, the Urban Institute convened a bipartisan group of scholars and policy advisers to write a series of memos…

Title VII provides funding for the education of American Indian/Alaska Native students based on a formula grant available to school districts, charter schools, and local education agencies (LEAs). This report explores why some eligible schools and districts do not apply for federal Title VII, potentially resulting in American Indian/Alaska Native…

Effective practice reviews (EPRs) are described as used in evaluation studies for the Office of Evaluation and Inspections, a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Examples are given of EPRs in addressing new problems, structuring and improving federal programs, and decreasing costs. (SLD)

Today, 163 federal programs scattered across 15 federal agencies provide employment training assistance. Although they frequently target the same clients, share the same goals, compete for funds, and provide similar services, agencies maintain separate administrative structures that devote staff and other resources to administer, monitor, and…

This report provides a blueprint for reorganizing the governing structure of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and suggests new procedures of test development and test administration that will increase the interpretability of the assessment while at the same time making more staff and monetary resources available for research…

Seventeen hearings on the reauthorization of the Adult Education Act were conducted throughout the country by the National Council on Adult Education during fiscal year 1981, according to the Council's annual report. From testimony gathered from adult educators, other human service professionals, clients, elected officials, appointed…

The Office of the State Comptroller in New York conducted several audits of the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) at about 90 registered business schools in the state. TAP provides up to $3,300 per year in tuition assistance to disadvantaged students who take approved programs at the private schools. In 1985-86, TAP paid about $45 million to the…

This report, the first in a three-volume study evaluating federally-supported day care in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, contains a discussion of various issues related to the use of federal standards for day care services and presents four optional strategies for upgrading the quality of day care in the four states. Each strategy includes…

This Home Start report centers its attention on three areas: how actual home visits are being conducted, how projects are spending grant money from a cost analysis point of view, and whether any tentative statement on program effectiveness can be made based upon an analysis of pre-post test data. The seven sections of the report are: (1)…

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…

A number of criticisms of the National School Lunch Program are substantiated by a structural analysis within the general context of national child nutrition needs. The National School Lunch Program has been criticized principally on the ground of inadequate coverage of child nutrition needs, particularly for poor children. For the year 1968,…

Recognizing the inadequacies of the theoretical framework upon which the Concentrated Employment Program (CEP) was constructed, an effort was made to develop a more useful set of assumptions by which the program could be appraised more critically. Summarized in this document are the outcomes of attempts to construct an analytic framework within…

This report presents an analysis of and conclusions (based on audits of projects) on the progress being made by state educational agencies (SEA's) in assuring that local educational agencies (LEA's) are designing and implementing projects to meet the needs of educationally deprived children. Two considerations are said to have been employed in…

This document focuses on technologies that can be used to improve federal government services. Reference Point, a foundation based in New Jersey, was chosen by the Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress to study the application of advanced information. The applications selected for the study were: Electronic Information…

The report discusses the need to vary the training of Reserve and Guard units by skill and readiness requirements and to make more efficient use of training time. It contains recommendations to the Secretaries of Defense, Transportation, Army, Navy, and Air Force. The review was based on questionnaires mailed to 2,209 randomly selected reservists…