Since 1998, the Iowa Department of Education's Division of Community Colleges and Workforce Preparation (division) has compiled and published "The Annual Condition of Iowa's Community Colleges," commonly known as the "Condition Report." The intent of this report is to provide clear, objective data about Iowa's community…

Since 1998, the Iowa Department of Education's Division of Community Colleges and Workforce Preparation (division) has compiled and published "The Annual Condition of Iowa's Community Colleges," commonly known as the "Condition Report." The intent of this report is to provide clear, objective data about Iowa's community…

The 19th edition of "The State of Preschool," the National Institute for Early Education Research's (NIEER) report on the annual survey of state preschool policies, includes information for every state on child enrollment, funding, staffing, and quality standards. The pandemic has highlighted and intensified longstanding problems in…

President Biden is committed to seeking and providing the necessary resources to support the safe operation of institutions of higher education (IHEs) and addressing the ongoing impacts resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic on higher education students, adult education students, faculty, and staff. In Volume 3 of this Handbook, a series to support…

The Tuition Opportunity Program for Students (subsequently renamed the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, or TOPS) was created via ACT 1375 during the 1997 Regular Legislative Session. The first college freshman class to receive TOPS awards entered postsecondary education in the fall of 1998. ACT 1202 of the 2001 Regular Legislative Session…

This report is the fourth in a series of Wisconsin Council on Children and Families (WCCF) reports tracking the progress of Wisconsin's YoungStar program, a quality rating and improvement system (QRIS) launched in 2011 to improve the quality of Wisconsin child care programs. YoungStar focuses on children of low-income working families receiving…

This article is about a year-long teaching and research project conducted with 696 4th graders (mostly 10-year olds) and their 36 teachers in Wyoming/USA. The researchers employed an action research approach. They planned and taught a two-day, Wyoming-themed, interdisciplinary unit, "We Are Wyoming", which integrated Social Studies,…

At the request of the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) conducted a review of Oklahoma's Promise program between August 2017 and February 2018. This report summarizes findings and observations from the review and provides recommendations. The review is organized around five areas of interest…

Ohio's Plan to Raise Literacy Achievement serves as a guide to promote evidence-based language and literacy teaching and learning for all learners from birth to grade 12. Literacy acquisition affects learners' access to, and interest in, content at all grade levels and in all aspects of their lives. In light of this, literacy is not treated as a…

Adult education and literacy has never been more valued in Iowa than it is now. Adult Education and Literacy (AEL) empowers individuals to become self-sufficient by providing the basic skills and knowledge necessary to complete a secondary education credential and helps them meet their education and career goals. Nationally, AEL programs serve 1.5…

This exploratory study investigated the use of concepts related to families, parents, and the home in 51 state-level early learning and development standards documents. Guidelines from six national family involvement, engagement, and school-partnership models were used to create the Family Involvement Models Analysis Chart (FIMAC), which served as…

A companion piece to "High Stakes for High Achievers: State Accountability in the Age of ESSA," this report appraises states' current (or planned) accountability systems as they affect high-achieving students in high school. They were examined and rated based on whether they incorporate under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) the…

Twenty-one US states currently offer some form of merit-based postsecondary financial aid, although the generosity and eligibility requirements of merit aid programs varies from state to state. This article uses nationally representative data from high school students in the early 1990s and the early 2000s to evaluate the relationship between the…

The Center on Enhancing Early Learning Outcomes (CEELO) was asked to provide information on how other states are approaching the development and implementation of Kindergarten Entry Assessment (KEA) as part of a comprehensive assessment system. Specifically, the request asked for information about KEA measures used by other states, the processes…

This article exploits a natural experiment to estimate the effects of need-based aid policies on first-year college persistence rates. In fall 2006, Ohio abruptly adopted a new state financial aid policy that was significantly more generous than the previous plan. Using student-level data and very narrowly defined sets of students, I estimate a…