View Research by Author - Molly M. Scott

Publications

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.

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.

This research report presents the findings from a qualitative study of the child care choices of low-income working families in two urban communities. Participants included 86 parents with young children, many of whom were immigrants, English language learners, or parents of children with special needs. We discuss the key themes and variations in family experiences, giving particular attention to parental preferences and the factors that influenced their decisions, within the contexts of their employment and the early care and education programs in their communities. We conclude with policy recommendations that can promote parental access to affordable and high quality care.

This paper provides findings from a rapid scan of mobility programs, including interviews with program staff, from across the country. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research, including suggestions on how to design a demonstration program that tests the impact of mobility assistance program.

This commentary shares insights from Urban Institute research into the resident choice option for families living in public housing under HUD's new draft legislation, the Preservation, Enhancement, and Transformation of Rental Assistance Act of 2010.

Immigration policy and reform debates test our ability to think about what's at stake when we open (and close) our doors to a diverse range of newcomers, and how ongoing immigration affects our future. As the debate on how immigrant workers and families continue to reshape the country gathers steam, the public is often misled about the challenges and opportunities stemming from policies about who can come to (and stay in) the US.

This policy memo examines reasons why a small share of assisted housing residents may opt to change from project-based vouchers to portable, tenant-based vouchers. We found that in addition to structural reasons related to the local housing market and local programmatic polices, households move for several reasons, including finding a better unit; moving closer to family, services, or schools; or, for some programs that required services or additional tenancy rules, transitioning toward more independent housing. In addition, housing authority staff also reported that some households moved because of poor quality housing and unsafe neighborhoods.

This report examines the consequences of parental arrest, detention, and deportation on 190 children in 85 families in six locations, providing in-depth details on parent-child separations, economic hardships, and children's well-being. The contentious immigration debates around the country mostly revolve around illegal immigration. Less visible have been the 5.5 million children with unauthorized parents, almost three-quarters of whom are U.S.-born citizens. Over several years, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) intensified enforcement activities through large-scale worksite arrests, home arrests, and arrests by local law enforcement. The report provides recommendations for stakeholders to mitigate the harmful effects of immigration enforcement on children.

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