The Road to Equity - Expanding AP Access and Success for African-American Students

In most school districts, as access to and participation in Advanced Placement exams have gone up, the exam passing rates have gone down. But that isn't always the case. The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, looking to identify urban districts with promising trends in student achievement and college-readiness, analyzed four years of AP exam participation and passing rates for students in the 75 districts whose demographics qualify them for consideration for the annual Broad Prize for Urban Education. It found six districts where African-American students were improving their passing rates while keeping participation levels steady. This report illustrates some of the promising practices contributing to AP success in these six districts

Georgia's Redevelopment Powers Law: A Policy Guide to the Evaluation and Use of Tax Allocation Districts

Within the past five years, eleven separate tax allocation districts (TADs) have been created in the metropolitan Atlanta region. Currently, policy-makers in the City of Atlanta are considering the use of TADs to finance the proposed "Beltline" project. While TADs are a powerful tool in a localities' economic development arsenal, these policies are not without cost and not without risk. The sudden surge in popularity of this economic development tool generally has not been accompanied by any systematic assessment or set of policies to guide their evaluation or their use. Thus, this report sets out to familiarize local policy makers with:* How TADs work;* The potential benefits of TADs;* The potential risks and costs associated with TADs and how these might be distributed across different stakeholder groups; and* Policies to help minimize costs and risks

Status of Women in Atlanta:A Survey of Economic Demographic, and Social Indicators for the 15-County Area

This report provides a detailed overview of economic, demographic and social aspects of women and girls in the metro Atlanta region. FRC Report 15

A Brief History of the Property Tax in Georgia

This report is a chronology of the development of the property tax system that currently exists in Georgia from the 1852 legislation pointing out significant changes made over the past 156 years. FRC Report 18

An Initial Evaluation of a Proposed Statewide Education Sales Tax

This report provides a preliminary analysis of a proposal to replace education property taxes with a statewide sales tax

Primary Care Safety Net

Four community-based pilot projects for leveraging public-private partnerships to expand health care coverage among low-wage workers

What a Tangled Web: Local Property, Income and Sales Taxes

While local option sales taxes (LOST) have become an important revenue source for local governments, there has been concern about the distribution of LOST revenues: the uneven distribution of sales tax bases may have introduced a new source of fiscal inequality and exacerbated existing fiscal disparity. Using Georgia county data (N5159, 1970-2000), this study examines whether and how LOST have affected local fiscal disparity. Our findings suggest that the effects of LOST on fiscal disparity vary with the approach to measure revenueraising capacity; thus the issue of LOST distribution is sensitive to the underlying conceptualization of '"fiscal equity.

Current Election Administration Litigation

This briefing paper summarizes election administration litigation that is active or has been settled from January 1, 2006 to the present, excluding campaign finance reform and redistricting litigation.Case subjects include: Voter ID; Felon Voting Rights; Voting Equipment; Database and List Maintenance (Purging); National Voter Registration Act, Section 7 Compliance; Help America Vote Act compliance; Voter Registration; and General Election Administration

Open Space Acquisitions and Management Opportunities in the City of Atlanta and Adjacent Jurisdictions

The great cities of the world are distinguished by their public parks. The urban fabric of New York, Barcelona, Berlin, Moscow, Paris, Rome, Sydney, and Shanghai are all woven around great parks. Yet, with all of Atlanta's outstanding achievements, the City and the region have a notably undistinguished park system. In a study conducted by the Trust for Public Land and the Urban Land Institute, Atlanta ranks near the bottom of the nation's largest 25 cities in acreage of parkland per capita with 7.3 acres for every 1,000 residents. Compare that to Austin, Texas' 39 acres per 1,000 residents or Oklahoma City's 43 acres per 1,000 residents and it becomes clear that something is amiss in metro Atlanta.This study identifies the obstacles to acquiring and maintaining open and green spaces in the metro Atlanta region. Addressing open space shortages in metro Atlanta is a sizable task. This study could be considered the first step in a larger process. Time spent researching the various obstacles and opportunities regarding open space acquisition raised many questions that are beyond the scope of this project. A second phase might test the recommendations made in this phase by working with local officials on a few select projects, and begin to identify critical pieces of property in metro Atlanta that must be protected from development. A detailed inventory of significant open space and natural resources in the metro area that includes the existing inventory of land inside of Interstate 285 should be considered either as a separate study or included in this recommended second phase

Report on the Expenditure of Lottery Funds Fiscal Year 1998

Abstract pending