Citation URL: http://www.urban.org/TheUrbanInstitute

Many young people in the District of Columbia lack a high school or college diploma and are ill-prepared for a labor market that demands highly skilled workers. In response to this crisis, the District government launched a reform effort in 2007 that promises to reinvent public schools and halt the years of poor performance that have plagued the city's education system. But school reform alone cannot address all of the complicated social, emotional, and economic conditions holding back the city's youth. Families, nonprofit organizations, and District agencies must all be committed partners in helping young people succeed.

From health and housing to school achievement and employment, a new report from the Urban Institute provides the most comprehensive source of data on the state of teenagers and young adults in the District of Columbia.

"One in five of the 70,000 men and women released annually from Texas's state prisons return to metropolitan Houston. Four new reports from the Urban Institute analyze their experiences from the perspective of their families, their communities, and the former prisoners themselves.

"The Impacts of Foreclosures on Families and Communities" details what is known about how foreclosures adversely affect households and their neighborhoods — from children and the elderly to public safety and local property tax revenues. It also looks at policies, programs, and response strategies to prevent or mitigate the fallout.

Ten promising undergraduate researchers have been chosen for the 2009 Urban Institute Summer Academy for Public Policy Analysis and Research. The students, who are college juniors, will spend June and July attending policy seminars, honing their analytical skills, and writing policy briefs under the guidance of Institute mentors.

As many as 10 million older Americans and younger adults with disabilities require long-term care, either at home or in nursing facilities. The United States spends more than $200 billion annually for such care. However, our system for financing this assistance-principally Medicaid and family assets, with a small share funded through private insurance—may be untenable as baby boomers age. TPC's Howard Gleckman looks at the way we deliver and pay for these services in a new book, Caring for Our Parents: Inspiring Stories of Families Seeking New Solutions to America's Most Urgent Health Crisis. He and a panel of top policy experts will discuss how—or whether—long-term care should be included in health reform legislation.

Unemployment insurance (UI) helps millions of out-of-work Americans provide for themselves and their families. An automatic stabilizer, it can also help to maintain consumption when the economy is in a downturn. Today's prolonged and severe recession is putting unemployment insurance to the test, especially its ability to aid low-income families, who are unlikely to have savings that could see them through these tough times.

On the horizon is a push to monitor outcomes for children and youth across the systems that serve them, including education, child welfare, and healthcare. With healthcare reforms and changes to the No Child Left Behind Act looming, and as state child welfare agencies strive to comply with federal requirements, ideas and insights about performance measurement are especially timely.

Health reform - the "let’s do lunch" of public policy - is on everyone's lips in Washington. But like many long-postponed, obligatory meals, who is going to pick up the check? Capping the tax exclusion of employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) - an idea loved and loathed by politicians from both parties - is on the table to pay for subsidies for the uninsured and to moderate companies’ incentives to offer high-end coverage.

In Policy and Evidence in a Partisan Age: The Great Disconnect, Paul Gary Wyckoff presents an accessible, compact, and iconoclastic exploration of the paradox between the exaggerated claims made for public policies and the reality of their limited effectiveness.

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