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Across the Americas, low output and productivity growth are key policy challenges. Growth expectations for many countries have fallen in recent years, with Latin America and the Caribbean especially lagging behind emerging market peers. In many cases, total factor productivity growth has been negative for decades. This is due to several structural factors, including low overall investment, low educational attainment, high informality, and inadequate infrastructure. Going forward, 'nearshoring,' digitalization, and the energy transition offer opportunities to renew growth. It will be incumbent on authorities to grasp these opportunities., In most countries in the Americas, growth has slowed and inflation has come down in 2023-24. Yet several economies have proven more resilient than anticipated. Growth forecasts for 2024 have [...]

The Enacted Practices Evaluation Model (EPEM) is an accountability system for "promised" program practices. Evaluating programs in terms of implemented treatment (i.e. enacted practices) in ways that yield valid and reliable results for accountability purposes is among the most vexing challenges in the field of program evaluation. Evaluations conducted by internal staff provide economies and efficiencies that come with organizational familiarity whereas external experts in the target program's content area provide credibility and objectivity. This paper presents the organizational structure and operational procedures of an accountability system, the EPEM, that adheres to the "Program Evaluation Standards" and maximizes the contributions of institutional resources and procured expert services. As implemented in the Prince George's County (Maryland) school system, the EPEM involves three school district areas (Magnet School Program Office; School District Research, Evaluation and Accountability Office; and magnet school supervisory and instructional staff) and a set of external content expert evaluators. Responsibilities of these four entities are keyed to the "Program Evaluation Standards" and its areas of utility, feasibility, propriety, and accuracy. (Contains 2 figures and 10 references.) (Author/SLD)

Occupational and sex equity programs administered by the New Jersey Department of Education, Office of Bilingual Education and Equity Issues, and funded through the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act were evaluated. Participants in single-parent and sex equity programs completed a series of pretests and posttests that measured changed in knowledge and attitudes resulting from their experience with these programs. The four tests participants completed were: (1) the Sex Role Survey, a modified version of the instrument developed by MacDonald (1976), taken by 499 subjects; (2) the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory (S. Coopersmith, 1993), taken by 468 subjects; (3) the Gender Equity Standards Test developed for use in evaluating New Jersey's programs, taken by 1,061 participants; and (4) the Mathematics Anxiety Ratings Scale-Elementary (MARS-e) (R. Suinn and R. Edwards, 1982), taken by 485 subjects. Numbers and characteristics of participants vary, depending on enrollment, attendance, and reporting deadlines, but participants were generally female (85 to 95 %) and parents (94 to 95%). About 43% were Black, 37 to 39% Caucasian, and 12 to 14%, Hispanic. Sex Role Survey results reflected a significant change toward more equitable attitudes for all participants combined, and especially for younger participants. Significantly higher posttest scores on the Coopersmith Self Esteem Inventory indicate higher self esteem for all participants combined and for several categories of participants. The knowledge of gender equity standards increased significantly for all participants combined and for those in several racial categories and of all ages. MARS-e results indicate decreased mathematics anxiety for all participants combined. Evaluation results clearly demonstrate the success of the Perkins Act sex equity set aside programs in removing barriers to high wage employment opportunities for women. (Contains 8 figures and 44 references.) (SLD)

This report provides an overview of programs and services in New Jersey for single parents and displaced homemakers. The first section contains a 3-year comparison of secondary and adult female and male occupational enrollment by cluster and gender. It shows enrollment patterns in selected program areas and highlights the occupational clusters where enrollment has shifted from the traditional to the nontraditional. Data come from the New Jersey Department of Education, Office of School-to-Work Initiatives. Nontraditional programs are defined as enrollment dominated by 75% or more of one gender. A trend toward gender balance in enrollments is exhibited in business management and administrative services (secondary school and adult education), computer and information sciences (secondary), marketing and distribution (secondary), personal and miscellaneous services (secondary), and vocational home economics (secondary). An enrollment summary for the years 1994-1996 is included as an appendix. Section II contains a profile of single parents and displaced homemakers and sex equity programs funded through the Carl D. Perkins Vocational Applied Technology Education Act sex equity set-aside. This section summarizes demographic data on those receiving services and highlights program outcomes. Section III contains findings from a followup survey for Perkins-funded single parent and displaced homemaker programs in New Jersey from 1995 and 1996. This study resulted in recommendations so that these programs can help participants achieve long-term economic self-sufficiency. (Contains 20 graphs.) (SLD)

A study described and evaluated the Cooperative Communication Project, which was designed to improve communication between inner-city families and schools about young children's literacy development. A total of four pre-kindergarten and kindergarten teachers from two schools in the Baltimore City Public Schools completed an inservice course (a series of six seminar-format discussion sessions) out of which developed plans for individual action research projects to be carried out in the teachers' classrooms. Frequent on-site support visits were conducted while the teachers were implementing their research projects. Teachers presented oral reports and prepared a final written version of their project reports. Because of the small number of teachers and schools that eventually participated in the project, preliminary plans to investigate systematically the impact of the inservice course on the organizational climate of the schools and the relation of the schools with their communities were dropped. Evaluation of the four completed projects is cautiously optimistic on the grounds that the process succeeded in connecting research findings and issues with the lived experience of the participating teachers and in inspiring them to undertake independent inquiry projects in the specified fields of cooperative communication among parents and teachers about children's emergent literacy. (Contains 43 references, the four final written projects, and five figures representing material presented in seminars and excerpts of transcripts of seminar discussions. An appendix contains a list of the concrete products associated with each of the four projects. (RS)

The Carl D. Perkins Applied Vocational and Technology Education Act Amendments (Perkins Act) targets the single parent and homemaker populations for vocational education services and activities. This report presents enrollment statistics from New Jersey secondary and adult occupational enrollment and single parent/homemaker programs offered through the Perkins Act set aside for 1993-94. Data organized by occupational cluster did not show any significant trend toward increasing the number of males or females in work programs not traditional for their genders, but program data for set aside programs showed significant numbers of students, single parents, and displaced homemakers enrolled in occupational programs nontraditional for their gender. A trend toward gender balance was seen in secondary marketing, vocational home economics, and business management clusters. Adult student enrollment was also tending toward more balance in marketing areas, vocational home economics, and computer and information science. Includes an extensive list of recommendations for future career training programs. (Contains 1 table and 15 figures.) (SLD)