More than 2 million people are incarcerated in the United States, and around 700,000 are released from prison each year. Those who are released face daunting obstacles as they seek to reenter their communities, and rates of recidivism are high. Many experts believe that stable employment is critical to a successful transition from prison to the…

State and local education officials in New Jersey tout the state's high school graduation rate as the highest in the nation. At the same time, independent research indicates that 40 percent of students in Newark drop out and only half of African-American students in urban districts graduate. Meanwhile, there is increasing concern in New Jersey…

Research has documented a crisis in Texas high school graduation rates. Only 67 percent of Texas students graduate from high school, and some large urban districts have graduation rates of 50 percent or lower. This study documents the public costs of high school dropouts in Texas and examines how school choice could provide large public benefits…

North Carolina has a dropout crisis--only two thirds of North Carolina high school students graduate. One reason this crisis has not received the attention it deserves is because the state was reporting badly inflated graduation rates (supposedly as high as 97 percent) until it finally adopted a more realistic reporting method earlier this year.…

Research has documented a crisis in South Carolina's high school graduation rate. While state officials report a graduation rate above 70 percent, researchers from South Carolina and elsewhere place the rate just above 50 percent, with rates among minority students lower than 50 percent. South Carolina's graduation rate is the worst of all 50…

In 2000, the California Legislature passed the Schiff-Cardenas Crime Prevention Act, which authorized funding for county juvenile justice programs and designated the Board of Corrections (BOC) as the administrator of funding. A 2001 Senate Bill extended the funding and changed the program's name to the Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act…