School and Sector Switching in Milwaukee

In this report we analyze the movement of students to and from the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) and Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS). We also analyze student mobility between schools within each sector. The analysis rests on two separate sets of data: the administrative records we have collected as part of our separate analysis of academic achievement in MPCP (Witte , Wolf, Cowen, Fleming, & Lucas-McLean, 2010), and the results of an extensive set of surveys collected from parents of private and public school students

Student Attainment and the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program

In this report we examine high school completion and postsecondary enrollment (a.k.a. “educational attainment”) of the cohort of 9th grade students who were in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) at the beginning of our state-mandated evaluation of the MPCP in 2006. After tracking the MPCP 9th graders following the 2006-07 year and comparing them to a carefully matched sample of 9th graders who were in Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) during the 2006-07 year, we use a combination of parent surveys and administrative (school) records to estimate attainment

An IPMC-Enabled Bio-Inspired bending/twisting Fin for Underwater Applications

This paper discusses the design, fabrication, and characterization of an ionic polymer–metal composite (IPMC) actuator-based bio-inspired active fin capable of bending and twisting motion. It is pointed out that IPMC strip actuators are used in the simple cantilever configuration to create simple bending (flapping-like) motion for propulsion in underwater autonomous systems. However, the resulting motion is a simple 1D bending and performance is rather limited. To enable more complex deformation, such as the flapping (pitch and heaving) motion of real pectoral and caudal fish fins, a new approach which involves molding or integrating IPMC actuators into a soft boot material to create an active control surface (called a \u27fin\u27) is presented. The fin can be used to realize complex deformation depending on the orientation and placement of the actuators. In contrast to previously created IPMCs with patterned electrodes for the same purpose, the proposed design avoids (1) the more expensive process of electroless plating platinum all throughout the surface of the actuator and (2) the need for specially patterning the electrodes. Therefore, standard shaped IPMC actuators such as those with rectangular dimensions with varying thicknesses can be used. One unique advantage of the proposed structural design is that custom shaped fins and control surfaces can be easily created without special materials processing. The molding process is cost effective and does not require functionalizing or \u27activating\u27 the boot material similar to creating IPMCs. For a prototype fin (90 mm wide × 60 mm long× 1.5 mm thick), the measured maximum tip displacement was approximately 44 mm and the twist angle of the fin exceeded 10°. Lift and drag measurements in water where the prototype fin with an airfoil profile was dragged through water at a velocity of 21 cm s−1 showed that the lift and drag forces can be affected by controlling the IPMCs embedded into the fin structure. These results suggest that such IPMC-enabled fin designs can be used for developing active propeller blades or control surfaces on underwater vehicles

The MPCP Longitudinal Educational Growth Study Third Year Report

This is the third-year report in a five-year evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP). The MPCP, which began in 1990, provides government-funded vouchers for low-income children to attend private schools in the City of Milwaukee. The maximum voucher amount in 2008-09 was $6,607, and approximately 20,000 children used a voucher to attend either secular or religious private schools. The MPCP is the oldest and largest urban school voucher program in the United States. This evaluation was authorized by Wisconsin Act 125 enacted in 2005

High School Options and Post-Secondary Student Success: The Catholic School Advantage

Recognizing that post-secondary student attainment and achievement is of increasing import for economic success, this study compares the post-secondary performance of students who attended public and private high schools. The results generally indicate that students who attended Catholic high schools had higher college GPAs, were more likely to graduate, and were more likely to graduate with a STEM degree. This Catholic school advantage was wide-ranging, benefiting many subgroups of students, including non-white, low income, urban, and low-achieving students. We controlled for a rich set of factors and conducted sensitivity analyses to establish the strength of these results

Special Education and the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program

Special education and parental school choice are two of the most controversial issues in K-12 education in the United States. Those policies converge on an important question in an evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, what proportion of students have education-related disabilities? This debate, in Wisconsin, has provoked a lawsuit against the state’s Department of Public Instruction (DPI), which implements the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP). MPCP is the oldest and largest urban private school voucher program in the United States

When Rights, Incentives, and Institutions All Clash: The Case of School Vouchers and Special Education in Milwaukee

Two highly controversial issues in the field of K-12 education in the U.S. are special education and parental school choice. Those two policy concerns converge surrounding the question of what proportion of students in school voucher programs compared to public schools have education-related disabilities, and whether or not the two school sectors are properly classifying and serving students with special education needs. We might expect private voucher-receiving schools to serve fewer students with disabilities than local public school systems due to the legal framework and institutional incentives surrounding special education and private schools. Most federal disability laws do not apply to private schools. The private schools participating in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP), which is our subject here, do not receive any extra government funds to serve students with disabilities. Still, if only a small portion of all MPCP students have disabilities, that finding would raise questions regarding the extent to which the program is fulfilling its original mission to serve disadvantaged students in Milwaukee. Based on evidence we collected over five years of studying the MPCP program, we are able to estimate that between 7.5 and 14.6 percent of MPCP students have disabilities that likely would qualify them for special education services were they attending Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS). Our strongest analytical lever in generating that range is an individual fixed-effects estimation of the likelihood of being classified as a special education student in MPCP compared to MPS for the 20 percent of our sample who switched between the school sectors during our study. We also draw upon student disability classifications of private school principals, parent surveys, and school visits to inform our analysis. Our estimated rate of actual student disability in the MPCP is between 23 and 61 percent lower than the rate of student disability of 19 percent reported for MPS. Our estimates, however, are more than four times higher than the official disability rate of 1.6 percent for the MPCP announced by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction based merely upon the percentage of MPCP students who were given accommodations during the most recent round of accountability testing

The Montessori Model and Creativity

Prior research has demonstrated that the characteristics of school environments can impact the development of creativity in children. Thus, we explored the construct of creativity in the context of a Montessori environment. We used the Evaluation of Potential Creativity to measure creativity in children during one academic year. The study sample comprised 77 third-grade students at a Montessori public school in the southeastern United States and 71 demographically similar students at a traditional public school. Results show that Montessori students performed somewhat better on the Evaluation of Potential Creativity assessment than similar non-Montessori students did. Subgroup analyses indicate that male Montessori students demonstrated higher creativity than did male non- Montessori students. The findings of this study augment the body of research supporting creative development in Montessori children and suggest that researchers should continue to focus on the measurement of creativity in studies related to the efficacy of the Montessori model

Unbalance Response Prediction for Accelerating Rotors With Load-Dependent Nonlinear Bearing Stiffness

Rolling-element bearing forces vary nonlinearly with bearing deflection. Thus an accurate rotordynamic analysis requires that bearing forces corresponding to the actual bearing deflection be utilized. Previous papers have explored the transient effect of suddenly applied imbalance and the steady-state unbalance response, using bearing forces calculated by the rolling-element bearing analysis code COBRA-AHS. The present work considers the acceleration of a rotor through one or more critical speeds. The rotordynamic analysis showed that for rapid acceleration rates the maximum response amplitude may be considerably less than predicted by steady-state analysis. Above the critical speed, transient vibration at the rotor natural frequency occurs, similar to that predicted for a Jeffcott rotor with constant-stiffness bearings. A moderate amount of damping will markedly reduce the vibration amplitude, but this damping is not inherent in ball bearings

Effect of Relative Spectral Response on Multi-Spectral Measurements and NDVI from Different Remote Sensing Systems

Spectrally derived metrics from remotely sensed data measurements have been developed to improve understanding of land cover and its dynamics. Today there are an increasing number of remote sensing systems with varying characteristics that provide a wide range of data that can be synthesized for Earth system science. A more detailed understanding is needed on how to correlate measurements between sensors. One factor that is often overlooked is the effect of a sensor's relative spectral response (RSR) on broadband spectral measurements. This study examined the variability in spectral measurements due to RSR differences between different remote sensing systems and the implications of these variations on the accuracy and consistency of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). A theoretical model study and a sensor simulation study of laboratory and remotely sensed hyper-spectral data of known land cover types was developed to provide insight into the effect on NDVI due to differences in RSR measurements of various land cover signatures. This research has shown that the convolution of RSR, signature reflectance and solar irradiance in land cover measurements leads to complex interactions and generally small differences between sensor measurements. Error associated with cross-senor calibration of signature measurements and the method of band radiance conversion to reflectance also contributed to measurement discrepancies. The effect of measurement discrepancies between sensors on the accuracy and consistency of NDVI measurements of vegetation was found to be dependent on the increasing sensitivity of NDVI to decreasing band measurements. A concept of isolines of NDVI error was developed as a construct for understanding and predicting the effect of differences in band measurements between sensors on NDVI. NDVI difference of less than 0.05 can be expected for many sensor comparisons of vegetation, however, some cases will lead to higher differences. For vegetation signatures used in this study, maximum effect on NDVI from measurement differences was 0.063 with an average of 0.023. For sensors with well aligned RSRs such as Landsat 7 ETM+ and MODIS, NDVI differences in the range of 0.01 are possible