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Professional learning communities (PLCs) bring together teams of educators to share ideas, learn about instructional approaches, and reflect on practice. Educators increasingly have opportunities to connect with peers and experts outside of their schools and districts through online platforms. These online PLCs offer greater flexibility for educators to participate in discussions from any location and at any time. But, there are important questions about how to design online PLCs that provide teachers with flexibility, encourage their participation, and are integrated with face-to-face professional learning opportunities.

This presentation series offers education researchers across the Chicago region an opportunity to learn about each other’s work, interact informally, and support the field of education research in Chicago.

The employment rate among people with disabilities has consistently been low. People with disabilities face many barriers to securing competitive, integrated employment, such as lack of access to transportation, difficulty finding a job, and needs for workplace accommodations. Mathematica is evaluating the SourceAmerica Pathways to Careers program, a customized employment service model designed to help people with intellectual or developmental disabilities or autism obtain competitive integrated employment that matches their skills, interests, strengths, and abilities. This webinar featured a panel of experts who will discuss how Pathways promotes competitive integrated employment, give an employer’s perspective on partnering with Pathways and hiring its participants, present interim evaluation outcomes, and report on SourceAmerica’s plans to expand the customized employment service model.

Through the Parents and Children Together evaluation, Mathematica researchers are contributing to the evidence base regarding approaches to increase positive father involvement in children’s lives. At a forum on December 7, researchers, program administrators, and program participants shared their experiences and what they learned.

Mathematica’s Center for Studying Disability Policy (CSDP) hosted a webinar to examine these issues from the employer perspective. Panelists discussed: (1) actions employers can take to better accommodate employees with disabilities; (2) feedback from employer interviews about the challenges associated with recruiting and retaining workers with disabilities; and (3) findings from the National Employment and Disability Survey, recently released by the Kessler Foundation.

Child welfare agencies regularly make crucial program decisions that can impact the health and well-being of children and families across the country. Agency leaders and line staff alike can benefit from current, high quality data and evidence to inform their decisions. However, systemic challenges at play in the realm of child welfare—including, for example, short deadlines, limited resources, and high staff turnover—can make it difficult for program leaders to draw on relevant research and encourage a culture of evidence. At the same time, research evidence can be difficult to access or interpret, or it may not fully address the needs of practitioners and other decision makers.

Recent federal policy changes require state vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies to expand service delivery to transition-age youth and young adults with disabilities. These expanded services intend to improve youth’s preparation for college and employment.

Professional development that combines online and in-person activities offers a number of potential advantages for teacher learning. Online activities can extend the learning that occurs in face-to-face sessions, and in-person sessions can establish a strong foundation for teachers’ online interactions.

Finding and interpreting relevant evidence can be a frustrating experience for many policymakers.

In 1968, Mathematica led the nation’s first major social research experiment, helping to spur a revolution in the application of social science to public policies and programs. For more than four decades, social scientists have revised and refined those methods, but the gold standard for research remained much the same.

Mathematica and OPRE hosted a webinar on September 17, from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. Presenters shared insights into strategies for developing trauma-informed systems of care and lessons from programs that address trauma among fathers.

Australia is the only country in the world that regularly collects comprehensive information about the holistic development of every child entering its schools. This information, gathered through the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC), guides national and state policy and informs program development. Over the past 12 years, AEDC data have shown progress in reaching the most vulnerable children. The AEDC, along with population-based measurement more broadly, is useful for the United States because it can inform current discussions of equity in access to early childhood services.

Research reveals that the earliest years of life are a critical period of human development. Early relationships and experiences have a strong influence on brain development and future health and well-being. Young children’s foundational relationships and experiences take place in the context of families and communities. Yet, low-income families—especially families of color and rural families—often do not have access to the basic necessities and resources for fostering the nurturing experiences and stimulating environments that young children need to thrive. Furthermore, policy and program silos can impede cross-functional solutions and service delivery, which are designed to holistically address the needs of children and families.

Significant attention has been focused on helping beneficiaries of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) participate in the work force. Increased work activity for these beneficiaries can increase self-sufficiency and reduce reliance on federal benefits, while simultaneously reducing federal outlays. Despite these efforts, work activity among beneficiaries has not increased substantially in recent decades. Three studies sponsored by the Social Security Administration’s Disability Research Consortium provide new information on work activity among SSI and SSDI beneficiaries and offer insights about the barriers they face in pursuing work.

In a special super session at APPAM’s 40th Fall Research Conference, APPAM president-elect Matt Stagner joined a roundtable discussion with industry CEOs who are working to apply insights from our modern data revolution to social science questions and challenges that have spanned generations. Abt Associates CEO Kathleen Flanagan, Impaq International CEO Avi Benus, Mathematica CEO Paul Decker, MDRC president Gordon Berlin, and Urban Institute President Sarah Rosen Wartell shared the most important lessons from their work to advance evidence-based policy, as well as the critical challenges and emerging trends in policy analysis and program improvement.

The current earnings rules for Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) specify that, after using available work incentives, DI beneficiaries are not owed a DI benefit check if they earn more than a certain threshold. The Benefit Offset National Demonstration (BOND) tested a design intended to encourage DI beneficiaries to work by replacing the so-called cash cliff with a ramp—a $1 reduction in benefits for every $2 of additional earnings. BOND simultaneously tested the new rules with two groups: a nationally representative sample of DI beneficiaries and a group of recruited and informed volunteers—those thought to be most likely to earn more than the earnings threshold. Results from the five-year evaluation of BOND are now available for both groups.

There is increased awareness and urgency within the research community to ensure that evaluation and assessment practices are sensitive to the cultures of people who are most impacted by those practices. Driven by changing demographics and the increasing complexity of problems that researchers and communities seek to address, new efforts are underway to develop research practices that better account for the unique perspectives and needs of the communities being studied. But there is hardly consensus on what culturally responsive research actually means or, more broadly, what implications such approaches could have on evidence-based policies and programs.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 changed several aspects of the law concerning access to health insurance that were particularly salient for people with disabilities. These changes included removing limits on preexisting conditions, extending parent’s health insurance coverage of young adults until the age of 26, expanding Medicaid to more adults with low incomes, and making it easier to obtain affordable coverage outside the traditional employer-sponsored benefit system.

The goal of the webinar is to expand local and state leaders’ knowledge of teacher survey instruments to enhance the evaluation of school leaders.

Recognizing that school leaders play a critical role in school performance, states and districts are rethinking how they prepare principals. But this retooling of preparation programs raises a number of important questions: What skills do new principals need? How can we identify aspiring principals with the potential to develop those competencies? And how can we use these insights to improve the training of leaders at all levels of the system, from teacher leaders to principal supervisors?

In the past two decades, many federal and state Medicaid initiatives have been designed to rebalance the long-term services and supports (LTSS) system by increasing access to home and community-based services (HCBS) in order to reduce the use of expensive institutional care.

International development programs are designed to make lasting and positive improvements in the health, education, and income of disadvantaged people around the world.