Dual system youth (DSY) refer to youth who have some form of cross-system involvement (concurrent or historical) with the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. Almost all the research examining DSY (regardless of how DSY is defined) has consistently confirmed the adverse trajectories of these cases that are likely to persist without meaningful interventions. These adverse trajectories include but are not limited to extended juvenile justice and child welfare system involvement, frequent out-of-home placement disruptions, continued delinquent activity, poor permanency outcomes, frequent school changes and substandard educational performance, and a range of negative systemic impacts on the courts and other systems intended to serve these challenging cases. While initiatives to support DSY may not be as abundant as they have been in the past, there are numerous states and jurisdictions that continue to recognize the importance of DSY issues. This review highlights several important state-level examples, ranging from those that integrate statewide data linkage through probabilistic matching on personal identifiers in Massachusetts; to those that link data in their statewide automated child welfare information systems in Colorado; to efforts in Maryland to align state policy with a requirement by counties to develop and implement local DSY plans. The research also suggests that coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, some states are revisiting their statewide efforts to support progress with DSY reforms.

In some states, 8 of every 10 of parole applicants can expect to be denied and have to wait anywhere from 1 to 15 years before their next hearing. The highest discretionary parole grant rates came from Wyoming (76%) and North Dakota (71% in 2023) — two states that have some of the lowest state prison populations and, accordingly, likely have small parole caseloads. At the other end of the spectrum, California held over 6,000 parole hearings in 2024 but only granted parole in about one in five cases, and South Carolina granted parole to 4% of applicants in 2024. Twenty-one states had lower grant rates, and only seven states had higher grant rates, in 2023 or 2024 (depending on data availability) compared to 2019. The analysis also finds that discretionary parole hearings have become more rare over time. The 25 states with aggregate hearing data had over 68,000 fewer hearings in 2024 compared to 2019.

Three states — Alaska, Indiana and Massachusetts — offer helpful examples of reassessing assessments and launching innovative approaches to advance student learning and pathways. State leaders are finding unique ways to meet federal accountability requirements while meeting the needs of local schools, teachers and students. Alaska’s innovations include providing (1) Instructional Utility -- the interim data is available within 24-48 hours after testing and is used to guide real-time instruction; (2) Continuity -- students use the same testing platform throughout the year, which can reduce anxiety and improve familiarity; and (3) Efficiency -- this approach reduces duplicative testing in the spring by integrating the data to fulfill federal accountability requirements while maintaining growth measurement. In Indiana, checkpoints are computer-adaptive assessments for math and English / Language Arts given in the fall, winter and spring during a 9- to 11-week window. Each checkpoint consists of 22- 25 test questions assessing 4-7 essential standards. They are designed to measure students’ understanding of critical skills and concepts as outlined in the Indiana Academic Standards and provide teachers with valuable information to guide instruction. And in Massachusetts, a new assessment is designed to support deeper learning goals for all students. Deeper learning is defined as mastery of challenging standards, modern skills and authentic, relevant work. For example, the science assessment leverages technology actively engage students in simulated science experiments where they apply findings to answer questions.

One approach that attempts to address both physical and psychological safety in schools is the use of a behavioral threat assessment (BTA) system. These systems aim to identify, assess, and manage the threat of violence targeted at schools with the ultimate goal of intervening to prevent such violence. As of April 2024, 85% of schools across the United States reported having a threat assessment team, with 45 states having established some form of a BTA policy. In an environment where resources, time, and capacity are in limited supply, states and school districts benefit when they invest in evidence-based strategies and research-backed supports that promote physically and psychologically safe school environments. Though evidence indicates that well-designed and well-implemented BTAs can be part of a successful violence prevention strategy, there is far more to learn about what will enable these conditions in schools. Research suggests that several elements are key: 1) Rooting BTAs within a positive school climate; 2) Creating and training BTA teams appropriately; 3) Designing BTA systems to problem solve, not criminalize; 4) Equipping schools with needed counseling and mental health supports; and 5) Collecting and reporting useful BTA data to support continuous improvement.

Cell phones are overwhelming K–12 schools. Teachers are pushing for cell phones to be removed from schools, citing constant disruptions to classroom instruction and concerns about what responsibility they might have for the content that students post while in their classrooms. School administrators are worried that cell phones have negatively affected students’ academic learning, mental health, and attention spans. Beyond the impacts of cell phone use on student learning and mental health, cell phone and social media use have created a rash of safety problems for schools, including cyberbullying and threats. Nearly all K–12 schools had a cell phone policy that allowed students to bring their phones to school during the 2024–25 school year, but two-thirds of schools had a policy that prohibited cell phone use from “bell to bell.” Eighty-six percent of principals in schools with some sort of policy restricting cell phone use endorsed the safety-related benefits of those policies, most commonly citing positive impacts on school climate, a reduction in inappropriate cell phone use, and a reduction in cyberbullying. Although six in ten youth supported some restrictions on cell phone use during classes, only one in ten supported bell-to-bell policies. Those youth who supported policies prohibiting cell phone use during classes did so because they said that such policies reduce distractions.

The report provides an updated portrait of the centenarian population in the United States and is based on age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, living arrangements, and geographic distribution information from the 2020 Census. The characteristic profile and geographic distribution of centenarians are compared with those of other age groups in the older population to illustrate how centenarians are distinct. States with the largest total populations generally had the most centenarians. California had the largest number of centenarians (10,623) followed by New York (6,921), Florida (6,580), and Texas (4,435). The percentage of the population aged 65 to 84 ranged from 10.5% to 19.4% across states. The states with the highest percentages aged 65 to 84 were Maine (19.4%), Florida (18.7%), Vermont (18.4%), and West Virginia (18.3%). The state percentages of people aged 85 to 99 ranged from 0.88% to 2.56%. The highest proportions were in Hawaii (2.56%), Florida (2.46%), and Pennsylvania (2.43%). The states with the lowest percentages in this age range were Alaska (0.88%—the only state with less than 1%) and Utah (1.20%).

Natural disasters affect hundreds of U.S. communities each year, and the federal government provides billions of dollars to support recovery efforts. Communities that receive Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) disaster assistance are generally required to cover a portion of recovery costs, known as the nonfederal cost share. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) was directed to review the use of Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) and Community Development Block Grant Mitigation (CDBG-MIT) funds to meet nonfederal cost-share requirements. This report examines 1) the portion of these funds that grantees have budgeted to meet cost-share requirements and 2) key challenges selected grantees face in using the funds for this purpose and options to address these challenges. For disasters occurring from January 2017 through January 2023, grantees budgeted about $3.7 billion (7%) of the $49.4 billion in CDBG-DR and CDBG-MIT funds to meet FEMA cost-share requirements. The GAO found that different timelines and requirements can make it difficult for grantees to use CDBG-DR or CDBG-MIT funds for FEMA cost share. For example, CDBG-DR and CDBG-MIT funds have historically become available later than FEMA funds. This can complicate planning, particularly when projects have already begun. In addition, grantees generally must use at least 70% of CDBG-DR and CDBG-MIT funds to assist people with low and moderate incomes, a requirement that does not apply to FEMA funds. This can be challenging, particularly when the benefits of large FEMA-funded infrastructure projects are difficult to isolate for these individuals alone.

Productivity dispersion, a measure of the spread between more productive establishments and less productive establishments, within an industry is an important characteristic of the business environment, potentially reflecting factors such as market structure, production technologies, and reallocation frictions. The retail trade sector saw significant changes between 1987 and 2017, and dispersion statistics can help characterize how it evolved over this period. This paper focuses on the transformation by developing public-use Dispersion Statistics on Productivity (DiSP) data for the retail sector for 1987 through 2017. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that from 1987 through 2017, dispersion increased between retail stores at the bottom and middle of the productivity distribution. However, when weighting stores by employment dispersion, the middle of the distribution is lower initially and decreases over time. These patterns are consistent with a retail landscape featuring more and more activity taking place in chain stores with similar productivity. Firm-based dispersion measures exhibit a similar pattern. Further investigation reveals that there is substantial heterogeneity in dispersion levels across industries.

The Department of Children and Families (DCF) contracts with community-based care lead agencies (CBCs) to provide child protection and child welfare services. State law establishes the duties of and general provisions governing CBC lead agencies, including authorizing CBC lead agencies to subcontract for the provision of services and restricting CBC lead agencies from directly providing more than 35% of all child welfare services unless statutory requirements are satisfied. This operational audit focused on the procurement of and financial arrangements for child welfare services provided by two CBC lead agencies, the Children’s Network of Southwest Florida, LLC (CNSWFL) and the St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners Family Integrity Program (FIP), as well as the DCF oversight. The auditors found that DCF records did not evidence review of and discussion regarding all pertinent documentation supporting the basis for exemptions granted to CNSWFL and FIP to directly provide more than 35% of child welfare services.

This report examines selected measures of healthcare use among teenagers ages 12–17 by parent- or self-report. Agreement between parent-reported and teen self-reported data is also evaluated. The percentage of teenagers with doctor visits, wellness visits, having a usual place of care, having a personal doctor or nurse, and having time alone with a doctor were estimated using teen-reported data from the National Health Interview Survey–Teen collected from July 2021 through December 2023. These estimates were compared with parent-reported estimates from the same time period using data from the National Health Interview Survey. Across all measures, parents reported higher healthcare use for their teenagers than teenagers reported for themselves (for example, 91.4% of parents reported a doctor's visit in the last 12 months compared with 83.0% of teenagers). Percentage agreement patterns between parent-reported and teen self-reported were most often driven by both parent and teenager affirming healthcare use indicators, except for having time alone with a doctor, which was driven slightly more by the parent and teenager both reporting the teenager had not received this service. Disagreement patterns were driven by parents affirming services the teenager did not; disagreement was highest for having a personal doctor or nurse and time alone with a doctor.

Although sleep is essential for healthy child development, parents generally misconstrue definitions of sleep duration and sleep quality. This study examines differences between objective and parent-reported measures of sleep-in children, with a particular focus on Latino and non-Latino groups, with the hypothesis that significant discrepancies existed between the groups. Children in grades one, two, and three in Rhode Island (n = 102; age range 6–10 years; 57.8% female) wore an accelerometer for seven days to objectively measure time in bed, sleep duration, wake after sleep onset, and sleep latency. Parents also reported perceived sleep outcomes, and whether they believed their child generally “sleeps the right amount”. Based on parent-reported sleep measures, 83.3% of children met sleep guidelines (defined as 9–12 h per night), compared to 14.7% based on accelerometry (ρ = −0.036, p = 0.711). Average sleep duration significantly differed between parent reports (9.58 h, SD = 1.42) and actigraphy (8.32 h, SD = 0.70; ρ = 0.405, p < 0.001). There were no discrepancies between objective and subjective reported sleep latency and WASO, although paired tests indicated significant within-person differences in WASO (p < .001). Finally, there were significant discrepancies in sleep duration between Latinos and non-Latinos, with Latino caregivers reporting significantly shorter sleep and their children experiencing shorter sleep duration as measured via actigraphy and being less likely to meet sleep guidelines. These findings suggest that there is a discrepancy between perceived and objectively measured sleep. It also suggests discrepancies in sleep duration between Latino and non-Latino children, and differences in parental knowledge of sleep behaviors between Latinos and non-Latinos.