Shannah Tharp-Taylor

An assessment of progress of The Pittsburgh Promise--a postsecondary education scholarship intended to remedy the area's population and district enrollment decline, foster high school completion and college readiness, and prepare a capable workforce for the city--toward its goals to date. Recommendations for improving the program's effectiveness are offered, along with a conceptual model for evaluating progress and ensuring continual improvement.

Arkansas' Tobacco Settlement Proceeds Act invests the state's share of the tobacco Master Settlement Agreement funds in seven health-related programs. This report evaluates the activities and progress of each of the funded programs in achieving its goals and updates trends in outcome measures developed to monitor effects of the funded programs on smoking and other health-related outcome.

Arkansas' Tobacco Settlement Proceeds Act invests the state's share of the tobacco Master Settlement Agreement funds in seven health-related programs. This report assesses the progress of each of the funded programs in achieving its long-range goals, tracks the programs' process indicators, and updates trends in outcome measures developed to monitor effects of the funded programs on smoking and other health-related outcomes.

Focusing on the Louisiana public school system, this report explores the experiences of students displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: their movements among schools, the durations of enrollments at each site, and time out of school. It also documents the effects of these movements on the state's public education system during the first academic year following the hurricanes, as reported by 415 school principals in survey responses.