Early Impacts of the El Dorado Promise on Enrollment and Achievement

The “Promise” strategy gained prominence with the announcement of the Kalamazoo Promise program in Michigan in November 2005. The program, known as a universal, place-based scholarship initiative, offers full college tuition to any Kalamazoo Public Schools graduate attending a public college in Michigan. In January 2007, El Dorado, Arkansas announced the El Dorado Promise: a new program that guaranteed that high school graduates from the area can afford college thanks to a $50 million gift from the Murphy Oil Corporation. The El Dorado Promise is modeled after the Kalamazoo program; scholarships are not based on students’ grades in high school or financial need. Through the Promise, Murphy Oil will pay tuition and mandatory fees for up to five years for recipients. To receive the Promise, a student must enroll in a community college or a four-year university – public or private, in Arkansas or out-of-state – and maintain a 2.0 college grade-point average in college

A Promise Kept in El Dorado? An Evaluation of the Impact of a Universal, Place-Based College Scholarship on K-12 Achievement and High School Graduation

The El Dorado Promise is a scholarship program that provides approximately $7,818 per year toward college tuition - for up to five years - to public high school graduates in El Dorado, Arkansas who have attended El Dorado schools since at least the ninth grade. The program was announced in January 2007, and students were able to use the college scholarships in the fall of 2007. School leaders in El Dorado hoped that the enhanced access to college would increase student interest, engagement, and achievement throughout the school district. In this study, I use one-to-one student-level matching to estimate the impacts of the El Dorado Promise on student achievement and high school graduation. I find positive overall achievement effects of the program in both math and literacy, a .12 to .15 standard deviation unit increase over the comparison group over a five-year period. Very few El Dorado students experienced the treatment over the maximum period of five years, with the average student experiencing 1.5 years of the treatment. Annual effects of the Promise ranged from 0.06 to 0.08 standard deviation units, meaning that El Dorado Promise students boasted test scores that were roughly 6 to 8 percent of a standard deviation better than their matched peers each year. Effects are larger for certain subgroups of students, particularly high-achieving students. However, a placebo test indicates that only math impacts can be attributed with high confidence to the introduction of the Promise. For graduation rates, I find mixed results, with some estimates producing largely null effects and others suggesting the Promise had a negative impact on high school graduation

The Common Core Debate

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have ignited a passionate national debate about the standards that guide the education of our nation’s and state’s students. The purpose of this Arkansas Education Report is to add some clarity to the Common Core debate as well as offer a perspective that is specific to the Natural State

Hindsight Bias in Insight and Mathematical Problem Solving: Evidence of Different Reconstruction Mechanisms for Metacognitive Versus Situational Judgments

This article presents two experiments that used insight and mathematical problems to investigate whether different factors would affect hindsight bias on metacognitive and situational judgments. In both studies, participants initially rated their likelihood of solving each problem within a certain amount of time (metacognitive judgments) and rated the importance of each component of the problem for finding the solution (situational judgments). Next, participants attempted to solve each problem. In Experiment 1, all participants were given solution feedback information, but in Experiment 2, participants were not given any solution feedback. After 1 week, participants were asked to recall their original judgments. Hindsight bias was assessed by comparing the initial with the final ratings. Insight problems and math problems showed different patterns of hindsight bias effects on the metacognitive and situational judgments. The results suggest that two competing models of hindsight effects are actually complementary explanations for judgment reconstruction on different types of judgment tasks

Graduation Rates in Arkansas

In April 2014, the National Center for Education Statistics published a national report on state-level graduation rates in 2010-11 and 2011-12. The news was positive for the nation, as the national rate reached 80% for the first time, and for Arkansas, as students in the Natural State boasted higher than average rates in both years. While the statewide news was good, Arkansans may well be interested in the graduation rates of particular schools across the state

Public School Choice and Desegregation in Arkansas

Public school choice is an umbrella term for policies that allow students to enroll in a public school other than their residentially-assigned school. Public school choice, also called openenrollment, is typically divided into two categories: intra-district choice, transfers to schools in the same district, and inter-district choice, transfers to schools in other districts

Justice in the Air: Tracking Toxic Pollution from America's Industries and Companies to Add to Our States, Cities, and Neighborhoods

This new environmental justice study examines not only who receives the disproportionate share of toxic air releases -- low-income communities and people of color -- but who is releasing them.Justice in the Air: Tracking Toxic Pollution from America's Industries and Companies to Our States, Cities, and Neighborhoods uses the EPA's Toxic Release Inventory and Risk Screening Environmental Indicators to explore the demographics of those who are most affected by toxic pollution, and then establishes the corporate ownership of the plants responsible. Justice in the Air enhances the data available in PERI's Toxic 100 Report with a new environmental justice scorecard, ranking the Toxic 100 companies by the share of their health impacts from toxic air pollution that falls upon minority and low-income communities. The authors conclude by recommending four ways the right-to-know and environmental justice movements can use these findings in their efforts to protect the health of vulnerable communities

Does the quantity of enteral nutrition affect outcomes in critically ill trauma patients?

Abstract from Clinical Nutrition Week, Orlando, FL, January 29-February 2, 2005

Angina Characteristics as Predictors of Trajectories of Quality of Life Following Acute Coronary Syndrome in the Transitions, Risks and Actions in Coronary Events-Center for Outcomes Research and Education cohort (TRACE-CORE)

BACKGROUND: To describe longitudinal trajectories of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) after hospitalization with an acute coronary syndrome (ACS), their associations with baseline angina characteristics, and associations with anxiety, depression, and cognitive impairment. METHODS: TRACE-CORE participants (N=1,613) completed the SF-36 during hospitalization for ACS and 1, 3, & 6 months post-discharge. Latent growth curves identified trajectories of physical and mental components of HRQOL (MCS and PCS) and sequential multiple logistic regression estimated associations between trajectories and angina characteristics. RESULTS: Participants (N=1613) had mean age 63.3 (SD 11.4) years, 33.0% female, and 78.2% non-Hispanic white. We identified 2 MCS trajectories: AVERAGE and IMPAIRED HRQoL. The majority of participants (81.0%) had AVERAGE MCS at baseline (mean MCS 53.6) and slight improvement in scores over time. A minority (19.0%) had IMPAIRED HRQoL at baseline (mean MCS 36.7) and slight improvement in scores over time. We identified 2 similar PCS trajectories with similar patterns of scores over time: AVERAGE (71.1%) and IMPAIRED (28.9%) HRQoL at baseline. Adjusting for demographics & comorbidities, patients with less severe baseline angina were more likely to have AVERAGE MCS (odds ratio [OR]/10 unit change in severity 1.1) and PCS (OR 1.1) trajectories, and similarly for less frequent angina (MCS OR 1.2; PCS OR 1.3). The associations of MCS trajectory with severity and frequency lost significance after adjusting for psychosocial factors, whereas the PCS associations remained significant [All p \u3c 0.05 unless noted]. CONCLUSIONS: About 1/3 of patients exhibited impaired 6-month HRQoL trajectories, which can be predicted by angina characteristics. Psychosocial factors may explain the prediction of mental, not physical, trajectories. Interventions to improve HRQoL after ACS should consider psychosocial factors and angina

Surgical and molecular characterization of primary and metastatic disease in a neuroendocrine tumor arising in a tailgut cyst.

Neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) arising from tailgut cysts are a rare but increasingly reported entity with gene expression profiles that may be indicative of the gastrointestinal cell of origin. We present a case report describing the unique pathological and genomic characteristics of a tailgut cyst NET that metastasized to liver. The histologic and immunohistochemical findings were consistent with a well-differentiated NET. Genomic testing indicates a germline frameshift in BRCA1 and a few somatic mutations of unknown significance. Transcriptomic analysis suggests an enteroendocrine L cell in the tailgut as a putative cell of origin. Genomic profiling of a rare NET and metastasis provides insight into its origin, development, and potential therapeutic options