Drug use and abuse presents a significant problem to individuals, families, and law enforcement in communities across the United States. Methamphetamine is a particular concern in one rural eastern Missouri county. Much work being done in this county by multiple agencies to decrease methamphetamine production and use. Little attention, however,…

The Department of Education (Education) created Race to The Top (RTT) under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to provide incentives for states to reform K-12 education in areas such as improving the lowest performing schools and developing effective teachers and leaders. In 2010, Education awarded 12 states nearly $4 billion in…

"The Role of Risk: Mentoring Experiences and Outcomes for Youth with Varying Risk Profiles" presents findings from the first large-scale study to examine how the levels and types of risk youth face may influence their relationships with program-assigned mentors and the benefits they derive from these relationships. The study looked…

In the UK, the creative sector has been identified as a key strand in the economic recovery strategy. Composed of mostly micro and small enterprises often grouping together for particular commissions and projects, there is a tendency to operate primarily through a series of networks made up of peers. This paper presents the outcomes of a…

Faced with their first reporting deadlines for economic-stimulus aid to education, school districts are toiling over how every stimulus penny has been spent so far and how many jobs have been saved--numbers that will be scrutinized not just by the public, but by government auditors as well. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed by…

Objective: The purpose of this article is to provide recommendations for writing a successful R13 conference grant proposal for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Methods: The authors reviewed successful NIH conference grant proposal abstracts. They also reflect on their own experience in writing an NIH conference grant proposal and…

Schools that participate in the National School Lunch Program receive a portion of their federal funding as commodity foods rather than cash payments. This research compared the product costs and estimated total procurement costs of commodity and commercial foods from the school district perspective using data from 579 Minnesota ordering sites in…

The National Center for Homeless Education and the Legal Center for Foster Care and Education present this brief to help educators and child welfare advocates work together to support the academic success of children and youth in out-of-home care. The brief offers practical, proven strategies for implementing two federal laws collaboratively: The…

United States (U.S.) federal agencies and other organizations are turning to Information Technology (IT) as a strategy for improving business productivity. Despite the rapid growth of outsourcing, few studies have been conducted on the effect of outsourcing on employees who remain with the company. In the current qualitative study, the effect of…

The 2009 H1N1 influenza virus presented a major challenge to health departments, schools, and other community partners to effectively vaccinate large numbers of Americans, primarily children. The use of school-located vaccination (SLV) programs to address this challenge led health departments and schools to become creative in developing models for…

Dozens of organizations around the country share the goal of improving Latino college student success, but there's been little progress in closing the educational-attainment gap. The desire to close the gap is there, but what has been missing, one education advocate believes, are vehicles for collective action. "Excelencia" in Education, a…

Our country is faced with a financial crisis of mammoth proportions: a crisis rooted in ethics, or rather, the lack of ethics. Critics are increasingly complaining that business schools focus too much teaching effort on maximizing shareholder value, with only a limited understanding of ethical and social aspects of business leadership. Business…

States are pushing ahead with efforts to make sweeping changes to education policy through the Race to the Top program, despite some of them having seen individual schools and districts back out of the process because of concerns over the time and money required to make those plans a reality. The Obama administration has envisioned Race to the…

Nearly 2,500 districts, schools, and nonprofits representing every state have indicated they plan to compete for an Investing in Innovation grant, setting up a furious fight over $650 million in federal economic-stimulus money that is designed to scale up creative solutions to education's most vexing problems. The large group of prospective…

This article provides a behavioral systems approach to improve operational performance in health and human service organizations. This article provides six performance truths that are relevant to any organization and a case study from a community mental health network of agencies. A comprehensive analysis, as described here, will help health and…