In recent years, an increasing number of districts have turned to district education foundations (DEF) for added fiscal support. Similar in many ways to university development offices, DEFs are privately operated, nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations that solicit funds from individuals and businesses and then distribute these funds to public school…

Cambridge Health Alliance's Volunteer Health Advisor (VHA) Program was developed to create an effective and cost efficient outreach network to improve community health status. The program's mission is to improve community health by working collaboratively with faith-based and community-based organizations to recruit, train, and support a…

To substantially raise student achievement, the U.S. must address serious problems in educational leadership. Most analysts support proposals for the initial training and professional development of all principals and superintendents across the board. This type of widespread help is needed, but in the author's view, it is important to concentrate…

Policy, defined broadly to include public policy as well as institutional or organizational policy, is useful for sustaining change in human development and its contexts and systems. The role for developmental psychopathology research in policy analysis and policy making is discussed. To assure that developmental psychopathology research is useful…

This chapter provides a case study comparing the costs of online student ratings of instruction with those of traditional paper-pencil student ratings. The case study is derived from Brigham Young University's (BYU) experience in creating and implementing a new online student rating system. Some of the information on costs was supplemented by data…

This chapter is a draft of Chapter 7 of a planned book, "Preschool and Jobs: Human Development as Economic Development, and Vice Versa." This book analyzes early childhood programs' effects on regional economic development. Four early childhood programs are considered: (1) universally accessible preschool for four-year-olds of similar…

A new report published by the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions is a minor variant on six similar reports published by the Friedman Foundation over the past three years. The new report repeats some of the errors in the previous reports, and it follows a parallel structure, arguing that the costs of dropping out are dramatic for the…

"Childhood Programs and Practices in the First Decade of Life" presents research findings on the effects of early childhood programs and practices in the first decade of life and their implications for policy development and reform. Leading scholars in the multidisciplinary field of human development and in early childhood learning…

From April 25 through June 30, 2007, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy conducted its fifth survey of the privatization of bus, food and janitorial services among Michigan's 552 conventional public school districts. All Michigan school districts responded. In 2007, the Mackinac Center also conducted a nationwide survey of state education…

This National Council on Disability (NCD) report defines or describes financial incentives affecting people with disabilities and presents research findings in key areas of people's lives, such as education and health care. It also describes selected state-level innovations affecting asset development and wealth accumulation. In addition, the…

The gap (structural hole) between the manner in which rehabilitation agencies and business are structured, organized and managed has grown exponentially over the past 10-20 years. Three key changes have radically transformed American business: the globalization of financial capital and competition, the information technology revolution, and the…

The Moche Cost Analysis of Public Education (CAPE) formula was developed to identify total and per pupil costs of regular elementary education, regular secondary education, elementary special education, and secondary special education. Costs are analyzed across five components: (1) comprehensive costs (including transportation and supplemental…

Scarce resources, changing customer expectation, and the changing role of top management are all factors that have contributed to the implementation of total quality management (TQM) in libraries. Instructional articles, conferences, and videos can alleviate some concerns of cost and time commitment. Many libraries already practice some of the…

In response to congressional mandate and in light of proposals to close the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences (USUHS), this study reviewed issues related to USUHS and other means through which the Department of Defense (DOD) obtains physicians. In particular the study examined the cost of obtaining military physicians from all…

This handbook is an effort to establish current and consistent terms, definitions, and classification codes to maintain, collect, report, and exchange comparable information about staff. This effort was coordinated by the Council of Chief State School Officers under contract to the National Center for Education Statistics. It represents the best…