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Education Policy Center

students writingThe 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.


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Bringing Promise to Washington, DC: The DC Promise Neighborhood Initiative (Research Report)
Jennifer Comey, Elsa Falkenburger, Susan J. Popkin, Molly M. Scott

The U.S. Department of Education's Promise Neighborhood Initiative is one of the Obama administration's major antipoverty initiatives and a core strategy of the White House's Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative. It is intended to improve educational outcomes by creating a continuum of school readiness, academic services, and family and community support for children from early childhood through college. The DC Promise Neighborhood Initiative (DCPNI) received one of the U.S. Department of Education's 21 Promise Neighborhood planning grants in October 2010. This policy brief summarizes DCPNI's planning year and how DCPNI intends to improve the educational outcomes of youth in the years to come.

Posted to Web: January 24, 2012Publication Date: January 24, 2012

DC Promise Neighborhood Initiative: Needs Assessment and Segmentation Analysis (Research Report)
Susan J. Popkin, Jennifer Comey, Molly M. Scott, Elsa Falkenburger, Chantal Hailey , Amanda Mireles

In October 2010, the DC Promise Neighborhood Initiative (DCPNI) became one of 21 recipients of a US Department of Education Promise Neighborhood planning grant. The Urban Institute partnered with DCPNI to act as the data analyst and local evaluator of this ambitious initiative. The Needs Assessment and Segmentation Analysis are intended to provide a timely understanding of the needs of the community and to inform the continuum of strategies developed by DCPNI and their workgroups.

Posted to Web: January 20, 2012Publication Date: January 20, 2012

Implementation and Early Training Outcomes of the High Growth Job Training Initiative: Final Report (Research Report)
Lauren Eyster, Demetra Smith Nightingale, Burt S. Barnow, Carolyn T. O'Brien, John Trutko, Daniel Kuehn

The High Growth Job Training Initiative (HGJTI) was a national grant program administered by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), Employment and Training Administration (ETA). Between 2001 and 2007, more than 160 grants were awarded to establish industry-focused job training and related projects designed to meet the industry’s workforce challenges. This report is the third and final in a series from the national evaluation of the HGJTI conducted by the Urban Institute, the Institute for Policy Studies at Johns Hopkins University, and Capital Research Corporation. This report documents the national initiative, describes the structure and implementation of projects by selected grantees, and provides nonexperimental analysis of the early impacts of job training in selected HGJTI-funded programs. The analysis relies on a review of grant applications and quarterly reports; visits to nine selected grantee sites; data collected from grantee training programs; quarterly earnings data from state unemployment insurance wage records; and administrative data from state and local public workforce system agencies.

Posted to Web: January 09, 2012Publication Date: June 01, 2011

Raising Job Quality and Skills for American Workers: Creating More-Effective Education and Workforce Development Systems in the States (Research Report)
Harry Holzer

To improve the employment rates and earnings of Americans workers, we need to create more-coherent and more-effective education and workforce development systems, focusing primarily (though not exclusively) on disadvantaged youth and adults, and with education and training more clearly targeted towards firms and sectors that provide good-paying jobs. This paper proposes a new set of competitive grants from the federal government to states that would fund training partnerships between employers in key industries, education providers, workforce agencies, and intermediaries at the state level, plus a range of other supports and services. The grants would especially reward the expansion of programs that appear successful when evaluated with randomized controlled trial (RCT) techniques. The evidence suggests that these grants could generate benefits that are several times larger than their costs, including higher earnings and lower unemployment rates among the disadvantaged.

Posted to Web: December 07, 2011Publication Date: November 30, 2011

Evaluation Design for the Next Phase Evaluation of the Assets for Independence Program, Final Literature Review (Research Report)
Erica H. Zielewski, Caroline Ratcliffe, Signe-Mary McKernan, Additional Authors

Based on our review and synthesis of the individual development account (IDA) literature, findings in this report include that IDA accounts (in the short-term, five years after program entry) help low-income families become homeowners, start or expand a business, or pursue secondary education. Studies to date have found no relationship between IDA program participation and net worth. The report reviews empirical evidence on the effect of IDA program participation and project design features on outcomes and highlights remaining gaps in the literature.

Posted to Web: November 07, 2011Publication Date: May 01, 2009

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