Topics

Corrections and Public Safety
State policy makers across the nation are asking whether soaring prison budgets are the best path to public safety.  Increasingly, they are finding that the answer is “no.” Pew’s Public Safety Performance Project helps states advance fiscally sound, data-driven policies and practices in sentencing and corrections that protect public safety, hold offenders accountable and control corrections costs. The Project currently collaborates with the Pew Center on the States and five external partners to provide expert, non-partisan information and assistance to 13 states that want a better return on their public safety investments. Learn More

Death Penalty
This initiative, based at the Justice Project Education Fund, promotes reforms to ensure fairness and accuracy in the administration of the death penalty in the United States, including more DNA testing and other legal safeguards. Learn More

Economic Competitiveness
The Pew Center on the States conducts research to identify the keys to state economic competitiveness—including recent reports examining innovative state research and development efforts, how states are struggling to pay $2.73 trillion in promised retirement benefits, and how state tax systems impede economic vitality. In addition, the Center seeks to assess the economic impact of strategic investments in young children. In 2006, Pew joined with several philanthropists, foundations and corporations to create the Partnership for America’s Economic Success, which is guided by an advisory board that includes economists, business leaders, children’s advocates and policy experts. Learn More

Foster Care
Pew launched a major policy initiative in 2003 to help move children in foster care more quickly and appropriately to safe, permanent families and to help prevent their unnecessary placement in foster care in the first place. Today, significant court reforms are underway nationwide and federal financing reform is urgently needed. With a new campaign called Kids Are Waiting: Fix Foster Care Now, Pew is working in partnership with state and national organizations to raise awareness about this issue and achieve federal financing reform. Learn More

Global Warming
Climate change is becoming an increasingly urgent issue for state policy makers. Since 1998, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change has been advancing the climate change discussion through analysis, public education and, more recently, a new cooperative approach with business. Through the publication of issue briefs highlighting the science and impact of climate change and the array of diverse international, state and local actions currently underway, the Pew Center on the States supports the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Learn More

Government Performance
For more than a decade, the Government Performance Project has been the nation’s premier source for comprehensive and independent information about state management. Its mission is to improve service to citizens by strengthening government policy and performance. In March 2008, the Pew Center on the States will launch its fourth 50-state report card, in partnership with Governing magazine.   Learn More

Higher Education
With support from Pew and its partner, the Atlantic Philanthropies, the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, was established in 1998. Its broad goal is to promote public policies that enhance Americans’ opportunities to pursue and achieve high-quality education and training beyond high school. To ensure its unbiased perspective, the Center is not affiliated with any institution of higher education, with any political party or with any government agency. Learn More

Improving Elections
Make Voting Work, a project of the Pew Center on the States, is an ambitious initiative launched in January 2007. The project seeks to foster an election system that  achieves the highest standards of accuracy, convenience, efficiency and security.  The initiative builds on Pew’s investments in electionline.org, a project launched with Pew support in 2001. Now a part of the Make Voting Work initiative, electionline.org continues to focus on the issues and best practices related to election administration. It is the nation’s only nonpartisan, non-advocacy Web site providing up-to-the-minute news and analysis on election reform.   Learn More

K-12 Education
Since 1994, Pew has supported Quality Counts, an annual report card grading all 50 states on K-12 educational standards and accountability, as well as efforts to improve teacher quality, school climate, and resource equity. The report card, produced by Editorial Projects in Education, a non-profit news organization, is published in Education Week magazine. Since partnering with the Pew Center on the States in 2006, Quality Counts 2007 and Quality Counts 2008 continue this research with a new feature: a “Chance-for-Success Index,” which tracks state efforts to connect education from prekindergarten through postsecondary education and training. Learn More

Medicaid
In January 2006, the Pew Center on the States released, Special Report on Medicaid: Bridging the Gap Between Care and Cost, which analyzed how state Medicaid programs are wrestling with rising costs and highlighted examples of which  innovations are working, which are not, and why. The report was released as a special section in Governing magazine. Learn More

Pandemic Preparedness
One of the most significant health threats to the United States is the possibilty of an outbreak of pandemic flu. The Pew Center on the States, in partnership with Pew’s Pandemic Preparedness Initiative, is working with the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, to share information about what states and communities are doing to prepare.  Learn More

Pre-K Education
Pew works to expand access to high-quality prekindergarten programs for all three- and four-year olds in the United States. While we work with a variety of groups, two major organizations operate at the core of our initiative: The National Institute for Early Education Research and Pre-K Now. Pew also managed a project to develop guidelines for states on creating fair and effective accountability systems for state pre-kindergarten programs. Learn More

State News (Stateline.org)
Since 1999, The Pew Charitable Trusts has supported Stateline.org, an online news resource that covers state politics and policy through original reporting and by collecting news stories. Based in Washington D.C., and an independent element of the Pew Research Center, Stateline.org also publishes an annual State of the States report, and sponsors professional development conferences and workshops for the news  media, including the annual conference of Capitolbeat, the Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors. Learn More

Subprime Mortgage Lending
Home ownership is part of the American dream.  But a mix of risky mortgage products, loose underwriting standards and weakening home prices is producing a record volume of foreclosures.  Pew's Center on the States is working with Pew's Health and Human Services program to highlight states' efforts to strengthen loan underwriting standards and help borrowers avoid foreclosure. Learn More