Laws regarding driving under the influence of marijuana vary from state to state, with a growing trend toward “per se” laws that identify a level of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, one of the psychoactive substances in marijuana) in biofluids as a determinant of intoxication. However, there is little evidence correlating specific THC levels with impaired driving, making marijuana per se laws controversial and difficult to prosecute. Researchers also examined how cannabis dose and administration method (eaten or vaped) affect THC levels in the body and how THC levels correlate with performance on impairment tests. Researchers concluded that THC levels in biofluids were not reliable indicators of test performance or marijuana intoxication.

This study examines 67 disrupted attack plots against K-12 schools and highlights the importance of proactive reporting and intervention. Students who plotted school attacks shared many similarities with students who perpetrated school attacks. Both this report and the U.S. Secret Service study Protecting America’s Schools included students who had histories of school discipline and contact with law enforcement; experienced bullying or had mental health issues, frequently involving depression and suicidality; intended to commit suicide as part of the school attack; used drugs or alcohol; and had been impacted by adverse childhood experiences, including substance abuse in the home, violence or abuse, parental incarceration, or parental mental health issues. Key findings include that targeted school violence is preventable when communities identify warning signs and intervene. The authors also found that students were more often motivated to plan a school attack because of a grievance with classmates.

Communities across the United States are reconsidering the public safety benefits of prosecuting non-violent misdemeanor offenses. So far, there has been little empirical evidence to inform policy in this area. In this paper, the authors report the first estimates of the causal effects of misdemeanor prosecution on defendants' subsequent criminal justice involvement. The authors leverage the as-if random assignment of non-violent misdemeanor cases to Assistant District Attorneys (ADAs) who decide whether a case should move forward with prosecution in the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office in Massachusetts. These ADAs vary in the average leniency of their prosecution decisions. They find that, for the marginal defendant, non-prosecution of a non-violent misdemeanor offense leads to large reductions in the likelihood of a new criminal complaint over the next two years. These local average treatment effects are largest for first-time defendants, suggesting that averting initial entry into the criminal justice system has the greatest benefits. They also present evidence that a recent policy change in Suffolk County imposing a presumption of non-prosecution for a set of non-violent misdemeanor offenses had similar beneficial effects: the likelihood of future criminal justice involvement fell, with no apparent increase in local crime rates.

The Common Core of Data provides basic information on public elementary and secondary schools, local education agencies, and state education agencies for all fifty states and the District of Columbia. Recently posted data for academic year 2019-20 includes staff counts by professional category and student membership disaggregated by grade, race/ethnicity, and sex, including school-level counts of student eligible for free and reduced-price lunches. Geographic data and directory information, operational status, and charter status data for public schools has also been recently posted.

Arkansas has faced a massive shortage of certified teachers for decades. Statewide, 4% of public school teachers are uncertified, with another 3% teaching out of field. In many districts, the percentage of uncertified is much higher: as high as 56% in the Helena-West Helena School District, and 52% in the Forrest City School District. In this report, the authors provide a roadmap for how to take up this teacher shortage. First, the report analyzes the geography and extent of Arkansas’ teacher shortage. Next, it provides potential explanations for why it is so high in certain areas, including an analysis of existing efforts to reduce the shortage. Recommendations include 1) Design a supportive pathway to standard licensure for paraprofessionals, long-term substitutes, and classroom aides; 2) Raise the average teacher salary statewide, and provide districts whose average teacher salary falls below the target average with additional funding to help narrow their salary gap with nearby districts; and 3) Design a website that clearly illustrates the state’s pathways to teaching and related financial incentives.

This report provides an overview of arts education policies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It is updated annually, and new for 2021 is a metric on arts and science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) diploma seals. Florida was “yes” on 8 of the 15 arts metrics, including content standards for art, licensure requirements for art teachers, and state education grant programs or schools for arts.

New America recently published a report Harnessing Micro-credentials for Teacher Growth that champions ways that micro-credentials have been used to allow teachers to move up the career ladder, receive higher pay, or renew their licenses. Micro-credentials are assessment tools that verify a discrete skill or competency that a teacher has demonstrated through the submission of evidence assessed via a validated rubric. The report makes claims about the problems with traditional professional development and about how micro-credentials could address these shortfalls. However, the evidence to support these claims remains scarce. Without demonstrating that micro-credentials can improve teaching or student learning, the report offers guidance on how to implement micro-credentials and integrate them into state human resources systems. The implementation guide starts with an idealistic assumption that states, districts, and school leaders have the capacity to select, vet, and ensure the high quality of micro-credentials before they are offered to teachers. Furthermore, as the primary role of micro-credentials is to assess whether teachers have acquired a particular skill, they require additional resources to provide teachers with opportunities to develop that skill. Since micro-credentials on their own cannot provide opportunities for teacher growth and require the existence of effective professional development systems to work, the report’s title and guidelines are misleading.

This tool is one item in a suite of materials produced for the Pre-Kindergarten to Postsecondary Community Investment initiative, a three-year learning across five communities (Buffalo, New York; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Dallas, Texas; the Rio Grande Valley, Texas; and Tacoma, Washington). The initiative seeks to understand and support the development of coherent, high-functioning, equity-centered, place-based systems that span all education sectors from cradle to career. Funders, practitioners, and other stakeholders interested in place-based systems change can use this tool in their work. A place-based system is a geographically specific unit such as a neighborhood, city or town, or a state or region. This assessment tool is designed to help partnerships take a closer look at their areas of strength and areas where they can go deeper to effect place-based systems change. Though it draws from learning in cradle-to-career education, the assessment has application beyond that field. It can be used to examine multi-sector partnerships and collective efforts in areas such as health, transportation, and economic development. It can support decisions around upcoming investments, technical assistance needs, and site selection. It also codifies a cohesive framework for measuring place-based systems change efforts.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, workers at the bottom of the opportunity scale were struggling to support themselves and their families – let alone build wealth. Divisions in wealth between men and women, and between white households and households of color, are particularly striking consequences of structural discrimination and occupational segregation. The pandemic has exacerbated and heightened awareness of these inequities, and there is a mounting sense of urgency to find practical solutions. Broadening opportunities to participate in business ownership can help address this wealth divide and offer working people the opportunity to meaningfully participate in the success of the economy. In addition, employee share ownership can help strengthen job quality and worker agency while contributing to business performance, so that businesses and workers succeed together. Drawing on recent research, this report makes a case for why policymakers, funders, and investors should support employee share ownership. Informed by a roundtable discussion which brought together researchers, philanthropic leaders, investors, policy experts, and advocates, the report provides a set of concrete policy and practice ideas to expand employee ownership and advance equity and economic justice. Expanding employee share ownership can help create an economy that is more equitable and just, and that everyone has a stake in. Making more workers owners can help strengthen job quality and worker agency while contributing to business performance, so that businesses and workers succeed together. Increasing access to employee share ownership is a strategy to build wealth among historically excluded communities, and it is a structural shift that can help more workers and business leaders align their interests and build common purpose.

Employers are allowed to pay less than minimum wage to certain people with disabilities. Often, they work in segregated settings where their co-workers also have disabilities. Recent federal policy calls for maximizing opportunities for people with disabilities to earn competitive wages in non-segregated settings. The authors interviewed state officials and disability employment experts to identify 32 factors influencing whether and how people can transition to competitive integrated employment (CIE). Generally, CIE is employment that (1) is paid at or above the applicable minimum wage; (2) is performed in integrated settings, among people with and without disabilities; and (3) offers opportunities for advancement. The authors group the 32 factors into four categories: (1) employee; (2) employer; (3) public policy; and (4) local economy. For example, a factor in the employee category is concern for maintaining benefits. Individuals or families may fear that earning higher wages in CIE would make individuals ineligible for certain benefits, but several noted that benefits counseling could mitigate these concerns. Sufficiency of CIE resources was a factor in the employer grouping, state resources for CIE were a factor in the public policy grouping and available transportation was a factor in the local economy grouping.

Medicare’s experience of paying for outpatient imaging services, particularly expensive advanced imaging such as MRIs, CAT scans, and nuclear scans, has been tumultuous over the last 20 years. The period was characterized by substantial increases in performance of advanced imaging services, mainly in doctors’ offices, followed by a shift to hospital outpatient departments and then a leveling off of utilization. These trends were influenced by an extraordinary number of legislative and regulatory policy changes, most of which reduced payment amounts for services paid under the Physician Fee Schedule in doctors’ offices. This likely contributed to a movement of services to hospital outpatient departments, with payment based on the Outpatient Prospective Payment System where rates have been less impacted by policy changes. The authors termed this policy making process dysfunctional because there is no evidence that the results were anticipated or planned, despite the dramatic effect they have had on where advanced imaging is performed and at what cost. The report offers three recommendations for improving Medicare’s treatment of advanced imaging in ambulatory settings: 1) The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services needs a more systematic method of establishing payment levels for services using expensive equipment involved in the performance of advanced imaging studies; 2) The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services should coordinate the process for setting payments under the Physician Fee Schedule and Outpatient Prospective Payment System; and 3) The practice of prior authorization, a system widely used by private insurers to control spending for advanced imaging and other expensive services, should be used to manage advanced imaging services paid under the Physician Fee Schedule and Outpatient Prospective Payment System.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is a federal agency tasked with protecting public health and safety. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic presented the CDC with a challenge that was initially met with technical problems in the development of testing kits, mixed messaging about the pandemic and mitigation strategies, and extended public commentary and interference by the Trump administration. As vaccine dissemination campaigns ramp up, trust in the vaccines themselves and in public health procedures more broadly may pose a significant challenge to effectively combating the pandemic—particularly among groups that have had general medical mistrust stemming from historical experience, such as among people of color. This report examines changes in levels of trust in the CDC between May and October 2020 in light of these concerns. Four factors that determine whether an audience perceives the messenger as trusted are transparency and honesty, empathy and care, dedication and commitment, and competence and expertise. The CDC and its messengers should convey these factors to rebuild and maintain trust, communicating in appealing and transparent ways to counter the way that information is currently disseminated.