Education

Public education plays essential roles in the well-being of children, families, and communities. The No Child Left Behind Act, enacted in 2002, aimed to improve learning and eliminate achievement gaps by raising accountability in schools. The new requirements also generated valuable long-term data on students and teachers—data that are now grounding and guiding education policy and allowing researchers to answer long-held questions about what leads to student success. To comb through these data, the Urban Institute launched the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) with scholars at six universities. Rigorous analysis of students’ performance over time offers important new insights on the characteristics of effective teachers, the effects of student mobility, and disparities among schools.

Urban Institute research also examines the adoption and performance of charter schools; interactions between schools and their home communities; initiatives to improve outcomes for minorities and English language learners; school-to-work programs; and school-based strategies for helping at-risk youth.

Publications on Education

We compared the employment of African American and white youth as they transitioned to adulthood from age 18 to 22, focusing on high school graduates and high school dropouts who did not attend college. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997, we found significant differences in labor market participation by race and education. Among key findings, African American high school graduates worked as much and sometimes less than white high school dropouts. Findings suggest however, that the improved labor market participation associated with a high school diploma is higher over time for African Americans than for white youth.

Social welfare problems in Maryland and elsewhere have remained intractable because their scale is beyond the ability of government to address alone, John Roman told the Appropriations Committee of the Maryland House of Delegates. Social impact bonds’ integration of private capital into traditionally public-sector activities is a promising mechanism for addressing these challenges. On March 6, 2013, this testimony was presented to the Maryland Senate Committee on Budget and Taxation regarding the Senate version of the social impact bond legislation.

This Model Bullying Prevention Policy is a comprehensive strategy that was developed for all youth-serving agencies in the District of Columbia. The policy employs a three-level public health model to prevent bullying, which involves shifting agency norms; delivering services to at-risk youth; and responding to bullying incidents in a way that inhibits subsequent acts, with an emphasis on data analysis to measure intervention success. The policy was developed by the Urban Institute in collaboration with the 42-members of the District of Columbia Mayor's Bullying Prevention Task Force and Office of Human Rights.

In The State of Society, measures of national well-being that go beyond gross domestic product (GDP) are identified. Existing indicators and systems are found lacking in assessing the full economic value of caregiving and the contributions of women. This report presents the results of a meeting of leading experts on national indicators convened by the Urban Institute and the Center for Partnership Studies. Participants considered the strengths and weaknesses of existing indicators that measure social wealth, identified measures that need to be developed, and made recommendations for the placement of social wealth indicators in U.S. National Key Indicator System.