Family treatment drug courts (FTDCs) are an increasingly common approach for serving families involved in child welfare due to parental substance abuse; however, the evidence base for FTDCs remains emergent. This quasi-experimental study replicates previous research on FTDCs by comparing parental substance abuse treatment and child welfare outcomes for 76 FTDC participants to outcomes for 76 parents in the same system who did not participate in the FTDC, using propensity score matching. Data were obtained from the Superior court, FTDC, child welfare, and public substance use treatment service administrative databases. The follow-up window for participants ranged from 1 to 3 years. Results showed FTDC parents had significantly more review and motion hearings, were significantly more likely to enter treatment, entered treatment faster, received more treatment, and were more likely to successfully complete treatment. FTDC children spent significantly less time placed out of home, ended child welfare system involvement sooner, were more likely to be permanently placed and discharged from child welfare, and were more likely to return to parental care. Results demonstrate that FTDCs promote positive treatment and child welfare outcomes without deepening participants' involvement in justice systems.

Recent causal evidence connects levels of per pupil spending and short- and long-term student outcomes. This evidence further suggests that specific types of spending may mediate the relationship between expenditures and student outcomes. Yet race remains related to funding disparities and schooling experiences in ways that raise concerns about the role of school finance in perpetuating racial opportunity gaps. We explore this potential source of educational inequality by asking how racial segregation and racial socioeconomic disparities are related to racial disparities in school district spending over time. We use 15 years of data from the School Funding Fairness Data System on school district expenditures and demographics to explore patterns of racial/ethnic segregation and racial/ethnic disparities across six categories of per pupil expenditures. We find that changes in racial/ethnic segregation within a state from 1999 through 2013 are associated with racial/ethnic disparities in spending, even after accounting for disparities in poverty.

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Resource exposure was a key mechanism linking patterns of racial segregation and student outcomes during the Brown v. Board of Education era. Decades later, past progress on school desegregation may have stalled, raising concerns about resource equity and associated student outcomes. Are recent trends in segregation associated with racial disparities in district revenue? Drawing on national data from the School Funding Fairness Data System and the Common Core of Data, this study examines the association between contemporary patterns of segregation between districts within a state and racial disparities in school district revenue over time. We find that increases in racial segregation, net of racial socioeconomic segregation, and other racial differences between districts are associated with racial disparities in revenue.