Over the past two decades, federal and state policymakers have dramatically reshaped the nation’s system of cash welfare assistance for low-income families. Through national legislation and state-initiated reform and experimentation, policymakers…

In the context of a public safety net focused on limiting dependency and encouraging participation in the labor market, policymakers and researchers are especially interested in individuals who face obstacles to finding and keeping jobs. The…

Social policy evaluations usually use classical statistical methods, which may, for example, compare outcomes for program and comparison groups and determine whether the estimated differences (or impacts) are statistically significant — meaning…

This Institute of Education Sciences (IES) issue brief compares demographic characteristics, 10th grade achievement levels, and plans for postsecondary education between GED recipients, high school graduates, and high school dropouts without a…

GED diplomas account for about 12 percent of high school degrees earned in the United States. More than half of GED test credential recipients cite postsecondary education as the motivation for passing the GED test. However, less than 15 percent…

This report provides a synthesis of research and existing ACF resources for serving at-risk youth. It describes what we know from research about at-risk youth. It then describes how at-risk youth are currently being served by ACF programs and by…

As part of the Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ Demonstration and Evaluation Project, the Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation published this report on the Enhanced Early Head Start (…

The National Skills Coalition authored this report as part of the Skills2Compete campaign, which focuses on identifying gaps in the skills of the workforce and the state’s training and education policies. In particular, middle skills jobs account…

From the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, this issue brief discusses how there is currently a gap between the supply and demand of workers in the STEM labor force. As baby boomers…

Career pathways programs link education and training services to enable students to advance to higher levels of employment or education in a given occupational sector. As the career pathways approach becomes more common, Spotlight on Poverty and…