An Examination of the Financial Health of Georgia's Start-Up Charter Schools - Brief

This report examines the financial health of start-up charter schools in Georgia during the 2006-07 school year. FRC Brief 19

Economic Change and Fiscal Planning: The Origins of the Fiscal Crisis in New York State

What can policy makers learn from the fiscal experience of New York during the 1980s? By most measures, the state went from a position of fiscal strength in the early 1980s to fiscal crisis by the end of the decade. In their analysis of demographic, social, economic, and fiscal patterns, Roy Bahl and William Duncombe show that the lack of long-term fiscal planning and short-term discipline were the root causes of the turnabout. They call for greater use of both, as well as tax reforms that will better reflect the changing reality of local and state economies

Financing an adequate education: A case study of New York

The development of any adequacy based school finance system involves three components, which correspond to the three substantive sections of this paper: First, a state must select measures of adequacy, either in terms of resources or student performance. Such measures are necessary to identify school districts below the standard. Although these measures can be controversial and difficult to develop, this choice is unavoidable. Second, a state must estimate the cost of reaching a given performance standard in each district. The cost function approach presented in this study relies on statistical methods to extract from actual data the impact of student needs, resource prices, and enrollment size on the spending required to reach a particular standard. Third, a state must develop a school aid formula. This formula should provide all school districts the resourcesthey need to reach the adequacy standard selected by the state. This paper explains how each of these steps can be implemented, with illustrations based on data from New York State. Our objective is to provide guidance for any state that wants to design an adequacy-based finance system

How Much More Does a Disadvantaged Student Cost?

This paper provides a guide to statistically based methods for estimating the extra costs of educating disadvantaged students, shows how these methods are related, and compares state aid programs that account for these costs in different ways. We show how pupil weights, which are included in many state programs, can be estimated from an education cost equation, which many scholars use to obtain an education cost index, and we devise a method to estimate pupil weights directly. Using data from New York, we show that the distribution of state aid is similar with statistically based pupil weights and an educational cost index. Finally, we show that large, urban school districts with a high concentration of disadvantaged students would receive far more aid (and rich suburban districts would receive far less aid) if statistically based pupil weights were used instead of the ad hoc weights in existing state aid programs

Education finance reform in New York: Calculating the cost of a sound basic education in New York City

In June, 2003, the New York State Court of Appeals altered the education-finance landscape with its ruling in Campaign for Fiscal Equity v. New York. This ruling called for “[r]eforms to the current system of financing school funding” designed to ensure “that every school in New York City would have the resources necessary for providing the opportunity for a sound basic education.” This ruling addressed a wide range of issues, but also declared that “the funding level necessary to provide City students with the opportunity for a sound basic education is an ascertainable starting point.” This policy brief addresses the question: How can this funding level be determined

The Distance To The Hyades Cluster Based On Hubble Space Telescope Fine Guidance Sensor Parallaxes

Trigonometric parallax observations made with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) 3 of seven Hyades members in six fields of view have been analyzed along with their proper motions to determine the distance to the cluster. Knowledge of the convergent point and mean proper motion of the Hyades is critical to the derivation of the distance to the center of the cluster. Depending on the choice of the proper-motion system, the derived cluster center distance varies by 9%. Adopting a reference distance of 46.1 pc or m - M = 3.32, which is derived from the ground-based parallaxes in the General Catalogue of Trigonometric Stellar Parallaxes (1995 edition), the FK5/PPM proper-motion system yields a distance 4% larger, while the Hanson system yields a distance 2% smaller. The HST FGS parallaxes reported here yield either a 14% or 5% larger distance, depending on the choice of the proper-motion system. Orbital parallaxes (Torres et al.) yield an average distance 4% larger than the reference distance. The variation in the distance derived from the HST data illustrates the importance of the proper-motion system and the individual proper motions to the derivation of the distance to the Hyades center; therefore, a full utilization of the HST FGS parallaxes awaits the establishment of an accurate and consistent proper-motion system.NASA HST GTO, HF-1042.01-93A, HF-1046.01-93A, NAS526555Astronom

The First Definitive Binary Orbit Determined with the Hubble Space Telescope Fine Guidance Sensors: Wolf 1062 (Gliese 748)

The M dwarf binary, Wolf 1062 (Gliese 748), has been observed with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Fine Guidance Sensor 3 in the transfer function scan mode to determine the apparent orbit. This is the first orbit defined fully and exclusively with HST, and is the most accurate definitive orbit for any resolved, noneclipsing system. The orbital period is 2.4490 ± 0.0119 yr and the semimajor axis is 01470 ± 00007—both quantities are now known to better than 1%. Using the weighted mean of seven parallax measurements and these HST data, we find the system mass to be 0.543 ± 0.031 M⊙, where the error of 6% is due almost entirely to the parallax error. An estimated fractional mass from the infrared brightness ratio and infrared mass-luminosity relation yields a mass for the primary of 0.37 M⊙, and the secondary falls in the regime of very low mass stars, with a mass of only 0.17 M⊙

Ibrutinib for Relapsed / Refractory CLL: A UK and Ireland Analysis of Outcomes in 315 patients

In 2014, ibrutinib was made available for relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) patients. The UK CLL Forum collected data from UK/Ireland patients with a minimum of 1 year follow-up with pre-planned primary endpoints; the number of patients still on therapy at 1 year (Discontinuation Free Survival; DFS) and 1 year overall survival (OS). With a median 16 months follow-up, data on 315 patients demonstrated 1 year DFS of 73.7% and 1 year OS of 83.8%. Patients with better pre-treatment performance status (PS 0/1 vs 2+) had superior DFS (77.5% vs 61.3%;p14 days and had OS of 89.7%, while 26% of patients had dose reductions and 13% had temporary treatment breaks >14 days. We could not demonstrate a detrimental effect of dose reductions alone (1 year OS: 91.7%), but patients who had first year treatment breaks > 14 days, particularly permanent cessation of ibrutinib had both reduced 1 year OS (68.5%) and also a statistically significant excess mortality rate beyond one year. Although outcomes appear inferior to the RESONATE trial (1 year OS;90%: PFS;84%), this may partly reflect the inclusion of PS 2+ patients and that 17.5% of patients permanently discontinued ibrutinib due to an event other than disease progression