|
May 26, 2023
|
|
|
This guide aims to assist families when their child goes
missing. This fifth edition of the guide is a resource to
help families identify, prioritize, and take actions that
can assist law enforcement efforts to locate their children
and return them home safely. The guide opens with a letter
from eight parents who helped to develop and write the
resource and draws on their experiences." The seven-chapter
resource includes checklists of critical information
families should provide to law enforcement officers, the
media, and search and rescue professionals, and suggests
steps for maintaining their own emotional, physical, and
financial well-being. It defines terminology related to
cases involving missing children. The final chapter
includes contact information for federal, state, tribal,
local, and nonprofit entities that work with and support
families with missing children and the law enforcement
agencies working their cases.
|
Source: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Programs
|
|
Research and experience show that diversion – providing a
response outside of the formal justice system to criminal
behavior– is effective and reduces costs. An increasing
number of juvenile justice systems across the country have
been implementing diversion programs and, in response, a
growing number of reports have been produced to guide
jurisdictions in using best practices. But to-date, there
has been little guidance provided to jurisdictions that
wish to target older youth or emerging adults (ages 18 –
25), whose distinct developmental stage is rarely
recognized in our justice system. This report fills in this
gap by providing a succinct overview of the research
to-date, examples of smaller-scale diversion programs that
have been developed around the country, and most
importantly, 13 recommendations for jurisdictions to follow
in implementing fair, effective, and developmentally
appropriate diversion for emerging adults, including making
diversion the default approach and implementing
developmentally appropriate program terms and conditions.
|
Source: Columbia Justice Lab
|
|
|
This set of tables introduces new data for national and
state-level public elementary and secondary revenues and
expenditures for fiscal year 2021. Specifically, these
tables include the following school finance data: 1)
revenue and expenditure totals; 2) revenues by source; 3)
expenditures by function and object; 4) current
expenditures; 5) revenues and current expenditures per
pupil; 6) expenditures from Title I funds; and 7) revenues
and expenditures from COVID-19 Federal Assistance Funds.
For Florida, the tables report $16.9 billion in local
revenue, $14.1 billion in state revenue, and $4.8 billion
in federal revenue for a total of $35.8 billion in revenues
for public education in fiscal year 2021. Other states with
higher revenue values are California ($111.8 billion), New
York ($77.4 billion), Texas ($73.0 billion), and Illinois
($40.8 billion). Florida per pupil revenues were$12,822 for
fiscal year 2021, which represents a 5.6% increase relative
to per pupil revenues for fiscal year 2020.
|
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for
Education Statistics
|
|
Postsecondary education is associated with achieving
economic self-sufficiency and other positive outcomes.
Young people in foster care face challenges pursuing
postsecondary education, which can lead to them being less
likely than their peers to enroll in college and less
likely to earn a degree when enrolled. One federal
initiative meant to address this issue is the Chafee
Education and Training Voucher (ETV) program. This
federally funded program provides funds for vouchers that
can be used to pay for anything included in the cost of
college attendance as defined by the school or program,
including tuition, books, room and board, and other
expenses. States administer the program, and differ widely
in their implementation, interpretation, and application of
the eligibility criteria. This report highlights the
perspectives of young people who have experienced foster
care and received ETVs to help fund their postsecondary
education. Eighty-one young adults in nine states spoke to
the authors about their experience of receiving ETVs and
offered suggestions for program improvements. Young adults
overwhelming said the financial assistance ETV provided was
helpful and reduced a substantial amount of stress
pertaining to how to pay for college and living expenses
while in school. While some learned about ETVs from
different adults in their lives at varying times, a
significant number did not learn about the program until
they entered college. Young adults also reported varied
experiences when applying for and receiving ETV funds, with
some experiencing challenges. Recommendations include
streamlining the application process and improving
paperwork processing; offering more flexible funding in
higher amounts to allow young adults to better meet their
needs; and ensuring all ETV-eligible young adults have
access to supportive adults.
|
Source: Urban Institute
|
|
This report assesses progress toward the vision of science
instruction provided a decade ago by the National Research
Council, A Framework for K-12 Science Education. The
framework has shaped reform efforts across all components
of K-12 science education – including state standards,
instructional materials, professional learning, assessments
and accountability policies, instruction, and preservice
teacher preparation. The framework also drove the
development of the Next Generation Science Standards, a set
of research-based, K-12 science content standards developed
by states to improve science education by setting
expectations for what all students need to know and be able
to do. In order to elevate the status of science education
in the U.S. and to broaden the involvement of
underrepresented groups in ongoing reform efforts, a
field-level agenda for change is necessary. To that end,
the report includes recommendations for state standards,
instructional materials, and professional learning to
inform improvements over the next 10 years in service of
making science education a priority for all. The authors
identified a need for efforts at the state and national
levels to disseminate accurate depictions of
standards-aligned instruction and explain the benefits for
students and society. Regarding instructional materials,
states, school districts, and schools should ensure
teachers are equipped with high-quality instructional
materials and supports rather than asking teachers to
create or find their own; and states and districts should
increasingly allow for the adoption of open educational
resources in addition to instructional materials created by
commercial publishers. The authors also recommend improving
and increasing opportunities for professional learning.
|
Source: Issue Lab
|
|
|
Many cities at the core of large U.S. metropolitan areas
were no longer among the largest population losers in 2022,
reversing a pattern seen during the first full year of the
COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. About half of the nation’s
fastest-growing cities just over a year into the pandemic
(July 1, 2021) remained among the top-15 gainers one year
later (July 1, 2022), growing at an even faster rate. The
15 fastest-declining cities from 2021 to 2022 and 2020 to
2021 were different, with major cities like Boston,
Washington, D.C. and, most notably, San Francisco falling
off the list. While almost half of the fastest-declining
cities had populations of 100,000 or more in 2021, only
three had populations of 100,000 or more a year later. Two
cities (Jackson, Mississippi, and New Orleans, Louisiana)
were negatively impacted by Hurricane Ida. Fort Worth,
Texas, the third largest-gaining city since 2018, ranked
first in 2022 with a numeric increase of 19,170 from 2021.
In addition, San Antonio and Georgetown, Texas; Phoenix,
Arizona; and Port St. Lucie and Cape Coral, Florida, showed
notably larger increases in 2022 than in 2021 – possible
signs of population rebound. From 2021 to 2022, the total
population increase for the nation’s 15 largest-gaining
cities was just over 197,800, compared to a collective gain
of about 129,000 people from the 2020 to 2021 period which
included the first full year of the pandemic. New York City
continued to exhibit the largest numeric decline, losing
123,104 people from 2021 to 2022. But this was nearly 60%
less than its 2020-2021 population loss of 305,465.
Declines also slowed in other large cities that had
experienced significant population losses, including
Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Portland and
San Jose.
|
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Census Bureau
|
|
The physical environment in which the U.S. Department of
Defense (DOD) must operate is being affected by climate
hazards, which adversely affect the performance of the
joint force and the systems that support it. Generating,
maintaining, and even increasing force readiness in light
of changing climate threats is a key component of meeting
high-level U.S. strategic goals, from defending the
homeland to deterring aggression and strategic attacks.
Acknowledging that climate effects are likely to become
more severe as global temperatures rise, the authors of
this report discuss the results of an initial study they
conducted to develop links between climate and readiness,
laying the groundwork for the eventual integration of
climate risk with quantitative readiness assessment and
decision making to help ensure that military forces can
reliably and affordably sustain needed readiness in a
changing climate. A key contribution of the study is a
climate readiness framework for understanding the risk to
readiness that may result from a combination of (1)
exposure to climate hazards, such as drought, flooding,
wildfire, and tropical storms, and (2) the underlying
vulnerability of readiness inputs — i.e., people, training,
equipment, and force projection — to such hazard exposure.
The authors found that climate and readiness are understood
and studied by separate communities; climate risk is not
currently integrated with readiness measurement or
reporting; and the climate readiness framework can provide
a useful structure for understanding readiness
vulnerability to climate risk. They also found that the
full impact of climate change on readiness requires
consideration of all climate hazard pathways in aggregate;
and information beyond hazard representation is required to
understand the vulnerability of readiness to climate. The
authors recommend that the DOD consider developing,
adapting and building upon a climate readiness framework;
continue to strengthen linkages between climate and
readiness; continue to identify and prioritize
opportunities for implementing climate-informed decision
making; and that readiness reporting should be structured
to provide information to track climate impacts.
|
Source: RAND Corporation
|
|
|
This report presents health insurance coverage estimates
from the 2022 National Health Interview Survey, along with
selected trends from 2019–2022. In 2022, 27.6 million
people of all ages (8.4%) were uninsured at the time of
interview. This was lower than 2021, when 30.0 million
people of all ages were uninsured (9.2%). In 2022, among
adults aged 18–64, 12.2% were uninsured at the time of
interview, 22.0% had public coverage, and 67.8% had private
health insurance coverage. Among children aged 0–17 years,
4.2% were uninsured, 43.7% had public coverage, and 54.3%
had private health insurance coverage. Among non-Hispanic
White adults aged 18–64, the percentage who were uninsured
decreased from 10.5% in 2019 to 7.4% in 2022. The
percentage of people under age 65 with exchange-based
coverage increased from 3.7% in 2019 to 4.3% in 2022.
|
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
|
|
Veteran-serving organizations across the United States
offer programs to support veteran wellness as veterans
transition from military to civilian life, but little is
known about the services and activities these programs
offer to promote veteran social connectedness and reduce
the risk of isolation — or how these organizations measure
the effectiveness of those efforts. A web-based, national
survey of veteran-serving organizations, interviews with
organizations that offer programs to strengthen veterans'
social connections, and a first-of-its-kind program
typology provide new insights into the types of support
available to help veterans build these connections, how
organizations evaluate their programs' effectiveness, and
where they would benefit from assistance to overcome
barriers to program evaluation. Research indicates that
veterans who feel connected to family, friends, colleagues,
other veterans, and their communities have substantially
better mental health outcomes than those who do not, but
few studies have examined programs that promote this social
connectedness. A survey and interviews with representatives
from veteran-serving organizations found a variety of
programs to support veteran wellness and social
connectedness. A typology of social connectedness programs
developed as part of this study provides an expansive view
of program offerings, reveals patterns in the types of
activities available to veterans, and offers a foundation
for future research efforts. Despite offering programs
intended to build veterans' social connections,
organizations struggled to measure social connectedness.
Most organizations tried to evaluate their social
connectedness-oriented programs and saw the value in
evaluations, but they often faced practical barriers to
doing so, including data collection challenges and
insufficient resources. A solid foundation for evaluating
veteran social connectedness programs would facilitate
internal program improvement efforts and offer additional
external benefits, such as attracting future participants,
informing donor funding decisions, and aiding the
identification and dissemination of evidence-based
practices for promoting veteran social connectedness.
|
Source: RAND Corporation
|
|
The successful use of wastewater-based data during the
COVID-19 pandemic has led to the creation of the National
Wastewater Surveillance System in the United States for
pathogen monitoring. Now a complementary system is needed
for help tackling the opioid epidemic. In 2021, the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported annual
deaths from drug-involved overdoses in the United States
exceeded 100,000 people, with opioids primarily responsible
for 75% of overdoses. With opioid overdose deaths having
accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, better data are
urgently needed to illuminate the dynamic shifts in drug
use that are occurring. Wastewater-based epidemiology has
played a significant role in helping officials monitor and
respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. This innovative approach
to public health surveillance can also be harnessed for
timelier monitoring of the opioid epidemic. No additional
funding would be needed for wastewater sample collection;
the only additional cost would be to include assays for
drug metabolites. Now is the time to turn our attention
back to the opioid epidemic, which, unlike COVID-19, has
not receded. In fact, a new fourth wave of the opioid
crisis resulting from polysubstance use, including
psychostimulants, was recently identified, and over a
million overdose deaths are predicted by the end of this
decade. As the National Wastewater Surveillance System
includes new sites, expanding to include new monitoring
targets could put the United States at the forefront of
drug surveillance, helping communities identify shifts in
consumption patterns, get early warnings of new outbreaks,
and have a cost-effective way to evaluate the efficacy of
opioid response strategies.
|
Source: Mathematica
|
N O T E : An online subscription may be required to view some items.
|
|
|
|
OPPAGA is currently accepting applications for a part-time, academic year
Graduate Student Position.
OPPAGA is an ideal setting for gaining hands-on experience in policy analysis
and working on a wide range of issues of interest to the Florida Legislature.
OPPAGA provides an opportunity to work in a legislative policy research offices
with a highly qualified, multidisciplinary staff.
|
|
|
|
Government Program Summaries (GPS) is a free resource for legislators and the public that provides descriptive information on over 200 state government programs. To provide fiscal data, GPS links to Transparency
Florida, the Legislature's website that includes continually updated information on the state's operating budget and daily expenditures by state agencies.
|
A publication of the Florida Legislature's Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability.
Click here to subscribe to this publication.
As a joint legislative unit, OPPAGA works with both the
Senate and the House of Representatives to conduct
objective research, program reviews, and contract
management for the Florida Legislature.
PolicyNotes, published every Friday, features reports, articles, and websites with timely information of interest to policymakers and researchers. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations
expressed by third parties as reported in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect OPPAGA's views.
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
PolicyNotes provided that this section is preserved on all copies.
|
|