Exploring minor clerics in early medieval Tuscany

The article examines minor clerics (clerici) in Carolingian texts. Comparing episcopal capitularies from Italy and Francia suggests that clerici played a more prominent role in Italian church life. An analysis of charters from the monastery of Monte Amiata reveals a high proportion of clerici. They appear as a rurally-based group, with varying levels of education, but of some local social standing, and were often mature men with children. The prevalence of such clerici may be related to the northern Italian structure of pievi, and the opportunities these provided for mixed patterns of father-son and uncle-nephew inheritance of church office. The blurring of the lay/clerical divide by such clerici may have particularly worried eleventh-century church reformers coming to Italy from other regions of Western Europe

Toward Closing the Achievement Gap: A One-Year Progress Report on Education Reform in Massachusetts

Highlights early outcomes of school reform efforts launched under a new state law with support from the Race to the Top program, including progress in turnaround schools, charter schools, and innovation schools. Outlines challenges and recommendations

Charter School Funding: Inequity’s Next Frontier

Of all the controversies swirling around the nation’s charter schools, none is more hotly contested than the debate over funding. Charter opponents charge that] these autonomous public schools are draining scarce resources from public school districts. Proponents, by contrast, complain that charter schools do not get their fair share of public education dollars

The Promise of Citywide Charter Strategies

Charter school enrollment is on the rise in many urban areas. In fact, 56% of all public charter schools are located in urban areas, and 10 of our nation's largest school districts now have 20,000 students enrolled in public charter schools. With this growth in the charter movement, there is an increasing need for local infrastructure support through technical services, advocacy, and coordination. This report examines the potential for citywide charter strategies as a key leverage point for increasing charter school quality

Wildlife Tourism and the Gulf Coast Economy

The U.S. Gulf Coast is endowed with exceptional natural beauty and ecological diversity, including wetlands, waters, beaches, forests, and all the wildlife that inhabit them. Wildlife tourism constitutes a major regional "industry." Each year, wildlife watching, recreational fishing, and hunting draw 20 million participants annually in the five states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. The wildlife tourism industry consists not only of wildlife guide and outfitter businesses that directly serve wildlife tourists, but also the lodging and dining establishments where they eat and sleep. Wildlife tourism depends on healthy ecosystems, which are the region's "natural capital." However, the future health and productivity of these ecosystems are in peril, in part due to natural events, such as storms, but also because human activities have altered the natural hydrology and halted natural processes, leading to severe land loss and a decrease in the health of the region's estuaries. For example, one of the most significant and far-reaching alterations is the channelization of the Mississippi River within its delta. This deltaic system has historically played a key role in the ecologic and economic well-being of the Northern Gulf of Mexico. While the channelization of the river by an extensive levee system has benefitted commerce, ports, and communities, this way of managing the river has all but stopped the natural deltaic processes that once built and maintained the regions wetlands and barrier islands. Dredging and construction of a vast network of canals and pipelines for the oil and gas industry have also caused considerable damage to the wetlands and wildlife. These human alterations, combined with natural processes, such as wetlands subsidence, extreme weather and sea-level rise, have led to a loss of nearly 1,900 square miles of land since 1932. Large-scale land loss and decrease in water quality throughout the Gulf threatens wildlife, habitats and the tourism activities they make possible. Without bold action, the Gulf Coast economy risks losing billions of dollars in revenue. In 2012, Congress passed the RESTORE Act, legislation mandating that 80% of Clean Water Act fines from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill go to the five Gulf Coast states to restore the ecosystem and economy. Supplementing the RESTORE Act funds, Gulf states are expected to receive significant new revenues from settlement of BP's criminal liability for the oil spill (administered by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation), and from payments for damages from the spill under NRDA (the federal Natural Resource Damage Assessment process). Combined, these new revenue sources provide an unprecedented opportunity to reverse decades of harm to the Gulf Coast and to begin restoring the environment to a healthy and resilient condition.Because a healthy ecosystem is at the heart of the region's economy, restoring the Gulf ecosystem is the best way to help the region economically. Owners of wildlife tourism businesses who were interviewed for this study clearly indicated what is at stake for their industry; where ecosystems can no longer support wildlife, visitors have no reason to come. This suggests the urgency of restoring ecosystems to avoid losing a key part of the economy. Funds from the RESTORE Act and other legal settlements provide an unprecedented opportunity to protect not only the coastal environment but also one of the region's most important economic drivers

A Sum Greater Than the Parts: What States Can Teach Each Other About Charter Schooling

States with a significant charter sector know firsthand that the success or failure of a charter school is not a matter of chance, but subject to variances in state laws and a state's educational, political, and regulatory climate. In this report, Sara Mead and Andrew J. Rotherham draw on the experiences of 12 states, proposing those lessons that are necessary for charter school quality and growth

A New Wave of School Integration: Districts and Charters Pursuing Socioeconomic Diversity

Students in racially and socioeconomically integrated schools experience academic, cognitive, and social benefits that are not available to students in racially isolated, high-poverty environments. A large body of research going back five decades underscores the improved experiences that integrated schools provide. And yet, more than sixty years after Brown v. Board of Education, American public schools are still highly segregated by both race and class. In fact, by most measures of integration, our public schools are worse off, since they are now even more racially segregated than they were in the 1970s, and economic segregation in schools has risen dramatically over the past two decades.In this report, we highlight the work that school districts and charter schools across the country are doing to promote socioeconomic and racial integration by considering socioeconomic factors in student assignment policies.Key findings of this report include:Our research has identified a total of 91 districts and charter networks across the country that use socioeconomic status as a factor in student assignment. The 91 school districts and charter schools with socioeconomic integration policies enroll over 4 million students. The school districts and charter networks identified as employing socioeconomic integration are located in 32 different states. The majority of districts and charters on the list have racially and socioeconomically diverse enrollments. The majority of the integration strategies observed fall into five main categories: attendance zone boundaries, district-wide choice policies, magnet school admissions, charter school admissions, and transfer policies.The push toward socioeconomic and racial integration is perhaps the most important challenge facing American public schools. Segregation impedes the ability of children to prepare for an increasingly diverse workforce; to function tolerantly and enthusiastically in a globalizing society; to lead, follow, and communicate with a wide variety of consumers, colleagues, and friends. The democratic principles of this nation are impossible to reach without universal access to a diverse, high quality, and engaging education

Wine tourism : a review of the Chilean case

Wine tourism has become a thriving niche in global tourism industry with successful cases like Napa Valley in the USA with 19 million visitors per year. However, there are important disparities among wine regions. The paper analyses the case of the Chilean wine tourism, which is one of the regions with less wine tourists although it is very important in global wine industry, and its reasons for its low level of development. Chilean wine industry has been developing its infrastructure in wine tourism but behavioural factors like low promotion intensity and local consumers' behaviour hinder the development of wine tourism