Search

The educational outcomes of youth in foster care are far worse than those of other students, in part because transitions into or out of the foster care system and placement changes can lead to frequent school transfers, which are associated with a host of problems. Since the early 2000s, policymakers at the state and federal levels have passed legislation to promote collaboration between the education and child welfare systems, with the goal of improving educational stability for youth in foster care and, in turn, their educational outcomes. But two features of public-sector systems in the United States might pose barriers to cross-system collaboration: (1) fragmentation?within?systems; and (2) jurisdictional misalignment?across?systems. In this report, the authors explore the implications of fragmentation and misalignment for cross-system collaboration between public education and child welfare systems. They draw on interviews with education and welfare system representatives and adults who have experience in foster care, as well as case studies of four states' efforts to implement cross-system collaboration. The authors find common challenges to collaboration, including high staff turnover, limited preservice training on educational stability, and geographical dispersion. The authors offer suggestions for how policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels could encourage better cross-system collaboration.

In 2013, the NYC Leadership Academy (NYCLA) developed a leadership intervention--the Targeted Intensive School Support (TISS) program--in collaboration with the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) to support schools that were facing particular challenges. NYCLA asked the RAND Corporation to provide an independent evaluation of the program's implementation and effects, and those findings are detailed in this report. The TISS program consisted of five key components: (1) teaming and collaborative training in aligned preservice preparation programs for a principal and assistant principal (AP); (2) coplacement of a principal and AP into an NYC DOE school; (3) team-based coaching to support the principal and AP; (4) 328 hours of extended coaching over the first three years after placement; and (5) use of a diagnostic process to guide goal setting and coaching according to school needs. Implementation findings suggest that only two of the five key components were implemented with fidelity. A propensity weighting approach was used to compare schools with TISS principals to other schools with new principals trained through residency-based preservice programs who did not participate in TISS. Findings suggest no statistically significant differences between TISS schools and comparison schools on measures of student achievement, school culture, and principal retention. TISS schools underperformed relative to comparison schools on the measure of chronic student absenteeism. [Sponsored by NYC Leadership Academy through a subgrant from the U.S. Department of Education.]

The job of the school principal has become much more complex and demanding over the past several decades. Many university-based principal preparation programs -- which prepare the majority of school principals -- have struggled with how to make the fundamental changes needed to prepare principals for today's schools. This report shares lessons learned from redesigning university principal preparation programs. From 2016 to 2021, seven university principal preparation programs, with their district and state partners, fundamentally reshaped their principal preparation programs under The Wallace Foundation's University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI). This report describes the methods of and findings from the RAND Corporation's five-year study of UPPI. It is primarily intended as a secondary resource for readers who would like more detail about the study's findings and methods. Key findings are highlighted in the report in brief and three upcoming targeted reports: one for principal preparation programs, one for school districts, and one for state education organizations. [For the report in brief, see ED620468. For Volume 2, see ED609667.]

This report in brief shares findings from the RAND Corporation's five-year study of The Wallace Foundation's University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI). The job of the school principal has become much more complex and demanding over the past several decades. Many university-based principal preparation programs (PPPs)--which prepare the majority of school principals--have struggled with how to make the fundamental changes needed to prepare principals for today's schools. To test a path forward, The Wallace Foundation provided grants to seven universities and their partners to redesign their PPPs in line with research-supported practices. Key findings, which suggest that significant change around research-based practices is possible, are presented in this report. This report illustrates that it is feasible for universities -- in partnership with high-need districts, state agencies, and with the support of mentor programs that have engaged in successful redesign -- to improve principal preparation programs to reflect the best available evidence. [For the full report, see ED620465.]

The job of the school principal has become much more complex and demanding over the past several decades. Many university-based principal preparation programs--which prepare the majority of school principals--have struggled with how to make the fundamental changes needed to prepare principals for today's schools. To test a path forward, The Wallace Foundation provided grants to seven universities and their partners to redesign their principal preparation programs in line with research-supported practices. This targeted report shares findings from the RAND Corporation's five-year study of The Wallace Foundation's University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI), with an emphasis on findings for state policymakers. [For "District Partnerships with University Principal Preparation Programs: A Summary of Findings for School District Leaders. RAND Principal Preparation Series. Volume 3, Part 4. Research Report. RR-A413-6," see ED621351.]

The job of the school principal has become much more complex and demanding over the past several decades. Many university-based principal preparation programs--which prepare the majority of school principals--have struggled with how to make the fundamental changes needed to prepare principals for today's schools. To test a path forward, The Wallace Foundation provided grants to seven universities and their partners to redesign their principal preparation programs in line with research-supported practices. This targeted report shares findings from the RAND Corporation's five-year study of The Wallace Foundation's University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI), with an emphasis on findings for school district leaders. [For "Collaborating on University Principal Preparation Program Redesign: A Summary of Findings for University Principal Preparation Program Providers. RAND Principal Preparation Series. Volume 3, Part 3. Research Report. RR-A413-5," see ED621347.]

The job of the school principal has become much more complex and demanding over the past several decades. Many university-based principal preparation programs--which prepare the majority of school principals--have struggled with how to make the fundamental changes needed to prepare principals for today's schools. To test a path forward, The Wallace Foundation provided grants to seven universities and their partners to redesign their principal preparation programs in line with research-supported practices. This targeted report shares findings from the RAND Corporation's five-year study of The Wallace Foundation's University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI), with an emphasis on findings for other principal preparation programs. [For "Redesigning University Principal Preparation Programs: A Systemic Approach for Change and Sustainability--Report in Brief. RAND Principal Preparation Series. Volume 3, Part 2. Research Report. RR-A413-4," see ED620468.]

State policymakers, including state leaders, districts, and professional associations, play a role in fostering an environment that supports the development of effective school principals, with the broad policy objective of achieving high principal quality across the state. This report examines how seven states use state policy levers to advance policy change to improve the quality of school principals. These states are all actively engaging in a collaborative initiative focused on principal preparation program redesign. All seven states in the study were part of The Wallace Foundation's University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI). Launched in 2016, UPPI is supporting seven university-based principal preparation programs to work in collaboration with their district and state partners to redesign and improve the programs to better support the development of effective principals. The UPPI programs and their respective states are: (1) Albany State University (Georgia); (2) Florida Atlantic University (Florida); (3) North Carolina State University (North Carolina); (4) San Diego State University (California); (5) the University of Connecticut (Connecticut); (6) Virginia State University (Virginia); and (7) Western Kentucky University (Kentucky). This report focuses on seven policy levers that states can use to improve school leadership: (1) setting principal standards; (2) recruiting aspiring principals into the profession; (3) licensing new and veteran principals (4) approving and overseeing principal preparation programs; (5) supporting principals' growth with professional development; (6) evaluating principals and (7) using leader tracking systems to support analysis of aspiring and established school leaders' experiences and outcomes. The report concludes with two appendixes. [For Appendix B, see ED609669. For Volume 1, see ED590580.]

States play a role in fostering an environment that develops and supports effective school leaders. Prior research has highlighted opportunities to enhance state involvement in supporting school leadership through a range of policy levers, especially by promoting improvements to principal preparation (Manna, 2015; Davis, 2016). The Wallace Foundation launched the University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI) in July 2016. The four-year, $48.5 million initiative supports seven universities, their district and state partners, and mentor programs to redesign the universities' principal preparation programs according to evidence-based practices. State partners to the seven universities committed to reviewing their policies that affect university-based principal preparation and work with stakeholders to consider policy change. RAND Corporation researchers are analyzing the implementation of UPPI and changes to the design and delivery of preparation programs. RAND's first report on UPPI (Wang et al., 2018) documented findings from the first year of UPPI implementation. This document is an appendix to "Using State-Level Policy Levers to Promote Principal Quality: Lessons from Seven States Partnering with Principal Preparation Programs and Districts. RAND Principal Preparation Series. Volume 2. Research Report. RR-A413-1" (see ED609667) that examines the role of state policy efforts to improve the principalship. In that report, the authors focus on cross-site themes distilled from an in-depth look at how each state partner uses state policy levers described by Manna (2015). This appendix contains state-specific profiles about the use of policy levers for each of the seven UPPI states. Leaders from each of the seven states provided fact checks and, in some cases, corrections, where appropriate.

These appendixes provide supplemental detail about the analyses and findings presented in Preparing School Leaders for Success: Evaluation of New Leaders' Aspiring Principals Program, 20120-2017 (Gates et al., 2019). This material will be of interest to technically oriented readers who seek more information about the information presented in the main report. Appendix A provides profiles of New Leaders partner districts. Appendix B contains detailed information on our analysis of school-level outcomes. Appendix C presents technical details about our analysis of student achievement outcomes using student fixed-effects models. Appendix D describes our analysis of principal retention. Appendix E provides details about our analysis of correlations between Aspiring Principals program competency metrics and outcomes. [For the full report, see ED605722.]

A growing body of research points to the ways in which principals influence teachers, classrooms, and, ultimately, student achievement. New Leaders aims to prepare transformational school leaders by partnering with districts and charter schools to offer rigorous, research-based training for aspiring principals. The Aspiring Principals program is New Leaders' signature program and has three core features: selective recruitment and admission, training and endorsement, and support for principals early in their tenure. This report is a follow-up to the 2014 evaluation of New Leaders' Aspiring Principals program. Focusing on the revised program, which was first implemented in 2012, the authors present evidence of the effectiveness of the revised Aspiring Principals program and share lessons that can inform principal-preparation policy and practice. To assess the effect of New Leaders' Aspiring Principals program, researchers analyzed whether schools and students led by graduates of the program outperformed comparison schools and students in the same district, focusing on student achievement and principal retention. They also examined program graduate placement and satisfaction with the Aspiring Principals program. [For the appendixes, see ED605724.]

Research across the decades has confirmed that effective school leadership is associated with better outcomes for students and schools. A high-quality school leader affects dozens of teachers and hundreds or thousands of students. It is a pivotal role. From 2011 to 2016, The Wallace Foundation, through its Principal Pipeline Initiative (PPI), provided funding and technical assistance to support six large school districts in their efforts to put in place systematic processes for the strategic management of school leaders. The purpose was to examine whether a comprehensive principal pipeline would be more effective than business-as-usual approaches to the preparation and management of school leaders. The term principal pipeline is shorthand for the range of talent management activities that fall within a school district's scope of responsibility when it comes to school leaders, including leader standards, preservice preparation opportunities for assistant principals and principals, selective hiring and placement, and on-the-job induction, evaluation, and support. This report documents what the PPI districts were able to accomplish, describing the implementation of the PPI and its effects on student achievement, other school outcomes, and principal retention. The authors found that all six PPI districts were able to implement comprehensive pipelines, and they did so in different ways. The PPI had positive effects on a wide range of outcomes that school districts care about, and evidence of these positive effects was widespread. The authors also found that the work is affordable: It cost a PPI district about $42 per pupil per year, or less than 0.5 percent of the district's budget in each school year, to operate and enhance its principal pipeline. The authors conclude that districts looking for ways to enhance school outcomes and improve the retention of newly placed principals should be encouraged by the experiences of PPI districts. The findings of this study suggest that when districts focused attention on activities related to principal pipelines, then principals, schools, and students benefited. Key findings include: (1) The work is feasible: (a) PPI districts were able to implement all components of a principal pipeline at scale; (b) PPI districts approached pipeline enhancement in different ways depending on their starting point, needs, and opportunities; (2) The work is effective: (a) After three or more years, schools with newly placed principals in PPI districts outperformed comparison schools with newly placed principals by 6.22 percentile points in reading and 2.87 percentile points in math; (b) Newly placed principals in PPI districts were 5.8 percentage points more likely to remain in their school for at least two years and 7.8 percentage points more likely to remain in their school for at least three years than newly placed principals in comparison schools; (c) The PPI had statistically significant, positive effects on achievement in elementary and middle schools and some evidence of positive effects for high schools; (d) PPI effects on achievement were positive and statistically significant for schools in the lowest quartile of the achievement distribution; and (e) PPI effects were positive and statistically significant in reading for five PPI districts and in mathematics for three districts. The PPI effect was negative and statistically significant in mathematics in one district; (3) The work is affordable: PPI districts spent about $42 per student per year on pipeline activities during the initiative. The lowest-cost components were the development of leader standards and selective hiring and placement; and (4) What drove these effects: The entire package of PPI components appears to have worked as a cohesive whole, much as it was designed to do. There was little evidence that individual components were uniquely correlated with larger or smaller effect sizes.

School principals are charged with complex responsibilities that can include developing a school vision and culture, supporting teacher effectiveness, managing challenges and crises, communicating with the greater community, and more. However, recent research and surveys of school administrators indicate that principal preparation programs do not adequately prepare graduates to cope with school realities. In response to concerns about the state of initial principal preparation, The Wallace Foundation established the University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI), a four-year effort to redesign seven universities' principal preparation programs according to evidence-based principles and practices. Each university collaborates on the redesign with high-need school districts and a state partner, and is supported by a mentor program. This report focuses on the implementation of UPPI in its first year, from fall 2016 to fall 2017. The authors report on UPPI progress and identify cross-cutting themes in the UPPI implementation effort that can help other university principal preparation programs and their partners undertake their own principal preparation system improvement efforts. Key Findings: (1) UPPI programs began with some evidence-based features and contexts already in place; (2) UPPI partnerships used the first year to develop a vision for the new program and the redesign process. The teams at each site engaged in three primary re-envisioning activities: standards development, program assessment, and logic model development; (3) Each UPPI team focused on redesigning its curriculum and instruction; (4) UPPI leadership teams explored changes to clinical experiences and candidate recruitment and selection; (5) University-based leads--the individuals from each university leading the overall initiative at that site--and actively engaged partners drove the initiative in the first year; (6) UPPI prompted partner states and districts to consider issues and/or undertake activities they may not have otherwise; and (7) UPPI leadership teams developed strategies to mitigate the most pressing challenges, such as turnover and capacity limitations. [For the executive summary to this report "Launching a Redesign of University Principal Preparation Programs: Partners Collaborate for Change. RAND Principal Preparation Series. Volume 1. Executive Summary," see ED590581.]

School principals are charged with complex responsibilities that can include developing a school vision and culture, supporting teacher effectiveness, managing challenges and crises, communicating with the greater community, and more. However, recent research and surveys of school administrators indicate that principal preparation programs do not adequately prepare graduates to cope with school realities. In response to concerns about the state of initial principal preparation, The Wallace Foundation established the University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI), a four-year effort to redesign seven universities' principal preparation programs according to evidence-based principles and practices. Each university collaborates on the redesign with high-need school districts and a state partner, and is supported by a mentor program. The report summarized in this document focuses on the implementation of UPPI in its first year, from fall 2016 to fall 2017. The authors report on UPPI progress and identify cross-cutting themes in the UPPI implementation effort that can help other university principal preparation programs and their partners undertake their own principal preparation system improvement efforts. Key Findings: (1) UPPI programs began with some evidence-based features and contexts already in place; (2) UPPI partnerships used the first year to develop a vision for the new program and the redesign process. The teams at each site engaged in three primary re-envisioning activities: standards development, program assessment, and logic model development; (3) Each UPPI team focused on redesigning its curriculum and instruction; (4) UPPI leadership teams explored changes to clinical experiences and candidate recruitment and selection; (5) University-based leads--the individuals from each university leading the overall initiative at that site--and actively engaged partners drove the initiative in the first year; (6) UPPI prompted partner states and districts to consider issues and/or undertake activities they may not have otherwise; and (7) UPPI leadership teams developed strategies to mitigate the most pressing challenges, such as turnover and capacity limitations. [For the full report "Launching a Redesign of University Principal Preparation Programs: Partners Collaborate for Change. RAND Principal Preparation Series. Volume 1," see ED590580.]

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) presents a renewed focus on school leadership and acknowledges the importance of school principals to school improvement and effective instruction (Public Law No. 114-95, 2015). The act allows states and districts to use federal funds for activities targeting the quality of school principals and other school leaders. ESSA repeatedly calls for the use of "evidence-based" activities, strategies, and interventions (Public Law No. 114-95, 2015). The RAND Corporation conducted a synthesis of the evidence base on school leadership efforts to inform the use of school leadership activities and interventions under ESSA. This report is intended to help federal, state, and district education policymakers understand and implement efforts to improve school leadership that are consistent with ESSA. Herein, the authors first offer an overview of the ways in which school leadership may affect outcomes of interest and then describe how school leadership is addressed by ESSA funding streams and statutory provisions. The key questions for this topic are: (1) What is the evidence that school leadership matters for school improvement? and (2) What school leadership--improvement activities are supported under ESSA? The authors then describe the ESSA-defined tiers of evidence that such funding streams will require. They compare ESSA evidence tiers with evidence requirements for other federal education programs to identify ambiguities in the ESSA tiers. The key question for this section is: How are the ESSA evidence tiers defined, how does current guidance clarify these tiers, and what further guidance might improve the use of these evidence tiers for education decisionmaking? Next, they provide a brief description of their methodology in reviewing the literature and present findings on improvement activities that could reasonably be interpreted to fit within ESSA's evidence framework, given the statute and guidance. Finally, recommendations are offered to guide education policymakers, practitioners, and thought leaders on the use of research-based practices. A bibliography is included. [This report expands on the version released in January 2017 ("School Leadership Interventions Under the Every Student Succeeds Act: Evidence Review--Updated and Expanded," by Rebecca Herman, Susan M. Gates, Emilio R. Chavez-Herrerias, and Mark Harris) by including information about the interventions reviewed in Appendix D. For earlier (2016) versions of this report, see ED571819 and ED570943.]

States and districts are embarking on efforts to improve school leadership as a lever to promote school improvement. Such efforts have a solid base of research attesting to their effectiveness, and some view them as particularly cost-effective because principals "can be powerful multipliers of effective teaching and leadership practices in schools." Although the logic of this perspective is sound, in truth, very little is known about the resources required to improve school leadership. This report fills an important gap in the literature on school leadership by presenting an approach for understanding the resources and expenditures associated with efforts to prepare, hire, evaluate, develop, and support school leaders and by presenting estimates of those resources and expenditures. All districts that employ more than a few school leaders devote at least some resources to these activities and might find some value to our approach. RAND Corporation analysts applied an approach to develop estimates of the resources required to put in place and operate "principal pipelines"--pipelines for preparing, hiring, supporting, and managing school leaders--based on data they collected from six urban districts that participated in The Wallace Foundation's Principal Pipeline Initiative. Technical details on data collection and analysis are qppended. [For the related report from The Wallace Foundation, see ED574748.]

The reauthorization of the U.S. Elementary and Secondary Education Act, referred to as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), emphasizes evidence-based initiatives while providing new flexibilities to states and districts with regard to the use of federal funds, including funds to promote effective school leadership. This report describes the opportunities for supporting school leadership under ESSA, discusses the standards of evidence under ESSA, and synthesizes the research base with respect to those standards. The information can guide federal, state, and district education policymakers on the use of research-based school-leadership interventions; help them identify examples of improvement activities that should be allowable under ESSA; and support the rollout of such interventions. This report updates an earlier version and incorporates non-regulatory guidance from the U.S. Department of Education, analysis of tier IV evidence, and reviews of additional studies. The report contains five chapters. Chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2: How Does the Every Student Succeeds Act Support School Leadership Improvement?; Chapter 3: How Does the Every Student Succeeds Act Define Evidence?; Chapter 4: What Is the Evidence of Effects of ESSA-Eligible School Leadership-- Improvement Activities?; and Chapter 5: Recommendations for Using This Review. Appended to the report are: (1) State Exemptions to ESSA Evidence Requirements and (2) Evidence Requirements across Federal Legislation and Policy. Also included are notes and a bibliography. [See the earlier report: "School Leadership Interventions Under the Every Student Succeeds Act: Volume I--A Review of the Evidence Base, Initial Findings", at ED570943.]

The reauthorization of the U.S. Elementary and Secondary Education Act, referred to as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), emphasizes evidence-based initiatives while providing new flexibilities to states and districts with regard to the use of federal funds, including funds to promote effective school leadership. This report describes the opportunities for supporting school leadership under ESSA, discusses the standards of evidence under ESSA, and synthesizes the research base with respect to those standards. The information can guide federal, state, and district education policymakers on the use of research-based school-leadership interventions; help them identify examples of improvement activities that should be allowable under ESSA; and support the rollout of such interventions. A second volume will further summarize the evidence and provide tools to help policymakers and practitioners make decisions about school-leadership-improvement activities under ESSA. This report includes notes and a bibliography.

New Leaders is dedicated to promoting student achievement by developing outstanding school leaders to serve in urban schools. RAND Corporation researchers conducted a formative and summative external evaluation of the New Leaders program, its theory of action, and its implementation from 2006 through 2013. This document presents technical appendixes to supplement our main evaluation report (Gates et al., 2014). The intended audience for these appendixes is individuals who seek additional information on the methods used in our analysis or additional district-specific detail. The intended audience includes other researchers and officials in school districts. This research has been conducted in RAND Education, a unit of the RAND Corporation, under a contract with New Leaders. [For the full report, see ED561152. For the research brief, "Principal Preparation Matters: How Leadership Development Affects Student Achievement. Research Brief," see ED561155.]

New Leaders is a nonprofit organization with a mission to ensure high academic achievement for all students by developing outstanding school leaders to serve in urban schools. Its premise is that a combination of preparation and improved working conditions for principals, especially greater autonomy, would lead to improved student outcomes. Its approach involves both preparing principals and partnering with school districts and charter management organizations (CMOs) to improve the conditions in which its highly trained principals work. As part of the partnerships, New Leaders agrees to provide carefully selected and trained principals who can be placed in schools that need principals and to provide coaching and other support after those principals are placed. The districts and CMOs agree to establish working conditions that support, rather than hinder, the principals' efforts to improve student outcomes. This report describes how the New Leaders program was implemented in partner districts, and it provides evidence of the effect that New Leaders has on student achievement. [The research in this report was produced within RAND Education. For the appendices that accompany this report, see ED561154. For the research brief, "Principal Preparation Matters: How Leadership Development Affects Student Achievement. Research Brief," see ED561155.]

Principals new to their school face a variety of challenges that can influence their likelihood of improving their schools' performance and their likelihood of remaining the principal. Understanding the actions that principals take and the working conditions they face in the first year can inform efforts to promote school improvement and principal retention, but the research on first-year principals' experiences is limited. This report examines the actions and perceived working conditions of first-year principals, relating information on those factors to subsequent school achievement and principal retention. The study is based on multiple sources of data that were collected to support the RAND Corporation's seven-year formative and summative evaluation of New Leaders. New Leaders is an organization that recruits, selects, prepares, and supports school leaders to serve in urban schools. The authors found that (1) over one-fifth of new principals leave within two years, and those placed in schools that failed to meet adequate yearly progress targets are more likely to leave; (2) there were no strong relationships among principals' time allocation, student achievement, and retention; (3) teacher capacity and cohesiveness were the school and district conditions most strongly related to student outcomes; (4) principals' reported future plans were not strongly related to retention. Individual chapters contain footnotes. (Contains 4 figures and 24 tables.) [Funding for this paper was provided by New Leaders.]

The evidence presented in this paper questions whether the current U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) system of in-kind subsidies for child care is meeting DoD recruitment, readiness, and retention goals or service member needs in an optimal way. DoD appears to be reaping limited benefits from the substantial subsidies provided to families that use Child Development Centers. Many families cannot or choose not to use the subsidized on-base DoD programs; these families receive no support for child care costs. The authors' findings suggest that the DoD child care system could change in a number of ways to better meet DoD and family needs. First, it could redistribute resources within the current system. Rethinking priority policies from the perspective of both child care need and the degree to which care characteristics fit with likely DoD and service member needs would be another important way to change the system. DoD may also wish to expand the child care benefit to cover more military families and a broader set of child care needs. Alternatively, DoD could expand access to child care through the use of cash benefits, vouchers, and/or negotiated discounts with local providers that meet quality standards, while continuing to provide some amount of DoD Family Child Care homes and Child Development Center care. DoD may also want to invest more resources in assessing the value of child care benefits, as it does for other military compensation components. (Contains 17 footnotes, 8 figures and 3 tables.) [For associated summary, see ED502782.]

This document summarizes a report that questions whether the current U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) system of in-kind subsidies for child care is meeting DoD recruitment, readiness, and retention goals or service member needs in an optimal way. DoD appears to be reaping limited benefits from the substantial subsidies provided to families that use Child Development Centers. Many families cannot or choose not to use the subsidized on-base DoD programs; these families receive no support for child care costs. The authors' findings suggest that the DoD child care system could change in a number of ways to better meet DoD and family needs. First, it could redistribute resources within the current system. Rethinking priority policies from the perspective of both child care need and the degree to which care characteristics fit with likely DoD and service member needs would be another important way to change the system. DoD may also wish to expand the child care benefit to cover more military families and a broader set of child care needs. Alternatively, DoD could expand access to child care through the use of cash benefits, vouchers, and/or negotiated discounts with local providers that meet quality standards, while continuing to provide some amount of DoD Family Child Care homes and Child Development Center care. DoD may also want to invest more resources in assessing the value of child care benefits, as it does for other military compensation components. [For full report, see ED502783.]

This report documents the results of a survey of 1,137 active-duty military families, including activated Reservists, regarding child care use. These survey data were analyzed to estimate the relationship between individual family characteristics and installation characteristics and the probability that the family uses any nonparental child care, uses DoD-sponsored child care, has unmet need for child care, and has undermet need for child care. Through this analysis, the reader develops a richer understanding of the extent to which DoD is meeting the need for child care among military families. This report will be of interest to officials responsible for DoD child-care policy and other quality of life issues. It should also be of interest to child care managers in other federal organizations, child care researchers, and child care policymakers at the national, state, and local levels who grapple with the issue of estimating the need for child care. Appended are: (1) Focus Group Summary; (2) Survey Nonresponse Analysis; and (3) Child-Care Survey Instrument. (Contains 15 tables.) ["Examining Child Care Need among Military Families. Technical Report" was written with Marika Suttorp.]

The Department of Defense (DoD) is committed to meeting the need for child care among military families. DoD supports the largest employer-sponsored system of high-quality child care in the country. Through accredited child development centers (CDCs), family child care (FCC) homes, youth centers, and other after-school programs, DoD currently provides approximately 176,000 child-care spaces for military children 0-12 years old and plans to expand this capacity to 215,412 spaces by fiscal year 2007. To estimate the magnitude of child-care need among military service personnel, DoD uses a formula incorporating installation-level and other demographic data, including a combination of national and military statistical trends. Because the formula is based solely on demographic data, DoD was concerned that the formula might not be addressing all relevant aspects of child-care need. This monograph, the sixth in a series of RAND reports on military child care, is intended to provide DoD policymakers and managers of the military child-care system with information on the validity of the DoD formula, to improve the understanding of the factors that influence key child-care outcomes, and to address the broader issue of how DoD might refine its goals for military child care. Appended are: (1) Components of the Child-Care Need Formula: DoD and the Military Services; and (2) Military Child Care Survey. (Contains 3 figures, 18 tables, and 8 footnotes.) [The research described in this report was prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). The research was conducted in the RAND National Defense Research Institute.]

In 1998, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) established the DoD Office of the Chancellor for Education and Professional Development. Although achieving its mission requires that the chancellor's office influence the education and professional development providers' behavior, its charter grants it very limited formal authority to exercise such influence. A project was therefore undertaken to give the chancellor's office a clear sense of its available options in pursuing its mission. Research and theories from social psychology, organizational behavior, and sociology were drawn upon to develop a framework for strategic assessment and development of power and influence that includes the following stages: (1) power assessment; (2) power development; and (3) development of influence. The newly developed power assessment process involves consideration of the following key factors: (1) the influencer's objective; (2) relevant characteristics of the target organization and its members; (3) the influencer's power bases and capabilities as an organization and as a collection of individuals; (4) features of the relationship between the influencing organization and its target; and (5) the environment in which the organizations interact. After assessing its potential power, the influencer can evaluate whether its current power bases are sufficient and the extent to which it has been capitalizing on them. (A literature review is appended. The bibliography lists 48 references.) (MN)

A study was conducted to develop tools for describing and evaluating external governance in the U.S. Department of Defense's (DoD's) multiorganizational system of education, training, and professional development. An exploratory conceptual framework and taxonomy for understanding external governance in the DoD context was developed, and the following criteria were used to assess the effectiveness of DoD's external governance: (1) evidence that system outcomes are being defined, measured, and evaluated relative to goals; (2) evidence that providers, intermediaries, and key stakeholders are communicating frequently and transparently; (3) evidence that providers and intermediaries are responsive to key stakeholder guidance; and (4) evidence that key stakeholders are being satisfied. The following recommendations were made to DoD: (1) advocate and facilitate system-level and demand-side governance on the part of key stakeholders within the system; (2) encourage all key stakeholders to undertake a structural analysis of governance as part of their own strategic planning function; (3) engage in system-specific development and pilot testing before performing an implementation audit of governance; (4) perform implementation audits on a case-by-case basis for major subsystems or key stakeholders that have salient problems with responsiveness and effectiveness; and (5) establish a center for development and retention of governance knowledge and evaluation capacity. (Contains 52 references.) (MN)

The Office of the Secretary of Defense supports a vast and complicated system of education and professional development for civilians. The RAND study team from the National Defense Research Institute conducted a broad review of the literature on educational assessment and reviewed the documents of organizations engaged in such assessment, interviewed experts, attended conferences, and conducted site visits to exemplary organizations. This report synthesizes the information from the study and suggests educational and professional development approaches the DoD might use to raise the quality and productivity of the education the Department provides for civilians it trains. The study identified the need for system level assessment and classified approaches into four basic models: (1) use of an intermediary to review the process individual providers use; (2) assessment by an intermediary organization; (3) assessment by the individual providers; and (4) a focus on the certification of student competencies. Models 1, 2, and 3 appear most relevant for the DoD Chancellor's Office, but regardless of the model selected, any assessment must identify the goals of the education activities, measure the outcomes related to these goals, and evaluate whether the outcomes meet the goals. Eleven appendixes contain supplemental information about DoD training programs and assessment approaches of other agencies. (Contains 6 figures, 26 tables, and 248 references.) (SLD)

In 2006, New Leaders contracted with RAND to conduct an independent evaluation of its principal-preparation program. The analysis included all principals who have been prepared by New Leaders since the inception of the program, comparing outcomes of their students and outcomes of similar students in other, comparable schools in the same districts. The centerpiece of the evaluation is a rigorous analysis of the effect that New Leaders principals have on student outcomes. This brief describes work done for RAND Education documented in "Preparing Principals to Raise Student Achievement: Implementation and Effects of the New Leaders Program in Ten Districts." [For the full report, see ED561152. For the appendices that accompany the report, see ED561154.]

This research brief summarizes research suggesting that the U.S. Department of Defense may wish to consider expanding its child care benefits to cover more military families and a broader set of child care needs. [For "Options for Improving the Military Child Care System. Occasional Paper Summary", see ED502782. For the full paper, see ED502783.]