Outcomes-based Funding and Responsibility Center Management: Combining the Best of State and Institutional Budget Models to Achieve Shared Goals

State governments serve as a key funding source for public higher education. An alternative to historically based state subsidies or enrollment-based formulas, outcomes-based funding allows states to convey goals for higher education by allocating state tax dollars based on measures of outcomes. Within higher education institutions, the Responsibility Center Management model engages deans and other mid-level managers in the responsibility and accountability for revenue generation as well as expense management. Policymakers will benefit from understanding this approach and how it could be used in concert with outcomes-based funding to support the development and delivery of new academic paradigms, expand access to underrepresented students, and, ultimately, increase educational attainment for a greater number of people. This article describes the potential alignment between incentives created by the Responsibility Center Management model and goals of outcomesbased funding. With an integration of the two models, there is a greater assurance of achieving the goals of both—fiscal sustainability and student success. By using Responsibility Center Management, college and university administrators are better able to marshal resources to help students complete their degrees and other credentials while also reaping the benefits of an outcomes-based funding system that directs public funding toward institutions that are doing just that

The LEA's perspective of change : the case for directed development

Pages numbered 1-40Bibliography: p. 37-40Supported in part by the National Institute of Education under contract no. NIE-400-81-003

The Death Knell For the Death Penalty and the Significance of Global Realism to its Abolition from Glossip v. Gross to Brumfield v. Cain

The Supreme Court’s jurisprudence regarding the death penalty, whether or not cruel, has most certainly been unusual in the annals of criminal punishment. In the short span of four years, the Court foreclosed and then reopened this form of punishment in Furman v. Georgia and Gregg v. Georgia. One year later the Court would categorically exclude the punishment for the rape of an adult. Five years later the Court would again preclude the punishment, for any defendant convicted of felony-murder who did not participate or share in the homicidal act or intent. In 1986 the Court would struggle with the Orwellian issue of whether and how a person must be competent to be executed in Ford v. Wainwright. In 1989, in two cases decided on the same day, the Court refused to find that the “mentally retarded” or juveniles were categorically exempt from the death penalty, in opinions that both embodied the “national consensus” test for death penalty restrictions and questioned its exclusivity as the determinate measure of cruel and unusual punishment. In the decade that followed, the ground began to shift under the Court’s jurisprudence in a number of ways. Coalitions opposed to the death penalty in specific instances and in general expanded to encompass international human rights advocates dedicated as amicus curiae or pro bono counsel to highlight the United States’ growing isolation in its official acceptance of the punishment. In 2002, the landmark case of Atkins v. Virginia would invigorate categorical exclusions from the death penalty, recognizing that the “mentally retarded” could not be subject to the harshest form of punishment. Roper v. Simmons would add juvenile offenders to the categorical exclusions. In 2008, rape of a child where the crime did not result, and was not intended to result, in the victim’s death, was added as an offense which did not qualify for the death penalty. In a span of four years, the Court would expand protection of juvenile offenders from life without parole, first for non-homicidal offenses, then for any offense. In addition, the Court found itself mired after Furman in what one commentator has described as “an unparalleled level of constitutional micromanagement” as to how the death penalty can be imposed procedurally and when it can be imposed based on the nature of the offense and the status of the offender. For the October 2015 term, the Court granted certiorari in a consolidated trio of cases and an additional case raising such procedural issues. The Montgomery v. Louisiana decision on January 25, 2016 applied the prohibition on life without parole for juvenile offenders retroactively, releasing prisoners who had spent their entire “adult” lives behind bars. Against this backdrop, the Court’s 2015 decision in Glossip v. Gross is a notable victory, as it were, for the death penalty. In the almost inevitable 5-4 split, the Court refused to find that the specific method of execution, a three-drug protocol begun with midazolam, constituted cruel and unusual punishment. The decision is at best a Pyrrhic victory for the death penalty, however, given the specificity of the method in question. More importantly, the majority opinion was largely eclipsed by Justice Breyer’s dissent, joined by Justice Ginsburg, which called for total abolition of the death penalty. This article also seeks to demonstrate that the opinion exemplifies the need for what might be termed “global realism” in recognizing that consideration of international legal norms and political realities is unavoidable in the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence. The method of execution itself was the unavoidable result of a refusal of drug suppliers outside the U.S. to continue supplying drugs for execution purposes, and Justice Breyer’s dissent brought to the forefront once again the isolation of the United States’ acceptance of the death penalty. Glossip v. Gross, thus, may be the beginning of the end of the death penalty due to a confluence of a shift in constitutional legal analysis from the “national consensus” analysis to proportionality and penological purposes served, empirical evidence that there is no national consensus in favor of the death penalty, a renewed recognition of the unreliability of decision-making whatever procedural prerequisites the Court imposes, and an overdue, forthright recognition of the significance of international norms and practices in determining “evolving standards of decency” under the Eighth Amendment. This recognition is explicit in Justice Breyer’s dissent, but also fundamental to evaluating what Justice Kennedy’s position might be on abolishing the death penalty, notwithstanding his joining the five justices in Glossip v. Gross

“It’s Only a Theory : Science, Religion and Attitudes Toward Evolution

The controversy over evolution is a long standing one in American politics. The issue is often depicted as a conflict between science and religion. In this paper the effects of confidence in science and confidence in religion on attitudes toward human evolution are estimated. Bivariate analysis shows that confidence in science is positively related to belief in human evolution, while confidence in religion has a negative relationship. However, these effects become very weak when controls for religious beliefs and affiliation are imposed. Religious variables, rather than attitudes toward science, seem to be the main sources of attitudes toward evolution

How entering ability and instructional settings mediate Kindergartners' reading performance

Includes bibliographical references (leaf 12

The impact of minimum wages in Mexico and Colombia

There are diverging views about how minimum wages affect labor markets in developing countries. Advocates of minimum wages hold that they redistribute resources in a welfare-enhancing way, and can thus reduce poverty, improve productivity, and foster growth. Opponents, on the other hand, contend that minimum wage interventions result in a misallocation of labor and lead to depressed wages in the very sectors - the rural and informal urban sectors - where most of the poor are found, with the effect of wasting resources and reducing the growth rate. Data from Colombia and Mexico for the 1980s provide an opportunity to evaluate the impact of minimum wages. In Mexico in the 1980s, the minimum wage fell in real terms roughly 45 percent. By 1990, Mexico's minimum wage was about 13 percent of the average unskilled manufacturing wage. During the same period, the minimum wage in Colombia increased at nearly the same rate, reaching roughly 53 percent of the average unskilled wage. The author charts how the mandated minimum wage affected the demand for skilled and unskilled labor in both countries during that decade. Findings are as follows. In Mexico, minimum wages have had virtually no effect on wages or employment in the formal sector. The main reason: the minimum wage is not an effective wage for most firms or workers. In the informal sector, in turn, there is considerable noncompliance with the mandated minimum wage, especially among part-time and female workers. As a result, significant numbers of workers are paid at or below minimum wages. In Colombia, minimum wages have a much stronger impact on wages, judging from their proximity to the average wage and both cross-section and time series estimates. The estimates imply that the elasticity of low-paid unskilled employment with respect to minimum wages is in the range of 2 to 12 percent.Wages, Compensation&Benefits,Environmental Economics&Policies,Labor Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management,Environmental Economics&Policies,Wages, Compensation&Benefits,Child Labor,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Financial Management

Mental Health and Labor Force Exits in Older Workers: The Mediating or Moderating Roles of Physical Health and Job Factors

This paper extends earlier health and work studies by examining how mental health affects transitions out of paid work in the years prior to the traditional Social Security retirement ages. Given recent changes in the labor market, optimal mental health may be as important a prerequisite for continuing employment as good physical health. This study uses data from the Health and Retirement Study to examine how mental health is linked to transitions to early retirement or other unemployment in 1996 for middle-aged adults who were currently working in 1992 and whether physical health, job, or sociodemographic factors affect those links. The study results indicated that mental health plays a strong and significant role in the move from paid work to other unemployment in three ways, net of other documented health, job, and sociodemographic correlates of work status. First, higher baseline CES-D depressive symptoms predicted the transition to retiree in male workers. Second, increased CES-D depressive symptoms between 1992 and 1994 (net of baseline symptoms) predicted exits from paid employment and into other unemployment by 1996. Finally, low job autonomy did not have the hypothesized moderating effect on the mental health-work status link. The results also indicated that mental health may be an even more important predictor of transitions out of paid work among middle-aged workers than are physical health and functioning and that patterns of labor force exit differ for men and women.

Having more potential raiders weakens the takeover threat

We argue in this paper that a more active market for corporate control may weaken the takeover threat. We show that an increase in the number of potential raiders tends to decrease the probability of a takeover. This in turn weakens managerial incentives. The lower managerial effort level that results in equilibrium negatively aspects the ex ante value of the firm.

Having more potential raiders weakens the takeover threat

We argue in this paper that a more active market for corporate control may weaken the takeover threat. We show that an increase in the number of potential raiders tends to decrease the probability of a takeover. This in turn weakens managerial incentives. The lower managerial effort level that results in equilibrium negatively affects the ex ante value of the firm.