Courts need staff who can understand, interpret, and use data to support better decisions. Data is one of a court's most underused assets. When staff at every level can read, question, and apply data, court leaders make better decisions, optimize processes, and measure what's actually working. Data literacy also creates a shared language across roles, helping teams collaborate more effectively on data quality and performance. The National Center for State Courts’ Data Literacy for Courts course gives court leaders and staff the practical skills to confidently read, understand, and communicate about court data. The course is designed for a wide range of court professionals, including court administrators, judges, clerks, information technology staff, analysts, new hires in research and data offices, and any court professional interested in court data. Attendees will learn the value of data, think critically about how data are collected and used, use data for insights and decision-making, and take collective responsibility for data quality. The course includes modules on data life cycle, court statistics, data sleuthing, and data visualization.

Each year, thousands of youth are reported missing from foster care nationwide, placing them at heightened risk of victimization, exploitation, and justice system involvement. Although federal law requires immediate reporting and coordination when a youth’s whereabouts are unknown, responses and practices vary widely across jurisdictions, contributing to inconsistent protection and oversight. For courts, incidents involving youth missing from care raise critical questions about placement stability, system accountability, and youth safety. Judicial oversight can play a key role in ensuring timely reporting, monitoring agency compliance, addressing underlying risk factors, and supporting prevention-oriented practices that reduce repeat incidents. This brief examines national trends, common risk factors, and system responses, and highlights West Virginia’s Child Locator Unit as a promising approach for coordinated, data driven practice. This unit, established in the state’s Department of Health and Human Resources, provides specialized support to child welfare professionals by verifying required reports, tracking missing-from-care cases statewide, assisting with risk assessment, and supporting locating efforts in collaboration with law enforcement and community partners. This structure allows continuity and expertise while preserving accountability at the case level. This approach demonstrates how research-driven insights and legislative action can translate into a structured, statewide response to youth missing from care. The state has created a system that emphasizes accountability, collaboration, youth safety, and youth input. While challenges with consistency, communication, and prevention remain, the framework offers a strong foundation for continuous improvement through data-driven strategies, technology integration, and sustained attention to youth voice and normalcy.

The study compares the performance of artificial intelligence (AI) agents to humans in offensive cyber operations. The study finds that AI capabilities as of April 2026 make offensive cyber capabilities much more broadly available compared to the large language models of 2025, even without special expertise. Large language models protects use themselves and other systems from unauthorized access, misuse, and other forms of exploitation. Other key findings include that offensive cyber capabilities that were out of reach for non-experts in 2025 are now broadly accessible. In addition, it is reasonable to assume that many unpatched systems can be exploited by unskilled novices very soon, if not now. For example, previously, ‘script kiddie’ attackers would be unable to exploit even known vulnerabilities without the aid of malicious code prepared by more skilled programmers. Now, Claude Code can generate and run such scripts on demand. While some non-technical users may still find installing and running Claude Code daunting, this barrier is rapidly dropping (partly because large language models chatbots can help with it). However, researchers found that if vulnerable systems are only partially patched or if cybersecurity incidents are not fully resolved, AI agents may be able to exploit such systems at a rate faster and cheaper than benchmarks and further complicate attribution.

How are schools using literacy screening data to identify students for reading support under Alaska’s early literacy policy? The Alaska Reads Act requires districts to screen students in grades K–3 and assign Individual Reading Improvement Plans (IRIPs) to students who score well below benchmark. This study examines how schools use screening data and other information to assign students to IRIPs and determine when students exit those supports within a multi-tiered system of supports for reading. It found that most schools rely primarily on mCLASS literacy screening scores to assign IRIPs, though many consult additional data sources —including other assessments and student work — as well as input from parents, teachers, interventionists, and principals, when deciding whether students should exit IRIP supports. Students who scored in the “Well Below” benchmark mCLASS performance level had about a 90% probability of receiving an IRIP, indicating close alignment with Alaska Reads Act requirements. About a third of K–3 students in Kenai were assigned an IRIP during the 2023-24 school year. More than half of the students assigned to an IRIP exited the plan by the end of the school year. End-of-year mCLASS benchmark levels were strongly associated with IRIP exit decisions, suggesting schools rely heavily on screening results when determining when students no longer need additional support.

This study highlights how teacher training, collaborative opportunities, and support from school leadership and other instructional staff further enable teachers to cultivate positive classroom conditions for students to engage with and learn math. The findings also underscore the need for practical, teacher-driven data tools and professional supports to enhance teachers’ math teaching practices. The findings from this report point to ways that state policymakers can support teachers in cultivating classroom conditions that are more conducive to math learning. They can: issue curriculum and instructional guidance for educators that articulates the importance of positive classroom conditions for students’ math learning, ensure that teacher education programs instruct future teachers about the importance of positive classroom conditions for students’ math learning so they can create these conditions in their own classrooms, and allocate funds at the state level for professional learning to support in-service math teachers. District and school leaders seeking to support improvements in math learning have opportunities to: establish a shared vision for excellent math instruction that includes positive classroom conditions for math learning as an essential feature, and support data-informed reflection on classroom learning conditions.

Rural communities that are not currently served by drinking water or wastewater utilities (unserved communities) often face challenges addressing their drinking water or wastewater infrastructure needs. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have limited data about these unserved communities but can obtain some information through their agencies’ programs and datasets. The rural unserved communities known to USDA and EPA are often in unincorporated areas and frequently have financial and other constraints that limit their ability to address their water infrastructure needs, according to agency officials. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified 28 USDA and EPA programs that can provide rural unserved communities with financial and technical assistance to help build or improve drinking water or wastewater infrastructure. However, these communities sometimes face difficulty accessing this assistance. For example, communities or their representatives often need to apply for multiple grants from various federal and state funding sources, which can be difficult because of varying application and funding timelines and restrictions on how and when funds can be used. Delays with funding from one source can jeopardize other funding sources and the project itself. For example, one community that was awarded a federal grant did not receive the funding in time to get a matching state grant. To help rural communities access financial resources for water infrastructure, USDA and EPA have taken steps to improve coordination with each other and states, including signing a 2017 joint memorandum. However, USDA and EPA have not collaborated to update and monitor the memorandum. Regularly updating and monitoring the joint memorandum, in consultation with states, would help the agencies better collaborate with each other to address the challenges rural communities face with accessing financial assistance for these projects. In addition, EPA’s technical assistance providers can help rural unserved communities navigate available resources, but EPA does not provide them with guidance or other resources to ensure these providers are aware of local capacity and incorporate local knowledge. Doing so could help providers work with rural unserved communities more effectively.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) administers 16 domestic food and nutrition assistance programs that affect the lives of millions of people and represent roughly two-thirds of USDA’s annual budget. Together, these programs totaled $147.9 billion in spending on food and nutrition assistance in the federal Fiscal Year 2025. Key findings of this review include that the pending Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) total was $101.7 billion in Fiscal Year 2025, more than two-thirds of total USDA food and nutrition assistance spending, up 2% from the previous year. SNAP participation increased by 1% to an average of 42.1 million people per month. Participation in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) averaged 6.9 million women, infants, and children per month in Fiscal Year 2025, and participation among all three groups increased from Fiscal Year 2024. WIC spending totaled $7.7 billion, up 6% from Fiscal Year 2024, reflecting increases in participation (2%) and food costs per participant (6%) from Fiscal Year 2024. In Fiscal Year 2025, 9.3 billion meals were served across the National School Lunch Program, School Breakfast Program, Child and Adult Care Food Program, and Summer Food Service Program, about the same number of meals as in Fiscal Year 2024. Combined spending on these programs totaled $29.9 billion, up 5% from Fiscal Year 2024. Fiscal Year 2025 was the second year of operation of the Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer for Children (Summer EBT) Program. Spending on Summer EBT totaled $2.7 billion in FY 2025, down 7% from Fiscal Year 2024.

This article explores the relationship between a community’s natural capital (i.e., environment and natural amenities) and economic capital (i.e., financial systems and infrastructure) in the context of its capacity to mitigate and recover from disasters. Specifically, this article looks at disaster risk and flood insurance coverage levels nationally and in the counties affected by flooding in the wake of Hurricane Helene. Key findings include that the capacity to prepare for and recover from natural disasters varies widely across communities. Coastal communities, counties with higher flood risk ratings, and counties with more historical experiences with flooding tend to have higher levels of flood insurance. However, only 3.4% of residential properties were covered nationwide in 2024. And levels of residential flood insurance vary widely across the country, with counties with low income having lower rates of residential flood insurance coverage compared with counties with middle and high income. In many counties affected by Hurricane Helene, less than 1% of residential structures were covered by flood insurance. Many inland counties had coverage for less than 0.25% of residences. At the high end, about half of homes were insured in coastal counties Monroe (58%) and Collier (48%) in Florida. Research suggests that flood insurance take-up is driven by a combination of requirements and previous experience with flooding disasters. Together, these factors may play a leading role in the ability of a community to build the economic capital needed to withstand future disasters.

The sixteen key indicators in this report capture the needs of children and youth across four domains: economic well-being, education, health, and family and community. This year’s Data Book shows that since 2019, seven of the 16 key indicators have improved, seven have worsened, and two remain unchanged. Improvements include reductions in teen births and children living in high-poverty areas, declines in child poverty, increases in parental employment and educational attainment, improvements in on-time high school graduation rates, and a slight decrease in the share of children and teens who are overweight or obese. These gains reflect a combination of economic recovery, effective public policies, and sustained public health efforts. Education outcomes remain the most concerning area, with three of the four indicators worsening since 2019. Specifically, reading and math proficiency declined, preschool participation fell, and pandemic-related disruptions affected learning. Nearly every state (47) experienced declines in education, underscoring how deeply the pandemic impacted students and schools. While some progress has been made, serious health and economic challenges remain. For example, high rates of child and teen deaths and low birthweight babies continued, over 1.2 million teens were disconnected from school or work, and families faced ongoing housing affordability pressures.

The cost of long-term care is an often-unexpected expense for older adults and their families that can threaten financial security, and the threat appears to be growing. Most older adults will need some form of care in their lifetime, and only about 1 in 5 will receive Medicaid-funded services at home or in a nursing home. More often, older adults who receive long-term care will pay for it themselves or get help only from family caregivers. While home care affordability has always been a challenge, rapid price increases in just the last few years have made cost even more of a concern. This analysis shows home care prices that have surged compared to other medical categories and comparable services in recent years. Key findings include that between May 2025 and May 2026, home care prices increased by 7.9%. This is almost double the rate of overall inflation (4.2%), and significantly higher than major categories such as food and housing. Over the last year, nursing home care prices have increased by almost 5%, demonstrating higher price increases across the long-term care continuum. Over the last five years, prices for health and long-term care (“medical inflation”) have grown by about 13%; however, significant variance exists across services. Home care prices have increased by 39% since May 2021. Hospital and nursing home care come the closest to this rate, with prices rising by more than 25% in each setting. In general, medical services prices have grown faster than medical goods (e.g., equipment), and home care inflation leads the category.

Remote work has quadrupled in the half-decade since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although there is a burgeoning literature examining remote work’s impact on workers’ productivity, less research considers its impact on workers’ well-being. This study explores differential changes in remote work across different occupations to assess remote work’s impact on isolation and mental health. Researchers found that relative to those in non-remotable jobs, workers in remotable jobs spent approximately one additional hour alone per workday after the pandemic. Those in remotable jobs also differentially increased days spent entirely alone and decreased after-work socializing. The rise in isolation was sharpest for those living alone, whose likelihood of spending the whole day with social contact rose by 7 percentage points (83%). Mental distress simultaneously increased. The increase in distress was roughly twice as large for those living alone compared with those living with family. Alternative measures of mental distress, such as frequency of depression and mental health care utilization, show similar trends. Result suggests that remote work substantially increases isolation and worsens mental health, particularly for those living alone. Although a large body of research finds that workers want to work remotely, findings also suggest that workers may not realize the costs of remote work for their well-being, which may take time to accumulate.