In 2007, New York City launched the first test of a conditional cash transfer program in the United States. Called Family Rewards, the program sought to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty by offering cash assistance to poor families to reduce immediate hardship, but conditioned this assistance on families' efforts to improve their…

This article presents findings from an exploratory study of three programs using the Housing First approach to provide permanent supportive housing for single, homeless adults with serious mental illness and often co-occurring substance-related disorders. This approach provides direct, or nearly direct, access to housing that is intended to be…

We study how the employment effects of enterprise zones vary with their location, implementation, and administration, based on evidence from California. We use new establishment-level data and geographic mapping methods, coupled with a survey of enterprise zone administrators. Overall, the evidence indicates that enterprise zones do not increase…

Strengthened the theory of change approach to evaluating a complex social initiative by integrating it with a quasi-experimental comparison group design. Used the approach in an evaluation of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Urban Health Initiative. Initial findings support the usefulness of the initiative. (SLD)

Teacher dissatisfaction with the existing math testing program in the Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) led to the establishment of the Committee on Citywide Mathematics Testing. The committee was formed to identify tests to be used, grade levels to be tested, and testing schedules. The committee recommended that tests be given in the spring…

Evaluates the performance, between 1980 and 1990, of 12 supposedly revitalized cities on the basis of objective indicators of the economic well-being of their residents and compares the cities' performances to those of other cities that were equally distressed in 1980. The evaluation, with three exceptions, reveals no evidence of revitalization.…

This study was made to evaluate the success and potential of the Columbus Video Access Center (VAC) and compare it with other access organizations operating throughout the nation. Basic trends, issues and problems now confronting public access television were related to Columbus, Indiana. The survey data were collected by: (1) telephone…

This is a report of pupil performance in Philadelphia schools based upon the February 1975 Philadelphia City-Wide Testing Program involving all pupils in kindergarten through grade 12. School performance distributions show the combined percentages of pupils in each school scoring within various national percentile rank ranges. The performance…

Recent efforts to build economic and work force development systems in seven leading cities were reviewed to inform similar efforts undertaken in Baltimore, Maryland. Research examining efforts to establish work force development systems in the following cities were analyzed: Austin, Texas; Berkeley, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Cleveland,…