For more than a decade, the US Department of Labor (DOL) has prioritized apprenticeship expansion by promoting apprenticeship in nontraditional occupations (i.e., outside the construction sector) and by encouraging apprenticeship as a training option to increase the number of apprentices. Two ways to expand apprenticeships are to approve new…

Missouri Schoolwide Positive Behavior Support (MO SW-PBS), with support from the Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), has provided training and support to build local capacity and positively impact student outcomes. Numerous years of descriptive data and a recent peer-reviewed research article both show the effects of…

Substantial shares of eligible students forgo or lose access to tuition-free college benefits, in part due to limited access to information on eligibility and other requirements. Given students' dependence on the Internet for information on how to pay for college, we examine the availability and digital accessibility of critical program…

Staff travel required to provide home visiting services can be a barrier to quality service provision. This may be of particular concern to rural programs, where the demands of staff travel are often thought to be greater than in urban settings. As part of a statewide needs assessment of the Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities Program in Kansas…

How much private educational choice is "really" available to families in your state? To measure how much K-12 choice is available, we have created the EdChoice Friedman Index which evaluates three key factors: student eligibility--the percentage of children who can participate in taxpayer-funded private K-12 choice programs; flexible use…

This policy brief estimates the fiscal impacts of expanding New Hampshire's Education Freedom Account (EFA) program under two bills that were introduced in the state Legislature during the 2025 session. The analysis covers the first two years of each plan. The EFA program is currently open to public and private school K-12 students whose family…

In an era where information is both abundant and increasingly complex, school library media centers (LMCs) serve as hubs for learning, creativity, and critical thought. Yet, little to no data exist describing the state of school LMCs in Minnesota. During the 2023 Minnesota legislative session, Minnesota's Multicounty Multitype Library Systems…

In the context of a tight labor market with more jobs than workers to fill openings, and as young people increasingly seek alternatives to college, apprenticeships have become more important than ever. While the "earn and learn" model of apprenticeship seems to be the obvious choice to address labor market needs, it remains underutilized…

New Hampshire's Education Freedom Account (EFA) program is restricted to families that make no more than 350% of the federal poverty level. (That's $90,370 for a family of three and $112,525 for a family of four.) Republicans in the state Legislature have proposed removing the income cap and allowing all students to participate in the program.…

Background: Children residing in households with very low food sufficiency (VLFS), where there is "often" not enough to eat, are more likely to experience academic, health, and psychological challenges. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a temporary universal free school meals (UFSM) policy was implemented, improving food access for children…

Even in good economic times, many adults in the United States have trouble finding jobs that pay enough to support their families. One policy response has been to help these workers build more skills, with promising findings from some sector-based programs that train individuals to work in specific high-demand industries. The Pay for Success Clean…

A review of recent literature reveals an ever-growing number of papers related to the topics of service learning and community engagement incorporated into capstone classes. The current literature identifies examples of institutions that have sufficient resources to address large-scale industry-funded domestic projects or international projects in…

The Nebraska Statewide Workforce & Educational Reporting System (NSWERS) is a state longitudinal data system (SLDS) that coordinates data sharing, processing, and dissemination efforts across the Nebraska public school systems, Nebraska community colleges, the University of Nebraska system, the Nebraska Department of Labor, and other statewide…

Unpaid (informal) family caregivers provide vitally important supports to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), but receive little support or training. This study's aim was to examine how states across the nation supported informal family caregivers in their Medicaid Home- and Community-Based Services (HCBS) programs for…

Neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) is a public health issue that affected more than 2% of live births in Kentucky in 2017. We analyzed data from Kentucky's early intervention (EI) program and the mandatory statewide NAS registry to learn more about how families of children with NAS utilize EI services. Out of 1,113 children in the study, 32% were…