An SEA Guide for Identifying Evidence-Based Interventions for School Improvement

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and replaces the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The law focuses on using research evidence to improve teaching and learning and at the same time passes considerable authority from federal to state policymakers. This means that responsibility largely falls on states and localities to effectively make sense of and use research evidence in their decisions around school improvement, teacher preparation, principal recruitment, and family engagement. With support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Overdeck Family Foundation, and the William T. Grant Foundation, the Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) has developed Guides for Identifying Evidence-Based Interventions for School Improvement

Using a Decision-making Process to Determine Where to Relocate a Newer Dual Language Program

This qualitative research study used culturally responsive protocols to provide stakeholders in a small rural community access to a district’s decision-making process. Community stakeholders were tasked with making a recommendation for relocating its dual language program (DLP). The committee identified three themes to guide their decision making: (a) keep the school in one location, (b) maintain the culture, and (c) provide access to resources. Despite intentional protocols used, barriers remained that impacted committee members’ level of engagement and participation. Key factors contributing to a lack of engagement included insufficient time and lack of trust. Additionally, native Spanish speakers (NSS) and nonheritage English-speaking participants identified language access, lack of resources, and lack of trust as barriers. The small sample size did not provide an equitable representation of stakeholders. Implications for this study suggest the need for districts to consider the following strategies when engaging a cross representative group of community stakeholders in decision-making processes: (a) extend more time to make decisions, (b) provide linguistic access, (c) take time to establish trust, (d) increase/recruit the number of NSS and nonheritage English speakers on committees and (e) identify allies who can help nonheritage English speakers navigate the unfamiliar U.S. educational system and serve as advocates in a culturally responsive manner. A deliberate and well-developed equity plan can help mitigate and remove barriers for all participants to engage equitably in discussions and processes to benefit student outcomes

Power, Responsibility, and Accountability: Re-Thinking the Legitimacy of Institutions for Climate Finance

Offers lessons from current mechanisms to finance climate mitigation and adaptation and considerations for legitimacy in new ones: the capacity to determine outcomes, the exercise of power as intended, and standards and systems to ensure accountability

Did the Japanese Patient Follow the Doctor's Orders? Mostly no! A Public Choice Analysis of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Schemes in Japan before and after the Earthquake

The Great Tôhoku-Earthquake and the following nuclear meltdown in Fukushima called the world’s attention to Japans’ energy and climate policy. Japan is one of the biggest emitters of greenhouses gases in the world and still far away from reaching its Kyoto target. Emissions trading systems have been used in Japanese climate policy since 2005. However, experiences have been disillusioning: Major emission reductions have not been achieved, and a function-ing market does not exist. Hence, we ask what the political reasons for the failure of carbon markets in Japan are and how they can be overcome. We use Public Choice arguments, but also analyze actual climate policy making in Japan on a case study basis. Thus, on the one hand, we identify the political obstacles of implementing ambitious greenhouse gas emissions trading systems in Japan, and, on the other hand, we evaluate Public Choice’s arguments and environmental policy making.Japan, climate policy, emissions trading, Public Choice, case study

To how many politicians should government be left?

The quality of governance of institutions, corporations and countries depends on the ability of efficient decision making within the respective boards or cabinets. Opinion formation processes within groups are size dependent. It is often argued - as now e.g. in the discussion of the future size of the European Commission - that decision making bodies of a size beyond 20 become strongly inefficient. We report empirical evidence that the performance of national governments declines with increasing membership and undergoes a qualitative change in behavior at a particular group size. We use recent UNDP, World Bank and CIA data on overall government efficacy, i.e. stability, the quality of policy formulation as well as human development indices of individual countries and relate it to the country's cabinet size. We are able to understand our findings through a simple physical model of opinion dynamics in groups.Comment: main text 5 pages and 4 eps figures, appendi

Cyprus as the Lighthouse of the East Mediterranean: Shaping EU Accession and Reunification Together. CEPS Paperback. April 2002

For over a quarter of a century, Cyprus has been a divided island, with Europe’s last remaining ‘Berlin Wall’ separating its Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities. This stalemate between the regions, however, is finally beginning to dissolve. Negotiations are currently underway to resolve the Cyprus conflict, re-unify the island and secure the accession of the whole of Cyprus to the EU in the near future. This CEPS report explores the ways in which these developments might come about. The authors argue that simultaneous action could transform the political structures and interests that have up until now made it impossible to resolve the division of the island

The Treaty of Lisbon: Implementing the Institutional Innovations. CEPS Special Reports, November 2007

After a long period of internal introspection and deadlock over the Constitutional Treaty, the EU can now see some light at the end of the tunnel. If successfully ratified, the new European Treaty agreed by the Head of States and Government in Lisbon may provide the appropriate institutional tools for the EU to function with 27 member states. However, the success of institutional innovations depends not only on legal provisions, but also on the way in which the provisions are implemented. Indeed, even a cursory examination indicates that the implementation of the new proposals is unlikely to be easy, and in some cases could be a source of serious difficulties in the future. In the absence of serious analysis aimed at this latter question, three Brussels-based think-tanks have joined forces in a collaborative effort to fill this gap. Our aim is to highlight potential problems and, where possible, to suggest ways to avoid or attenuate their negative effects. The analysis has focused on seven main institutional and policy domains: the European Parliament, the European Commission, the Presidency of the Council, the qualified majority voting in the Council, the role of national Parliaments, enhanced cooperation and foreign policy. These issues have been intensively debated in working groups composed of researchers, external experts, and practitioners in the field. This report reflects the substance of that collective effort

Managing Byzantine Robots via Blockchain Technology in a Swarm Robotics Collective Decision Making Scenario

While swarm robotics systems are often claimed to be highly fault-tolerant, so far research has limited its attention to safe laboratory settings and has virtually ignored security issues in the presence of Byzantine robots—i.e., robots with arbitrarily faulty or malicious behavior. However, in many applications one or more Byzantine robots may suffice to let current swarm coordination mechanisms fail with unpredictable or disastrous outcomes. In this paper, we provide a proof-of-concept for managing security issues in swarm robotics systems via blockchain technology. Our approach uses decentralized programs executed via blockchain technology (blockchain-based smart contracts) to establish secure swarm coordination mechanisms and to identify and exclude Byzantine swarm members. We studied the performance of our blockchain-based approach in a collective decision-making scenario both in the presence and absence of Byzantine robots and compared our results to those obtained with an existing collective decision approach. The results show a clear advantage of the blockchain approach when Byzantine robots are part of the swarm.Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions (EU project BROS - DLV-751615