No Excuses Charter Schools: A Meta-Analysis of the Experimental Evidence on Student Achievement

While charter schools differ widely in philosophy and pedagogical views, the United States’s most famous urban charter schools typically use the No Excuses approach. Enrolling mainly poor and minority students, these schools feature high academic standards, strict disciplinary codes, extended instructional time, and targeted supports for low-performing students. The strenuous and regimented style is controversial amongst some scholars, but others contend that the No Excuses approach is needed to rapidly close the achievement gap. We conduct the first meta-analysis of the achievement impacts of No Excuses charter schools. Focusing on experimental studies, we find that No Excuses charter schools significantly improve math scores and reading scores. We estimate gains of 0.25 and 0.16 standard deviations on math and literacy achievement, respectively, as the effect of attending a No Excuses charter school for one year. Though the effect is large and meaningful, we offer some caveats to this finding and discuss policy implications for the United States as well as other countries

Replicating viral vector platform exploits alarmin signals for potent CD8⁺ T cell-mediated tumour immunotherapy.

Viral infections lead to alarmin release and elicit potent cytotoxic effector T lymphocyte (CTL <sup>eff</sup> ) responses. Conversely, the induction of protective tumour-specific CTL <sup>eff</sup> and their recruitment into the tumour remain challenging tasks. Here we show that lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) can be engineered to serve as a replication competent, stably-attenuated immunotherapy vector (artLCMV). artLCMV delivers tumour-associated antigens to dendritic cells for efficient CTL priming. Unlike replication-deficient vectors, artLCMV targets also lymphoid tissue stroma cells expressing the alarmin interleukin-33. By triggering interleukin-33 signals, artLCMV elicits CTL <sup>eff</sup> responses of higher magnitude and functionality than those induced by replication-deficient vectors. Superior anti-tumour efficacy of artLCMV immunotherapy depends on interleukin-33 signalling, and a massive CTL <sup>eff</sup> influx triggers an inflammatory conversion of the tumour microenvironment. Our observations suggest that replicating viral delivery systems can release alarmins for improved anti-tumour efficacy. These mechanistic insights may outweigh safety concerns around replicating viral vectors in cancer immunotherapy

Integrating precision cancer medicine into healthcare—policy, practice, and research challenges

Abstract Precision medicine (PM) can be defined as a predictive, preventive, personalized, and participatory healthcare service delivery model. Recent developments in molecular biology and information technology make PM a reality today through the use of massive amounts of genetic, ‘omics’, clinical, environmental, and lifestyle data. With cancer being one of the most prominent public health threats in developed countries, both the research community and governments have been investing significant time, money, and efforts in precision cancer medicine (PCM). Although PCM research is extremely promising, a number of hurdles still remain on the road to an optimal integration of standardized and evidence-based use of PCM in healthcare systems. Indeed, PCM raises a number of technical, organizational, ethical, legal, social, and economic challenges that have to be taken into account in the development of an appropriate health policy framework. Here, we highlight some of the more salient issues regarding the standards needed for integration of PCM into healthcare systems, and we identify fields where more research is needed before policy can be implemented. Key challenges include, but are not limited to, the creation of new standards for the collection, analysis, and sharing of samples and data from cancer patients, and the creation of new clinical trial designs with renewed endpoints. We believe that these issues need to be addressed as a matter of priority by public health policymakers in the coming years for a better integration of PCM into healthcare

Predictors of Success Among High School Students in Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate Programs

Research has shown that students in Advanced Placement (AP) classes and International Baccalaureate (IB) programs experience higher levels of stress compared to students in general education classes. Elevated stress can serve as a risk factor for students’ academic and mental health problems. Given the documented stress of these students, additional investigations are needed to more fully understand how students experience these curricula and the factors associated with positive student outcomes. Thus, we set out to identify factors associated with success among AP/IB students, with an emphasis on exploring potentially malleable factors that could be targeted with existing or newly developed interventions. Data were collected via self-report measures and school records from 2,379 students (Grades 9-12) enrolled in AP or IB in 20 school programs in one state. We examined the relationships among 34 predictors (e.g., stressors, coping styles, student engagement, family factors, school factors, and demographic features) of success. Success was represented by five outcomes in two domains: mental health (life satisfaction, psychopathology, school burnout) and academic (GPA, AP/IB exam scores). Better outcomes in both domains were associated with higher levels of achievement motivation and cognitive engagement, as well as lower levels of parent–child conflict, stress from major life events, and use of avoidance coping strategies. Higher levels of affective engagement, use of approach coping, and authoritative parenting were robust predictors of positive mental health outcomes and unrelated (in multivariate analyses) to academic outcomes. Findings have implications for subsequent development of intervention efforts targeting factors associated with student success