Issue Brief: Focus on Education

This brief focuses on education of boys and young men of color and was prepared for the, "Investing in Boys and Young Men of Color: The Promise and Opportunity," briefing held on June 11, 2014 in Washington, DC. The brief includes data providing the national context, promising program models, and strategies for moving forward

Sustaining interaction in a mathematical community of practice

This paper focuses on an activity in which students explore sequences through a game, using ToonTalk programming and a web-based collaboration system. Our analytical framework combines theory of communities of practice with domain epistemology. We note three factors which influence the length and quality of interactions: facilitation, reciprocation and audience-awareness

Alaska career pathways: A baseline analysis

This report details the findings from a 2013 statewide study of career pathways (CP) and programs of study (PoS) in secondary districts in Alaska. Twenty-seven of Alaska’s 54 districts provided data around the maturity of their CP/PoS, the availability of different CP/PoS, how career planning is addressed, and the availability of courses and PoS in the Health Sciences cluster. The differences between urban and rural communities are often noted in conversations around education, programming and policy in Alaska, and the data in this report reflect this established phenomenon. The contribution of this report is in helping to demystify and contextualize some of these known differences, and to make differentiated recommendations for moving forward.Acknowledgements / Executive summary / Introduction / Context for study / Method / Participation / Part I - Maturity of career pathway components / Part II - Available PoS within the career clusters / Part III Career planning / Part IV Health / Implications / Limitations / Recommendations / Conclusions / Reference

Building Citywide Systems for Quality: A Guide and Case Studies for Afterschool Leaders

This guide is intended to help cities strengthen and sustain quality afterschool programs by using an emerging practice known as a quality improvement system (QIS). The guide explains how to start building a QIS or how to further develop existing efforts and features case studies of six communities' QIS

An Unfinished Canvas: Allocating Funding and Instructional Time for Elementary Arts Education

An Unfinished Canvas found that California's elementary schools face unique challenges inproviding all students with sequential, standards-based arts education. In particular, elementary principals identified inadequate funding and insufficient instructional time as significant barriers to the provision of arts education. For this study, we sought to further understand the impact of funding and time on elementary arts education. To do so, we examined the allocation of funding and instructional time in 10 schools across five states (Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, and California)

Immigrant Integration: Educator Resource Guide

Recommends ways for district administrators, school administrators, and teachers to promote immigrant integration in schools in critical areas, including school enrollment, classroom instruction, student assessment, and family and community outreach

A Fellowship Approach to Accelerating Social Entrepreneurs

When Echoing Green, a nonprofit focused on unleashing next-generation talent, was founded in 1987, the term "social entrepreneur" was not widely used. Emerging leaders who wanted to change the world had limited options to access capital and programmatic support aside from its Fellowship program. Forty million dollars in seed-stage funding and strategic assistance to nearly 700 entrepreneurs later, Echoing Green has witnessed social entrepreneurship become a global movement.In recent years, Echoing Green has recognized two field-level trends within its Fellow community. First, for-profit business models to effect social and environmental change and impact investing (investments made to generate social and environmental impact alongside a financial return) have increased in popularity. At the same time, the business accelerator landscape has grown, and many entrepreneurs are participating in multiple programs. Globally, a plethora of accelerator programs are now employing a variety of services and funding models to launch start-ups.Echoing Green also began accepting more entrepreneurs using for-profit business models into its Fellowship and deepening its engagement with its Fellow alumni community. In 2014, it piloted an impact investing "inflection cohort" of Fellow alumni running for-profit and hybrid social enterprises. Its goal was to fill gaps in support and funding through the Fellows' common critical inflection moment: transitioning from early-stage funding to raising more sophisticated institutional growth capital.In this white paper, Echoing Green describes this impact investing inflection cohort pilot and shares the social entrepreneurs' data to shed light on how and if the inflection cohort model succeeded in enabling the early-stage social entrepreneurs to grow, attract investment, and deliver impact

Black Minds Matter: Supporting the Educational Success of Black Children in California

"Black Minds Matter: Supporting the Educational Success of Black Children in California," examines how the nearly 1 million Black youth in California are faring from preschool through college and reveals the distressing disparities that newly released state and national data show persist at all levels of their educational journey. The report also highlights the groundbreaking efforts underway to reverse these trends in California and close achievement and opportunity gaps for African American students.The report calls on policymakers, education leaders, and all Californians to prioritize the equity-based changes that California's Black students deserve and have been waiting far too long for. If we believe California is a land of opportunity, we must acknowledge that the current rate of progress we see is unacceptable

Implementing structural funds in the new member states: ten policy challenges

Paper presented at the ‘Roundtable on Benchmarking the Ten New Member States’, organised by the Scottish Executive EU Office

Designing a Blockchain Model for the Paris Agreement’s Carbon Market Mechanism

This paper examines the benefits and constraints of applying blockchain technology for the Paris Agreement carbon market mechanism and develops a list of technical requirements and soft factors as selection criteria to test the feasibility of two different blockchain platforms. The carbon market mechanism, as outlined in Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement, can accelerate climate action by enabling cooperation between national Parties. However, in the past, carbon markets were limited by several constraints. Our research investigates these constraints and translates them into selection criteria to design a blockchain platform to overcome these past limitations. The developed selection criteria and assumptions developed in this paper provide an orientation for blockchain assessments. Using the selection criteria, we examine the feasibility of two distinct blockchains, Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric, for the specific use case of Article 6.2. These two blockchain systems represent contrary forms of design and governance; Ethereum constitutes a public and permissionless blockchain governance system, while Hyperledger Fabric represents a private and permissioned governance system. Our results show that both blockchain systems can address present carbon market constraints by enhancing market transparency, increasing process automation, and preventing double counting. The final selection and blockchain system implementation will first be possible, when the Article 6 negotiations are concluded, and governance preferences of national Parties are established. Our paper informs about the viability of different blockchain systems, offers insights into governance options, and provides a valuable framework for a concrete blockchain selection in the future.DFG, 414044773, Open Access Publizieren 2019 - 2020 / Technische Universität Berli