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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.