Online Charter Schools' Operational and Instructional Practices: Highlights of Findings

Online charter schools -- also known as virtual charters or cyber charters -- are publicly funded schools of choice that deliver student instruction via telecommunications. Today, about 200 online charter schools are operating in the United States, serving about 200,000 students at the elementary, middle, and high school grade levels. Online instruction is increasing rapidly, but there have been few studies of its operations and effects. In innovative new research funded by the Walton Family Foundation, the National Study of Online Charter Schools fills this gap in the research. Mathematica Policy Research's report provides the first nationwide data and analysis of the operations and instructional approaches of online charter schools, based on data collected in a survey completed by 127 principals of online charter schools across the country

Building Organisational Capability: Your Future, Your Business

Much has been written about the benefits to be derived from maximising organisational capability as a means of increasing competitive advantage, establishing human resource functions as a strategic partner and improving stakeholder satisfaction. However, there is very little in the research on how organisations build their organisational capability. This paper proposes a Model of Organisational Capability based on three domains – the Strategic Intent, Organisational Structures and Individual Knowledge. The Model explores how systems and processes can be aligned to maximize organisational capability. The model can be used by researchers to examine the forces that build organisational capability in organisations, and determine critical success factors. Practitioners wishing to maximize their organisational capability can draw on the Model and suggested steps, to assist them to explore the organisational capability agenda for their busines

Public debt in developing countries : has the market-based model worked?

Over the past 25 years, significant levels of public debt and external finance are more likely to have enhanced macroeconomic vulnerability than economic growth in developing countries. This applies not just to countries with a history of high inflation and past default, but also to those in East Asia, with a long tradition of prudent macroeconomic policies and rapid growth. The authors examine why with the help of a conceptual framework drawn from the growth, capital flows, and crisis literature for developing countries with access to the international capital markets (market access countries or MACs). They find that, while the chances of another generalized debt crisis have receded since the turbulence of the late 1990s, sovereign debt is indeed constraining growth in MACs, especially those with debt sustainability problems. Several prominent MACs have sought to address the debt and external finance problem by generating large primary fiscal surpluses, switching to flexible exchange rates, and reforming fiscal and financial institutions. Such country-led initiatives completely dominate attempts to overhaul the international financial architecture or launch new lending instruments, which have so far met with little success. While the initial results of the countries'initiatives have been encouraging, serious questions remain about the viability of the model of market-based external development finance. Beyond crisis resolution, which has received attention in the form of the sovereign debt restructuring mechanism, the international financial institutions may need to ramp up their role as providers of stable long-run development finance to MACs instead of exiting from them.

Mathematica's Evaluation of The Equity Project Charter School: High Salaries for Teachers, Positive Impacts on Student Achievement

Mathematica found that by the end of the 2012 -- 2013 school year, TEP's impacts on student achievement were consistently positive across subjects and cohorts, with especially large effects in math. Using benchmarks for average annual learning gains, the research team found that, compared to similar students in comparable New York City public schools, students who attended TEP for four years had test score gains equal to an additional 1.6 years of school in math, an additional 0.4 years of school in English language arts, and an additional 0.6 years of school in science. Using another relevant benchmark, TEP's cumulative effect on student achievement over four years is approximately equivalent to 78% of the Hispanic-white achievement gap in math, 17% of the Hispanic-white gap in English language arts, and 25% of the Hispanic-white gap in science

Charter High Schools' Effects on Educational Attainment and Earnings

This issue brief discusses a new analysis, using data from Florida and Chicago, suggesting that charter high schools are not only increasing postsecondary educational attainment but may also boost students' long-run earnings

Populus tremuloides seedling establishment: An underexplored vector for forest type conversion after multiple disturbances

Ecosystem resilience to climate change is contingent on post-disturbance plant regeneration. Sparse gymnosperm regeneration has been documented in subalpine forests following recent wildfires and compounded disturbances, both of which are increasing. In the US Intermountain West, this may cause a shift to non-forest in some areas, but other forests may demonstrate adaptive resilience through increased quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) dominance. However, this potential depends on ill-defined constraints of aspen sexual regeneration under current climate. We created an ensemble of species distribution models for aspen seedling distribution following severe wildfire to define constraints on establishment. We recorded P. tremuloides seedling locations across a post-fire, post-blowdown landscape. We used 3 algorithms (Mahalanobis Typicalities,Multilayer Perceptron Artificial Neural Network, and MaxEnt) to create spatial distribution models for aspen seedlings and to define constraints. Each model performed with high accuracy and was incorporated into an ensemble model, which performed with the highest overall accuracy of all the models. Populus tremuloides seedling distribution is constrained primarily by proximity to unburned aspen forest and annual temperature ranges, and secondarily by light availability, summer precipitation, and fire severity. Based on model predictions and validation data, P. tremuloides seedling regeneration is viable throughout 54% of the post-fire landscape, 97% of which was previously conifer-dominated. Aspen are less susceptible to many climatically-sensitive disturbances (e.g. fire, beetle outbreak, wind disturbance), thus, aspen expansion represents an important adaptation to climate change. Continued aspen expansion into post-disturbance landscapes through sexual reproduction at the level suggested by these results would represent an important adaptation to climate change and would confer adaptive forest resilience by maintaining forest cover, but would also alter future disturbance regimes, biodiversity, and ecosystem services.Ye