Susan M. Gates

The Wallace Foundation's University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI) is a four-year effort to support the redesign of seven universities' principal preparation programs--with engagement of state and district partners--according to evidence-based principles and practices. This report provides insight into the first year of UPPI implementation.

New medical technologies are a leading driver of U.S. health care spending. This report identifies promising policy options to change which medical technologies are created, with two related policy goals: (1) Reduce total health care spending with the smallest possible loss of health benefits, and (2) ensure that new medical products that increase spending are accompanied by health benefits that are worth the spending increases.

Undertaken for the Department of Defense1s Office of the Chancellor for Education and Professional Development, this report addresses the need of organizations to exert influence in situations where they lack the hierarchical authority that would make such influence straightforward. It does so by presenting a three-stage framework that will help such organizations recognize and capitalize on the power-and-influence options available to them.

Undertaken for the Department of Defense1s Office of the Chancellor for Education and Professional Development, this report outlines an approach for describing and evaluating external governance in a multi-organizational system of education, training, and professional development, which should be of interest to those charged with oversight of such systems. The approach consists of two main tasks: a structural analysis, which maps governance arrangements, and an implementation audit, which assesses effectiveness. (MF)

The Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) Reform asked RAND to provide an independent analysis of PPBE-like functions in selected countries and federal agencies. In this report-Volume 5 in a seven-volume set of case studies-RAND researchers analyze the defense budgeting processes of five additional allied and partner nations: France, Germany, Japan, Singapore, and Sweden.

The Department of Defense (DoD) requires estimates of the number of its workers with disabilities to support its strategic goals and compliance with federal regulation. In this report, the authors seek to estimate the potential demand for assistive technology (AT), given projections of the number of DoD civilian employees--and of injured and wounded service members--with disabilities, as well as anticipated requests and costs for AT.

States play a role in fostering an environment that develops and supports effective school principals. This report examines how seven states that are partnering on university-based program redesign are using state-level policy levers-standards, recruiting, oversight of principal preparation programs, licensing, professional development, evaluation, and leader tracking systems-to improve the quality of school principals.

The authors share new findings about the presence and potential importance of principal pipeline activities for preparing, hiring, supporting, and evaluating school leaders as reported by administrators from a national sample of school districts across the United States. The research was prompted by positive findings in a recent evaluation of the Principal Pipeline Initiative conducted by the RAND Corporation and Policy Studies Associates.

To assess the relationship between New Leaders' Aspiring Principals program and school and student outcomes, this report compares New Leaders principals with other new principals in the same district, analyzing student achievement, program-graduate placement and retention, and satisfaction with the Aspiring Principals program.

RAND Corporation analysts developed an approach for estimating the district resources required to put in place and operate principal pipelines--pipelines for preparing, hiring, supporting, and managing school leaders--based on data they collected from six urban districts that participated in The Wallace Foundation's Principal Pipeline Initiative. This report presents that approach and estimates of those resources and expenditures.

The defense acquisition workforce includes both military and civilian personnel who provide a range of acquisition, technology, and logistics support (products and services). This report examines data from Defense Manpower Data Center files and draws from previous related RAND analyses to address questions about factors that affect personnel retention and career advancement in the civilian acquisition workforce.

New Leaders is a nonprofit organization that partners with school districts to prepare and support principals. This report describes how the New Leaders program was implemented in partner districts, and it provides evidence of the effect that New Leaders has on student achievement.

The organic defense acquisition workforce oversees defense acquisition programs from start to finish. RAND has been providing ongoing analysis of the workforce. This volume documents revisions to methods summarized in an earlier report, describes the workforce through fiscal year 2011, and provides a user s manual for a model for projecting workforce needs through 2021 under different assumptions about the future.

This report describes an analysis of the effects that current employment rights protections for Reserve Component members and related support programs can have on employers, given increased mobilization of the National Guard and Reserve, and makes recommendations stemming from that analysis.

Defense acquisition is one of the most urgent issues that the Department of Defense faces today. In an effort to provide the department and the nation with guidance on defense acquisition challenges, the authors present detailed proposals to improve defense acquisition through initiatives focused on competition, novel systems, risk management, organizational factors, prototyping, and the acquisition workforce.