Research by Author & Topic

Publications by Shelli B. Rossman on Cities and Metropolitan Regions

The United States Small Business Administration (SBA) was created in 1953 to help Americans start and build small businesses. Recently, the SBA commissioned the Urban Institute to look at four of the agency's loan and investment programs to assess their past performance and consider how the agency can set benchmarks for future performance management. The studies addressed three key research questions of particular interest to SBA and its constituents: 1) Does SBA assistance help the firms that receive it? 2) To what extent does SBA assistance serve its market? 3) Do SBA programs duplicate or overlap with other public sector programs?

This report synthesizes the findings, conclusions, and policy recommendations derived from six reports generated by our evaluation of SBA's 7(a) Loan Guaranty, CDC 504 Loan, MicroLoan, and SBIC programs. The various studies were conducted to address three key research questions of particular interest to SBA and its constituents: 1) Does SBA assistance help the firms that receive it? 2) To what extent does SBA assistance serve its market? 3) Do SBA programs duplicate or overlap with other public sector programs?

This report "What Happens to Victims? A Research Guide for Disaster-Response Studies" provides a starting point for research and evaluation studies. It provides a series of "checklists" of outcome and service quality indicators, and related information, considered pertinent to studying emergency services responses for a range of critical service areas and covering a wide array of conditions likely to be important to disaster victims. The intent is to establish starting points for assessments of the extent to which victim services needs are met during and following disasters.

This report relays the findings of a multiyear evaluation of the Cities in Schools (CIS) program, a school-based intervention for youth at risk of dropping out of school. This evaluation was undertaken to assess the CIS replication process, its training and technical assistance efforts, the degree of implementation at the community level, and the program's effects on schools and students. As a collaborative service delivery model, the information obtained though this evaluation may apply to a variety of collaborative efforts.

This paper evaluates the Cities in Schools (CIS) program based on three objectives: (1) a study of the national organization, focusing on the training and technical assistance provided to promote replication of the CIS model; (2) a study of a representative sample of CIS sites to assess the effects of local programs; and (3) case studies of 10 CIS programs selected for their innovative features and adherence to the CIS model. The authors discuss the effects of their findings on the CIS model and replication activities, on community programs and school-based projects, and on student outcomes and client satisfaction.