Previous research has demonstrated that some form of education or training after high school is critical to both the upward mobility of individuals and the economic competitiveness of the country. Recent federal policy has recognized the need to address the postsecondary opportunities of nontraditional students and adult learners. The findings of this research were compared with existing research on strategies to address adult basic education transition to postsecondary education and training opportunities.

First responder fields—including law enforcement, firefighting, and emergency management services—serve a crucial role in the safety and well-being of communities around the country. Public citizens and officials have placed a renewed focus on improving agencies’ relations with their local communities by ensuring that first responders reflect the populations they serve. The potential benefits of increasing diversity and moving toward greater representation could also provide more secure and rewarding employment opportunities to historically underrepresented populations. This exploratory study identifies promising practices that first responder agencies and organizations can leverage to increase the diversity of their workforces.

The 12 chapters of the Transitional Housing for Survivors of Domestic and Sexual Violence: A 2014-15 Snapshot report comprehensively explore the challenges facing transitional housing programs and the survivors of domestic and sexual violence they serve, the underlying issues and contributing factors, and the diverse approaches that programs take to address those challenges.

With 10,000 Baby Boomers turning 65 each day, policy makers are facing the following critical questions about how to meet the requirements of an aging society. This brief is the first in a two-part series about policies and programs that provide resources and services for aging in place.

The “graying of America” calls for new solutions to enable older Americans to age in place in their communities of choice. This issue brief reviews three community-based models—cohousing, villages, and livable communities—that are filling critical gaps in services directed at those who want to age in place.

Colleges and universities are relying heavily on contingent faculty to increase flexibility and reduce costs, yet little is known about whether such savings actually result in lower overall costs or if the money saved on instruction is being spent in other areas. This brief documents the financial trade-offs being made by institutions as they hire more part-time contingent faculty.

Charter school stakeholders in South Carolina expressed interest in understanding the leadership characteristics and practices of charter school leaders across the state. Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast helped develop an online survey of characteristics and practices that was administered by the South Carolina Department of Education to leaders of all charter schools in South Carolina. This report describes the process for developing the leadership survey and provides descriptive results of the survey.

Education leaders have expressed concern about educators’ moving to different schools—within the same state or in another state—because these moves create costs for the home district and have potential impacts on the equitable distribution of effective educators among schools. This study's findings provide initial insights into the intrastate and interstate mobility of educators and whether educators are more likely to move away from certain types of schools, whether some states are losing substantial numbers of teachers to neighboring states, and whether states are obtaining substantial numbers of educators from neighboring states.

Contingent faculty—that is, full- and part-time instructors not on the tenure track—now comprise the majority of all faculty at U.S. colleges and universities. The first of a two-part series, the goal of this brief is to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the landscape surrounding changes to the academic workforce, and to identify whether contingent faculty are more likely to be employed in certain types of institutions.