Philadelphia's Changing Schools and What Parents Want From Them

Based on a survey, examines parents' expectations from and perceptions of school reforms, performance, and options among district-run, charter, private, and Catholic schools; priorities; and challenges by race/ethnicity, age, and income

Stakeholders' Participation in Planning and Priority Setting in the Context of a Decentralised Health Care system: the case of prevention of mother to child Transmission of HIV Programme in Tanzania.

In Tanzania, decentralisation processes and reforms in the health sector aimed at improving planning and accountability in the sector. As a result, districts were given authority to undertake local planning and set priorities as well as allocate resources fairly to promote the health of a population with varied needs. Nevertheless, priority setting in the health care service has remained a challenge. The study assessed the priority setting processes in the planning of the prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) programme at the district level in Tanzania. This qualitative study was conducted in Mbarali district, south-western Tanzania. The study applied in-depth interviews and focus group discussions in the data collection. Informants included members of the Council Health Management Team, regional PMTCT managers and health facility providers. Two plans were reported where PMTCT activities could be accommodated; the Comprehensive Council Health Plan and the Regional PMTCT Plan that was donor funded. As donors had their own globally defined priorities, it proved difficult for district and regional managers to accommodate locally defined PMTCT priorities in these plans. As a result few of these were funded. Guidelines and main priority areas of the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MoHSW) also impacted on the ability of the districts and regions to act, undermining the effectiveness of the decentralisation policy in the health sector. The challenges in the priority setting processes revealed within the PMTCT initiative indicate substantial weaknesses in implementing the Tanzania decentralisation policy. There is an urgent need to revive the strategies and aims of the decentralisation policy at all levels of the health care system with a view to improving health service delivery

National cancer programme work plan 2014/15

The National Cancer Programme Work Plan 2014/15 covers national, regional and local priority activities for cancer. Overview The National Cancer Programme: brings together the work of district health boards, regional cancer networks and the Ministry of Health to implement the Government’s priorities for cancer has established links with initiatives being led by the National Health Board, Health Workforce New Zealand and the National Health IT Board to: improve the coordination of health sector planning improve the coordination of health sector service delivery achieve National Cancer Programme priorities. This work plan for 2014/15 covers national, regional and local priority activities

Analysis of Public Expenditure on Education in Pakistan

This study attempts to analyse the priorities accorded to Education by the federal as well as the provincial governments. Since education is in large part a provincial responsibility, a comparative analysis of the performance of the public sector education in the four provinces of Pakistan would be useful to provide feedbacks to the provincial administrations of relative strengths and weaknesses of their educational system. Also, differences in priorities and performance among provinces provide useful insights, and, more importantly, raise many questions for planners. Such an analysis is also necessary for overall resource allocation. The analysis will be extended to district level but confined to Punjab and Sindh due to data constraints. The study will also examine the disparities in budget allocations to education in the two provinces.Education; Public expenditures; Pakistan

Comparing School Choice Mechanisms by Interim and Ex-Ante Welfare

The Boston mechanism and deferred acceptance (DA) are two competing mechanisms widely used in school choice problems across the United States. Recent work has highlighted welfare gains from the use of the Boston mechanism, in particular finding that when cardinal utility is taken into account, Boston interim Pareto dominates DA in certain incomplete information environments with no school priorities. We show that these previous interim results are not robust to the introduction of nontrivial (weak) priorities. However, we partially restore the earlier results by showing that from an ex-ante utility perspective, the Boston mechanism once again Pareto dominates any strategyproof mechanism (including DA), even allowing for arbitrary priority structures. Thus, we suggest ex-ante Pareto dominance as a criterion by which to compare school choice mechanisms. This criterion may be of interest to school district leaders, as they can be thought of as social planners whose goal is to maximize the overall ex-ante welfare of the students. From a policy perspective, school districts may have justification for the use the Boston mechanism over a strategyproof alternative, even with nontrivial priority structures.school choice, Boston mechanism, deferred acceptance, market design, weak priorities

Environmental Priorities for the District of Columbia: A Report to the Summit Fund

This paper examines and ranks the District of Columbia's environmental problems. Four criteria are used to determine each problem's severity: public opinion of the problem, health effects, the number of people affected, and ecological and welfare effects. Public opinion is measured via 345 city resident and 23 stakeholder interviews. Stakeholders included environmental experts familiar with issues in the District. Health and ecological effects are captured by analyzing both the EPA's and District of Columbia's environmental data. The results show that the top four problems facing the city, in order of importance, are: drinking water, air pollution, the Anacostia River, and lead poisoning. Several recommendations for resolving the District's problems are offered and including creating a separate D.C. Environmental Agency, applying for EPA grant monies, publishing a D.C. environmental report, fostering community cooperation, and increasing education about the environment.

Education Leadership: An Agenda for School Improvement

Reports on a 2009 school leadership conference on lessons learned, progress, and current issues such as changing principal training programs and district offices' priorities, with insights from researchers and government, district, and school leaders

Collective action to secure property rights for the poor: A case study in Jambi Province, Indonesia

"This study presents an approach to analyzing decentralized forestry and natural resource management and land property rights issues, and catalyzing collective action among villages and district governments. It focuses on understanding the current policies governing local people's access to property rights and decision making processes, and learning how collective action among community groups and interaction among stakeholders can enhance local people's rights over lands, resources, and policy processes for development. The authors applied participatory action research in two villages, one each in the Bungo and Tanjabbar districts of Jambi province (Sumatra), Indonesia, to facilitate identification of priorities through phases of planning, action, monitoring, and reflecting. This study finds that action research may be an effective strategy for fostering collective action and maintaining the learning process that leads groups to be more organized and cohesive, and district government officials to be more receptive to stakeholders. A higher level of collective action and support may be needed to avoid elite capture more effectively." authors' abstractDecentralization, Natural resource management, Forest, Collective action, Property rights, Action research, Poverty, Devolution,

Roles, service knowledge and priorities in the provision of palliative care: a postal survey of London GPs

Objectives: To explore general practitioners' (GPs) current involvement in and attitudes towards the provision of palliative care in primary care. Methods: Postal survey of 356 London-based GPs, assessing attitudes towards palliative care provision, district nursing and specialist palliative care services, and priorities for future service development. Results: Currently, 65% of GPs were providing palliative care to patients on their list; 72% agreed or strongly agreed palliative care was a central part of their role; and 27% wanted to hand care over to specialists. Most GPs (66%) disagreed with the statement that 'palliative care is mainly district nursing (DN) work'. Many were unaware of out-of-hours DN and specialist palliative care services. Multi-variable analysis found four GP characteristics - larger practice size, more years experience as a GP, receipt of palliative care education, and current provision of palliative care - were associated with agreement that palliative care was central to a GP's role. Conclusion: A minority of NHS GPs in London would rather have no involvement in palliative care in primary care. Knowledge of current services for palliative care is generally poor among GPs. These findings highlight potential gaps in services, particularly in small practices. Specialists will need to consider these factors in working with GPs to develop primary palliative care and to enable greater access to specialist palliative care

Allocating Resources and Creating Incentives to Improve Teaching and Learning

Offers insights from scholarly literature, related theory, and practical activities to inform the efforts of policymakers, researchers and practitioners to allocate resources and create incentives that result in powerful, equitable learning for all