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Advancements in biomedical science and technology have led to the development of many new diagnostic tests, drugs and devices—greatly expanding the treatment options available to patients. Less has been done to directly compare the effectiveness of such treatments, making it increasingly difficult for physicians and other providers to determine which therapeutic approaches will work best for which patients. Comparative effectiveness research, an endeavor that is supported by substantial funding from the federal government, aims to do just that. Applied appropriately, it could improve quality of care and health outcomes. However, pharmaceutical and medical device companies, as well as some physician and patient groups, have expressed concerns that such research might focus on the best clinical approach for populations and thus not benefit individual patients with unique health needs, and that it might restrict the treatment options available to patients. Further, there are fears that it could stifle medical innovation. But both international experience with comparative effectiveness research and the more limited experience with it here in the United States suggest that the benefits of more information about the relative clinical benefits of various drugs, devices and treatments outweighs its potential for harm, especially if such evaluations of medical processes and procedures are fair, accurate and transparent.

This publication summarizes research from AspenWSI’s Courses to Employment project, which studied how six community college-nonprofit partnerships work together to help low-income adults succeed in the classroom and the labor market. The report provides an overview of the approach and strategies these partnerships use, how these partnerships are structured in terms of institutional roles and responsibilities, what factors influence how these partnerships are structured, and describes the education and employment outcomes participating students achieved during the Courses to Employment project. This publication is geared towards policymakers and investors who are interested in supporting models that increase the success rates of adults in community college and to workforce development leaders who are interested in building or sustaining collaborative efforts to support workers in their labor markets as well as learning about innovative approaches to curricula, training and instruction, employer engagement strategies, and support services. This in-depth look at Courses to Employment (C2E) strategies will be useful to those already engaged in this work as well as to newcomers to this field of practice. Courses to Employment was funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.

This publication shares research from site visits conducted to construction pre-apprenticeship programs in Baltimore, Hartford, Milwaukee and Portland (OR).   Findings from the site visits, which included interviews and focus groups with pre-apprenticeship program staff, public officials, philanthropic leaders, construction industry leaders and employers, and pre-apprenticeship participants, showed programs in these cities to be of high value to workers, employers and other stakeholders in the their regional construction labor market.  The publication reviews how programs target a variety of education and employment outcomes for workers and use industry networks and staff expertise in order to meet a wide range of worker and employer needs in the construction industry.  WSI also makes several recommendations about how pre-apprenticeship programs could be better supported to help their participants achieve outcomes that are aligned with participants’ interests and needs as well as the realities of the labor market.  This research was supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation as part of a project investigating how pre-apprenticeship programs are used to train low-income and disadvantaged adults for careers in construction.

Hillsborough County Public Schools has launched a teacher evaluation system that has attracted attention from educators and policy makers across the country. Centralized, collaborative, communications-driven and adaptable are key characteristics of Hillsborough's approach. The system consists of two main components: observation of instruction and teachers' value-added scores, based on student test results.

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