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This report provides interim findings from a study of families leaving welfare in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. The study is designed to monitor the status of families leaving cash assistance at multiple times and to compare the experiences of exit cohorts drawn at quarterly intervals throughout the process of welfare reform implementation. The report also describes differences in exiting families' experiences before and after time limits go into effect. This report covers exit cohorts from quarter 4, 1998 and quarter 1, 1999. A total of 8,265 assistance groups left cash assistance during this time period (8,768 adults and 16,213 children). Interviews were conducted with members of 198 assistance groups in these quarters. More than half of respondents said they left cash assistance on their own, and the main reason was usually connected to income, earnings, or family changes. It is estimated that 55% of families leaving cash assistance had incomes below the poverty level by the sixth month, and 14% of these lived below 50% of poverty. The level of work among survey respondents was high, with about 87% having held at least one job during the 6-month period. Most of the employed were not offered health benefits through their jobs, and most had experienced at least one hardship by the sixth month. Findings indicate the high levels of low-income employment among those who have left welfare cash assistance. Contains 23 figures.(SLD)

As of the 1997 Ohio welfare reform laws, families not receiving cash assistance and earning 135 percent or less of the poverty income were eligible for subsidized child care (non-assistance subsidized child care). This study sought to estimate the number of working families in Cuyahoga County, Ohio that could take advantage of non-assistance subsidized child care in 1997. A profile of working poor families that would qualify for non-assistance subsidized child care at a point in time was developed, using a cross-sectional design based on 1990 census data. Findings from this profile indicated that about 9,300 Cuyahoga County families with children under the age of 13 had two working parents or a single parent who worked and earned at or below 135 percent of the poverty rate. Among these families, 23 percent of the parents had less than a high school education; 15 percent had three or more children under age 13; 71 percent were headed by a single parent; and 19 percent depended on public assistance during the previous year. Based on the 1990 profile of Cuyahoga County, it was estimated that the number of children that qualified for non-assistance child care subsidies, at best, could be as low as 12,080, which is more than twice the number (5,400) of non-assistance subsidized child care slots provided by Cuyahoga County in June, 1997. (JS)

To assess the relative effectiveness of public and private school environments, researchers must distinguish between the effects of the schools' programs and the students' innate abilities. Student background variables do not appear to account for all the important differences among students attending public and private schools. This document proposes and tests a model of school selection that relates school choice to a family's assessment of public and private school quality. The assumption is that unless private schools appear to offer distinct advantages they would not be selected over tax-supported public schools. The model was tested using data from the High School and Beyond studies of1980 and 1982. The researchers determined that when estimates of the educational production function for public and private schools were corrected for sample selection bias using the school choice model, private schools no longer displayed a significant advantage over public schools in educating the average student. This report describes the model, reviews the data used to test the model, presents the equation that expresses the concepts in the model, discusses the application of educational production functions, and explains how these elements can be manipulated to reveal relative school effectiveness. (PGD)