What are Community Studies? - Book Review

Graham Crow, What are Community Studies? Bloomsbury, London, 2018, £17.99 pbk, (ISBN 978-1-84966-595-7

Book review: education, disadvantage and place: making the local matter by Kirstin Kerr, Alan Dyson, and Carlo Roffo

This book aims to consider the effectiveness of area-based initiatives in the struggle to address the links between education, disadvantage and place. It is written in a style which will find favour with practitioners seeking a clear link between evidence and policy, and postgraduate students and academics researching in the fields of community, local government, education, and disadvantage, finds Jon Dean

An examination of the impact of early retirement incentives on school district financial health

The combination of state controlled school funding in Michigan, rising employee costs and shrinking school enrollments have caused school districts to seek a variety of cost control measures. One of the measures frequently supported by both school districts and employee unions is the use of Early Retirement Incentives (ERI) to incentivize teachers to separate from the school district via a cash payment. The purpose of this study was to analyze how offering or not-offering an ERI impacted on the financial health of a school districts in the State of Michigan. Selected school districts in Michigan were surveyed regarding any ERI\u27s they may have offered during the 2003-04 to 2007-08 school years. If the district offered an ERI, various descriptive aspects of the offered ERI including ERI amount, number of participants in the ERI and replacement percentage of separating teachers was tabulated. The data points collected to determine the financial health of the school district included school district bond rating, the school district fund equity percentage and change in general fund expenditures of school districts. This study used both t-tests and multiple regression analysis to determine if offering an ERI had any effect on the financial health of the school district as measured by fund equity percentage and changes in general fund expenditures. Additionally, a multiple regression analysis was used to determine which various descriptor factors of an ERI might have the most significant impact on school district financial health. This study found that no significant relationship existed between offering an ERI and the financial health of the school district as measured by either fund equity percentage or changes in general fund expenditure. Additionally, this study found that other independent variables including changes in student enrollment were more impactful on changes in general fund expenditures than offering an ERI. While bond ratings of school districts were originally designed to be used as a metric of school district financial health, they were discarded from the final analysis due to their relatively infrequent nature

Book review: callous objects: designs against the homeless by Robert Rosenberger

In Callous Objects: Designs Against the Homeless, Robert Rosenberger explores the growth of 'hostile architecture' and reflects on what it suggests about society’s attitudes towards the homelesss as well as our relationship with contemporary design. This short, vivid and novel book serves as a timely reminder that our public spaces are not experienced equally, writes Jon Dean

Regionalism Panel Discussion

Regionalism Panel Discussion Featuring: Mr. Jon Cooper, Mr. Ralph Schulz, and Mr. Michael Skipper. Moderated by Mayor Karl Dean. October 7, 201

Mars promotes dTACC dephosphorylation on mitotic spindles to ensure spindle stability

Microtubule-associated proteins (MAPs) ensure the fidelity of chromosome segregation by controlling microtubule (MT) dynamics and mitotic spindle stability. However, many aspects of MAP function and regulation are poorly understood in a developmental context. We show that mars, which encodes a Drosophila melanogaster member of the hepatoma up-regulated protein family of MAPs, is essential for MT stabilization during early embryogenesis. As well as associating with spindle MTs in vivo, Mars binds directly to protein phosphatase 1 (PP1) and coimmunoprecipitates from embryo extracts with minispindles and Drosophila transforming acidic coiled-coil (dTACC), two MAPs that function as spindle assembly factors. Disruption of binding to PP1 or loss of mars function results in elevated levels of phosphorylated dTACC on spindles. A nonphosphorylatable form of dTACC is capable of rescuing the lethality of mars mutants. We propose that Mars mediates spatially controlled dephosphorylation of dTACC, which is critical for spindle stabilization