Functional Departmentalism and Nonjudicial Interpretation: Who Determines Constitutional Meaning?

Johnsen examines the roles of nonjudicial entities--especially the Congress and the president--in the development of constitutional meaning. Although the other two branches are fearful of challenging judiciary supremacy, functional departmentalism may offer a certain degree of autonomy from the Court

Children’s Sport Participation in Canada: Is it a Level Playing Field?

In this article a study of children’s sport participation in Canada is presented, examining both children’s participation in organized sport (with a coach or instructor) and informal sport (without a coach or instructor). This was done using a national sample survey. The results indicate that, for participation in organized sport, household income was the strongest predictor variable, followed by parent’s education, gender, regional differences, and age of the child. In informal sport, gender was the strongest predictor variable, followed by regional differences, household income, age of the child, and parent’s education. The findings are discussed in terms of the implications these factors may have on the development and reproduction of social division between children who are able to access sporting activities and those who cannot

Beyond Megalopolis: Exploring America’s New “Megapolitan” Geography

The Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech identifies ten US “Megapolitan Areas”— clustered networks of metropolitan areas that exceed 10 million total residents (or will pass that mark by 2040) . Six Megapolitan Areas lie in the eastern half of the United States, while four more are found in the West. Megapolitan Areas extend into 35 states, including every state east of the Mississippi River except Vermont. Sixty percent of the Census Bureau’s “Consolidated Statistical Areas” are found in Megapolitan Areas, as are 39 of the nation’s 50 most populous metropolitan areas. As of 2003, Megapolitan Areas contained less than a fifth of all land area in the lower 48 states, but captured more than two-thirds of total US population with almost 200 million people. Megapolitan Areas are expected to add 83 million people (or the current population of Germany) by 2040, accounting for seven in every ten new Americans. By 2040, a projected 33 trillion dollars will be spent on Megapolitan building construction. The figure represents over three quarters of all the capital that will be expended nationally on private real estate development. In 2004, Democratic candidate John Kerry won the Megapolitan Area popular vote by 51.6 percent to 48.4 for President George W. Bush—or almost the exact reverse of the nation as a whole. Kerry received 46.4 million Megapolitan votes, while Bush won 43.5 million. Megapolitan geography reframes many planning and public policy debates, touching on such issues as environmental impact, transportation, and urban sprawl

The Constitutionality of a National Wealth Tax

Economic inequality threatens America’s constitutional democracy. Beyond obvious harms to our nation’s social fabric and people’s lives, soaring economic inequality translates into political inequality and corrodes democratic institutions and values. The coincident, relentless rise of money in politics exacerbates the problem. As elected officials and candidates meet skyrocketing campaign costs by devoting more and more time to political fundraising—and independent expenditures mushroom—Americans lose faith and withdraw from a system widely perceived as beholden to wealthy individuals and corporate interests. The United States needs innovative approaches to help rebuild foundational, shared understandings of American democracy, the American Dream, and opportunity and fairness. Tax policy provides one central context in which collective judgments about fundamental values help form national identity. We believe that a national wealth tax (that is, a tax on individuals’ net worth) should be among the policy options under consideration to support vital infrastructure, social service, and other governmental functions. Although not a new concept, a wealth tax may be an idea whose time has come, as inequality soars toward record highs. Our aim in this Essay is to help ensure that a wealth tax is among the policy options available to Congress by challenging a common assumption that has unduly harmed its prospects: the belief that the U.S. Constitution effectively makes a national wealth tax impossible. We believe this conventional wisdom is wrong and its casual repetition has been harmful. Devising a progressive tax system that effectively taxes the wealthy is notoriously difficult, but whether a wealth tax is part of that system should depend upon the policy choices of democratically elected representatives, not faulty constitutional understandings

Spitzer Observations of Black Hole Low-mass X-ray Binaries: Assessing the Non-stellar Infrared Component

We have combined ground-based optical and near-infrared data with Spitzer Space Telescope mid-infrared data for five black hole (BH) soft X-ray transients (SXTs) in order to determine the levels of near- and mid-infrared emission from sources other than the secondary star. Mid-infrared emission from an accretion disk, circumbinary dust, and/or a jet could act as sources of near-infrared contamination, thereby diluting ellipsoidal variations of the secondary star and affecting determined BH mass estimates. Based on optical to mid-infrared spectral energy distribution modeling of the five SXTs along with the prototype, V616 Mon, we detected mid-infrared excesses in half of the systems, and suggest that the excesses detected from these systems arise from non-thermal synchrotron jets rather than circumbinary dust disks

Investigating a Professional Development School Model of Teacher Education in Canada

We examined the effectiveness of a professional development school model of teacher education in Canada. Teacher education candidates responded positively to program features related to sustained participation and collaboration in school communities throughout the year. Their efficacy beliefs about developing professional knowledge were most strongly related to the school component of the program. This highlights the importance of careful selection and preparation of associate teachers where teacher candidates are placed in only one school. Nous avons fait l’examen de l’efficacité d’un modèle de développement professionnel de formation des enseignants en milieu scolaire au Canada. Les candidats enseignants ont réagi positivement aux dimensions du programme relatives à une participation soutenue et à la collaboration au sein des communautés scolaires tout au long de l’année. Leurs convictions relativement au développement efficace d’un savoir professionnel étaient fortement liées à la dimension scolaire du programme. Cette conclusion souligne l’importance de sélectionner et de préparer avec soin les maîtres associés lorsque les candidats à l’enseignement sont assignés à un seul établissement

Exploring the Relationship Between Self-Regulated Learning and Reflection in Teacher Education

Literature on teacher learning has shown links between being a self-regulated learner, reflecting effectively on one’s own practice, and being described as an “adaptive expert”. For instance, the metacognitive skills needed for effective reflection on teaching practice are seen as critically important to developing adaptive expertise in the context of the highly complex classroom environment. Similarly, self-regulated learning is often defined, at least in part, in terms of using metacognitive skill to adapt one’s approach to complex learning situations or problems. Although there is rich literature on reflective practice in teacher education, less is known about measuring teachers’ self-regulated learning or the relationship between self-regulated learning and teacher reflections. This research examines reflective practice and self-regulated learning through pre-service teachers’ written reflections. The study makes a novel adaptation of a rubric designed to evaluate teacher education candidates’ reflections to measure self-regulated learning. Findings suggest that the rubric could also be useful in understanding the self-regulated practices of teacher education candidates

MEXICAN-U.S. FRESH TOMATO TRADE: AN ANALYSIS OF VOLUME, PRICES AND TRANSACTION COSTS

Tomato trade between the U.S. and Mexico has grown significantly during the past decade. Although the tariff reductions accorded under NAFTA may explain part of his increase, there are other supply and demand factors that affect trade flows. This study develops a U.S.-Mexico tomato trade model, with special focus on the interdependence between trading costs and the volume of Mexican imports. As expected, the exchange rate is a significant determinant of trading costs, but the level of tariffs was insignificant in both the trading and tomato supply equations. The shipping point price level and volume of imports also appear to affect these costs. For the import supply and demand models, there appears to be a significant share of imports that rely on previous levels of imports, rather than the expected economic factors (prices, income, and producer price index). We conclude that the structure and performance of the tomato trading market is changing, and may be more influential than tariff reductions in explaining increased trade flows.Crop Production/Industries, International Relations/Trade,