In 2000, federally funded public adult education programs provided basic skills training and English language instruction to over 2.6 million students, or about 1.5% of the U.S. adult population. By 2021, enrollment had plummeted to under 900,000, or less than 0.4% of adults. What explains these declines? This policy brief describes the evolution…

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…

The core challenge our proposal seeks to address is how to ensure that every American family and child has access to high-quality, affordable early childhood care and education (ECE) services in a critical period of human development, breaking a shortage of investment in young children. America's status quo asks the most of parents when they have…

This article describes some of the extraordinary accomplishments of the second cohort of states to participate in the Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Financing Policy Project (IECMH-FPP). The purpose of the IECMHFPP is to support states' advancement of IECMH assessment, diagnosis, and treatment policies that will contribute to the healthy…

Substantial increases in federal support for higher education over the last decade or more have made the federal government the largest direct investor in U.S. higher education. That increase however, has not produced the expected level of increase in college educated people in the workforce. This is largely for two reasons. First the investment…

The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 ("Fostering Connections Act") fundamentally changed the nature of federal support for young people in state care by extending entitlement funding under Title IV-E of the Social Security Act to age 21 beginning in FY2011. While the Fostering Connections Act provides…

With the reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) under consideration in early 2009, an important question is the extent to which uninsured children could be covered under employer-sponsored insurance through premium assistance programs, which use public funding under Medicaid and SCHIP to subsidize…

The new federalism plan and the fiscal year 1983 budget presented to Congress by the Reagan administration call for changes that would, within the next few years, eliminate all federal involvement in vocational education. The proposed plan for budget cuts, block grants, and eventual phaseout of all federal involvement in all federal government has…

Describes the provisions, development, and future of the Independent-Living Initiative. Discusses its implementation at federal and state levels, and also the plans of the state of Illinois to establish a departmentwide task force to develop a system of services for youths who will be leaving foster care. (RJC)

There have been numerous attempts over the past seven years to replace the federally-funded Work Incentive Program (WIN) with another type of work program. As a result of increased flexibility, decreased federal funds, and continuing debate about welfare reform, there is now considerable variability among states in the types of employment and…

Under the State Childrens Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), states have the option to subsidize employer premiums for low-income workers with children. Given the potential for subsidized employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) programs to reduce the number of uninsured children, this study examined SCHIPs regulations and state experiences with premium…

To help facilitate focused and deliberate action, this report contains a current baseline assessment of the condition of research at colleges and universities in Virginia. The report brings together key sets of national data on research into one convenient place. It also provide a collection of many of the primary indicators used to assess how…

The problems of cities influence the amount of state aid which is given. More aid is allocated in states with needier cities. Reformist political climates have also helped to gain state allotments for distressed cities. The record of states in this matter is better than that of the federal government. (VM)

Analysis of changes in education funding across all 50 states during the 1980s shows that education revenues per pupil are neither increasing nor decreasing overall, but are staying constant after adjusting for enrollment increases and inflation. Demands for education improvement exceed the level of fiscal resources needed to make improvements.…

The Child Care and Development Block Grant sought to unify what was a fragmented child care system. As part of welfare reform, welfare-connected child care programs were repealed and new child care funding was placed under the aegis of the lead state agency for the Block Grant. This report provides an overview of the strategies that each state,…