Equality in Education: Solutions Aimed at Closing the Achievement Gap in Mississippi Public Schools

This thesis attempts to examine solutions aimed at closing the achievement gap in Mississippi public schools. The research questions that are addressed in this thesis include: a) Why is the achievement gap part of policy debates in Mississippi and how have individ-ual school districts and policymakers responded to the gap? b) How is the gap measured and what are the trends since 2001 when the No Child Left Behind Act was adopted? c) How are achievement gap debates reflected in the current policy? d) Have any of the past national education policies been effective in decreasing the achievement gap? The methods used include a quantitative analysis of NAEP data in order to construct a series of time-series graphs as well as a series of interviews with policymakers and school district offi-cials in Mississippi in order to write a policy proposal for the state. The research found that while national education policies have had a positive impact on racial achievement gaps, no policy has worked to close the socioeconomic achievement gap

Scientific optimization of a ground-based CMB polarization experiment

We investigate the science goals achievable with the upcoming generation of ground-based Cosmic Microwave Background polarization experiments and calculate the optimal sky coverage for such an experiment including the effects of foregrounds. We find that with current technology an E-mode measurement will be sample-limited, while a B-mode measurement will be detector-noise-limited. We conclude that a 300 sq deg survey is an optimal compromise for a two-year experiment to measure both E and B-modes, and that ground-based polarization experiments can make an important contribution to B-mode surveys. Focusing on one particular experiment, QUaD, a proposed bolometric polarimeter operating from the South Pole, we find that a ground-based experiment can make a high significance measurement of the acoustic peaks in the E-mode spectrum, and will be able to detect the gravitational lensing signal in the B-mode spectrum. Such an experiment could also directly detect the gravitational wave component of the B-mode spectrum if the amplitude of the signal is close to current upper limits. We also investigate how a ground-based experiment can improve constraints on the cosmological parameters. We estimate that by combining two years of QUaD data with the four-year WMAP data, an optimized ground-based polarization experiment can improve constraints on cosmological parameters by a factor of two. If the foreground contamination can be reduced, the measurement of the tensor-to-scalar ratio can be improved by up to a factor of six over that obtainable from WMAP alone.Comment: 17 pages, 11 figures replaced with version accepted by MNRA

QUaD: A High-Resolution Cosmic Microwave Background Polarimeter

We describe the QUaD experiment, a millimeter-wavelength polarimeter designed to observe the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) from a site at the South Pole. The experiment comprises a 2.64 m Cassegrain telescope equipped with a cryogenically cooled receiver containing an array of 62 polarization-sensitive bolometers. The focal plane contains pixels at two different frequency bands, 100 GHz and 150 GHz, with angular resolutions of 5 arcmin and 3.5 arcmin, respectively. The high angular resolution allows observation of CMB temperature and polarization anisotropies over a wide range of scales. The instrument commenced operation in early 2005 and collected science data during three successive Austral winter seasons of observation.Comment: 23 pages, author list and text updated to reflect published versio

Polarization Calibration of the QUaD Experiment

We describe the polarization calibration of the QUaD experiment, including determination of the polarization efficiency of the detectors and their orientation angles. QUaD is a millimeter-wavelength polarimeter that observed the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) from a site at the South Pole. The experiment comprises a 2.64 m Cassegrain telescope equipped with a cryogenically cooled receiver containing an array of 62 polarization-sensitive bolometers. The focal plane contains pixels at two different frequency bands, 100 GHz and 150 GHz, with angular resolutions of 5prime and 3farcm5, respectively. The high angular resolution allows observation of CMB temperature and polarization anisotropies over a wide range of scales. The instrument commenced operation in early 2005 and collected science data during three successive Austral winter seasons of observation

Effects of a Community-Level Intervention on Alcohol-Related Motor Vehicle Crashes in California Cities: A Randomized Trial

IntroductionThis trial assesses the effects of a community-level alcohol prevention intervention in California on alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes.Study designThe study is a group RCT with cities as the unit of assignment to condition and as the unit of analysis.Setting/participantsA total of 24 California cities with populations between 50,000 and 450,000 were chosen at random and roughly matched into pairs before randomly assigning 12 each to the intervention and control conditions.InterventionThe intervention, aimed at reducing excessive drinking among adolescents and young adults, included driving under the influence sobriety checkpoints, saturation patrols, and undercover operations to reduce service of alcohol to intoxicated patrons in bars, all including high visibility so the public would be aware of them. A measure of overall intervention intensity or dosage was created.Main outcome measuresThe outcome was a monthly percentage of all motor vehicle crashes that were single vehicle nighttime crashes for drivers aged 15-30 years.ResultsMultilevel analyses were conducted to examine intervention effects on alcohol-related crashes among drivers aged 15-30 years. Crash data were obtained in 2018 with data preparation and analysis conducted in 2019. Intent-to-treat analyses indicated a 17% reduction in the percentage of alcohol-involved crashes among drivers aged 15-30 years relative to controls, which translates to about 310 fewer crashes. Dosage was found to have a statistically significant effect on crashes among this age group, although not in the expected direction.ConclusionsEnhanced alcohol enforcement operations involving both community health and law enforcement agencies can help to reduce alcohol-impaired driving and related consequences among young people. Including measures of intervention dosage raises interesting questions about the understanding of the impact of the community intervention. Future studies should continue to further develop implementation strategies that may more effectively and efficiently reduce community alcohol-related harm