High School Graduation Rates:Alternative Methods and Implications

The No Child Left Behind Act has brought great attention to the high school graduation rate as one of the mandatory accountability measures for public school systems. However, there is no consensus on how to calculate the high school graduation rate given the lack of longitudinal databases that track individual students. This study reviews literature on and practices in reporting high school graduation rates, compares graduation rate estimates yielded from alternative methods, and estimates discrepancies between alternative results at national, state, and state ethnic group levels. Despite the graduation rate method used, results indicate that high school graduation rates in the U.S. have been declining in recent years and that graduation rates for black and Hispanic students lag substantially behind those of white students. As to graduation rate method preferred, this study found no evidence that the conceptually more complex methods yield more accurate or valid graduation rate estimates than the simpler methods

Bridging the Gap between Testing and Technology in Schools

The widening gap between the increased use of technology in schools and the absence of computers in state-level testing programs raises important implications for policies related to the use of both technology and testing in schools. In this article, we summarize recent developments in the use of technology in schools and in state level testing programs. We then describe two studies indicating that written tests administered on paper underestimate the achievement of students accustomed to working on computers. We conclude by discussing four approaches to bridging the gap between technology and testing in U.S. schools

Mandatory Disclosure about Environmental and Employee Matters in the Reports of Italian-Listed Corporate Groups

This paper analyses the impact of Italian Legislative Decree 32/2007 – following the 2003/51 European Directive – and the disclosure of environmental and employee matters in terms of overall volume, completeness of information, presence of bad/good news and target-oriented information. Content analysis has been applied to all Italian corporate groups that made public both the consolidated annual report and the stand-alone social and environmental report in 2005 and in 2010, for a total of 96 reports. The results show that despite the overall increase in sentences devoted to environmental and employee matters, the completeness of the information has not substantially improved, indicating that the 2007 regulation has been ineffective. The Italian experience could provide useful insights for European regulators. Such insights may inform policy recommendations to design a mandated social and environmental accountability process with the potential of providing information to societal stakeholders while facilitating accountability

Multi-messenger observations of a binary neutron star merger

On 2017 August 17 a binary neutron star coalescence candidate (later designated GW170817) with merger time 12:41:04 UTC was observed through gravitational waves by the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors. The Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor independently detected a gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) with a time delay of ~1.7 s with respect to the merger time. From the gravitational-wave signal, the source was initially localized to a sky region of 31 deg2 at a luminosity distance of 40+8-8 Mpc and with component masses consistent with neutron stars. The component masses were later measured to be in the range 0.86 to 2.26 Mo. An extensive observing campaign was launched across the electromagnetic spectrum leading to the discovery of a bright optical transient (SSS17a, now with the IAU identification of AT 2017gfo) in NGC 4993 (at ~40 Mpc) less than 11 hours after the merger by the One- Meter, Two Hemisphere (1M2H) team using the 1 m Swope Telescope. The optical transient was independently detected by multiple teams within an hour. Subsequent observations targeted the object and its environment. Early ultraviolet observations revealed a blue transient that faded within 48 hours. Optical and infrared observations showed a redward evolution over ~10 days. Following early non-detections, X-ray and radio emission were discovered at the transient’s position ~9 and ~16 days, respectively, after the merger. Both the X-ray and radio emission likely arise from a physical process that is distinct from the one that generates the UV/optical/near-infrared emission. No ultra-high-energy gamma-rays and no neutrino candidates consistent with the source were found in follow-up searches. These observations support the hypothesis that GW170817 was produced by the merger of two neutron stars in NGC4993 followed by a short gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) and a kilonova/macronova powered by the radioactive decay of r-process nuclei synthesized in the ejecta

Technological elites, the meritocracy, and postracial myths in Silicon Valley

Entre as modernas elites tecnológicas digitais, os mitos da meritocracia e da façanha intelectual são usados como marcadores de raça e gênero por uma supremacia branca masculina que consolida recursos de forma desproporcional em relação a pessoas não brancas, principalmente negros, latinos e indígenas. Os investimentos em mitos meritocráticos suprimem os questionamentos de racismo e discriminação, mesmo quando os produtos das elites digitais são infundidos com marcadores de raça, classe e gênero. As lutas históricas por inclusão social, política e econômica de negros, mulheres e outras classes desprotegidas têm implicado no reconhecimento da exclusão sistêmica, do trabalho forçado e da privação de direitos estruturais, além de compromissos com políticas públicas dos EUA, como as ações afirmativas, que foram igualmente fundamentais para reformas políticas voltadas para participação e oportunidades econômicas. A ascensão da tecnocracia digital tem sido, em muitos aspectos, antitética a esses esforços no sentido de reconhecer raça e gênero como fatores cruciais para inclusão e oportunidades tecnocráticas. Este artigo explora algumas das formas pelas quais os discursos das elites tecnocráticas do Vale do Silício reforçam os investimentos no pós racialismo como um pretexto para a re-consolidação do capital em oposição às políticas públicas que prometem acabar com práticas discriminatórias no mundo do trabalho. Por meio de uma análise cuidadosa do surgimento de empresas de tecnologias digitais e de uma discussão sobre como as elites tecnológicas trabalham para mascarar tudo, como inscrições algorítmicas e genéticas de raça incorporadas em seus produtos, mostramos como as elites digitais omitem a sua responsabilidade por suas reinscrições pós raciais de (in)visibilidades raciais. A partir do uso de análise histórica e crítica do discurso, o artigo revela como os mitos de uma meritocracia digital baseados em um “daltonismo racial” tecnocrático emergem como chave para a manutenção de exclusões de gênero e raça.Palavras-chave: Tecnologia. Raça. Gênero.Among modern digital technology elites, myths of meritocracy and intellectual prowess are used as racial and gender markers of white male supremacy that disproportionately consolidate resources away from people of color, particularly African Americans, Latino/as and Native Americans. Investments in meritocratic myths suppress interrogations of racism and discrimination even as the products of digital elites are infused with racial, class, and gender markers. Longstanding struggles for social, political, and economic inclusion for African Americans, women, and other legally protected classes have been predicated upon the recognition of systemic exclusion, forced labor, and structural disenfranchisement, and commitments to US public policies like affirmative action have, likewise, been fundamental to political reforms geared to economic opportunity and participation. The rise of the digital technocracy has, in many ways, been antithetical to these sustained efforts to recognize race and gender as salient factors structuring technocratic opportunity and inclusion. This paper explores some of the ways in which discourses of Silicon Valley technocratic elites bolster investments in post-racialism as a pretext for re-consolidations of capital, in opposition to public policy commitments to end discriminatory labor practices. Through a careful analysis of the rise of digital technology companies, and a discussion of how technology elites work to mask everything from algorithmic to genetic inscriptions of race embedded in their products, we show how digital elites elide responsibility for their post-racial re-inscriptions of racial visibilities (and invisibilities). Using historical and critical discourse analysis, the paper reveals how myths of a digital meritocracy premised on a technocratic colorblindness emerge key to perpetuating gender and racial exclusions.Keywords: Technology. Race. Gender

Lake Woebe guaranteed: Misuse of Test Scores in Massachusetts, Part I

Misuse of test results in Massachusetts largely guarantees woes for both students and schools. Analysis of annual test score averages for close to 1000 Massachusetts schools for four years (1998—2001) shows that test score gains in one testing period tend to be followed by losses in the next. School averages are especially volatile in relatively small schools (with less than 150 students tested per grade). One of the reasons why scores fluctuate is that the Massachusetts state test has been developed using norm-referenced test construction procedures so that items which all students tend to answer correctly (or incorrectly) are excluded from operational versions of the test. This article concludes with a summary of other reasons why results from state tests, like that in Massachusetts, ought not be used in isolation to make high-stakes decisions about students or schools

Revisiting the Myth of the Texas Miracle in Education: Lessons about Dropout Research and Dropout Prevention

This paper extends an examination of grade enrollment and high school graduation patterns in Texas presented in “The Myth of the Texas Miracle in Education” (Haney, 2000). Using enrollment data from 1975-76 through 1999-2000, I examine the pattern apparent between flunking grade 9 and failure to persist in school to high school graduation. Before focusing on this particular topic, I provide a summary of the “Myth” article, supplemented by new evidence available since publication of that article in August 2000

Revisiting the Myth of the Texas Miracle in Education: Lessons about Dropout Research and Dropout Prevention

This paper extends an examination of grade enrollment and high school graduation patterns in Texas presented in “The Myth of the Texas Miracle in Education” (Haney, 2000). Using enrollment data from 1975-76 through 1999-2000, I examine the pattern apparent between flunking grade 9 and failure to persist in school to high school graduation. Before focusing on this particular topic, I provide a summary of the “Myth” article, supplemented by new evidence available since publication of that article in August 2000

The Myth of the Texas Miracle in Education

I summarize the recent history of education reform and statewide testing in Texas, which led to introduction of the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS) in 1990-91. A variety of evidence in the late 1990s led a number of observers to conclude that the state of Texas had made near miraculous progress in reducing dropouts and increasing achievement. The passing scores on TAAS tests were arbitrary and discriminatory. Analyses comparing TAAS reading, writing and math scores with one another and with relevant high school grades raise doubts about the reliability and validity of TAAS scores. I discuss the problems of missing students and other mirages in Texas enrollment statistics that profoundly affect both reported dropout statistics and test scores.https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/usf_EPAA/1054/thumbnail.jp