The Education Policy Center conducts research on education reforms involving accountability and the new increased flexibility in using federal funds. Researchers in the Center also partner with other Urban Institute Centers to explore connections between schools and housing affordability, neighborhood revitalization, immigrant integration, children’s well-being, crime, and work-readiness.
In 1965's The Negro Family: The Case for National Actions, Daniel Patrick Moynihan described a "tangle of pathologies" --from disintegrating families to poor educational outcomes, weak job prospects, concentrated neighborhood poverty, dysfunctional communities, and crime--that would create a self-perpetuating cycle of deprivation, hardship, and inequality for black families. Today, although social progress has created opportunities for many members of the black community, the United States still struggles with many of the problems Moynihan identified. If we don’t enhance economic opportunities and social equity for black families, we may spend the next 50 years lamenting our continued lack of progress.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan's 1965 report, "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action," provoked a firestorm of debate in its probing of the roots of black poverty and the decline of the black nuclear family. Nearly five decades later, "The Moynihan Report Revisited" gauges how the circumstances of black families have changed and how they compare with other racial and ethnic groups; documents how blacks still suffer from intersecting disadvantages that Moynihan referred to as a "tangle of pathologies"; and suggests ways to improve the circumstances of black families and reduce racial disparities.
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.
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The Education Policy Center conducts research on education reforms involving accountability and the new increased flexibility in using federal funds. Researchers in the Center also partner with other Urban Institute Centers to explore connections between schools and housing affordability, neighborhood revitalization, immigrant integration, children’s well-being, crime, and work-readiness.