What Does Certification Tell Us About Teacher Effectiveness? Evidence from New York City

We use six years of data on student test performance to evaluate the effectiveness of certified, uncertified, and alternatively certified teachers in the New York City public schools. On average, the certification status of a teacher has at most small impacts on student test performance. However, among those with the same certification status, there are large and persistent differences in teacher effectiveness. This evidence suggests that classroom performance during the first two years, rather than certification status, is a more reliable indicator of a teacher's future effectiveness. We also evaluate turnover among teachers with different certification status, and the impact on student achievement of hiring teachers with predictably high turnover. Given relatively modest estimates of experience differentials, even high turnover groups (such as Teach for America participants) would have to be only slightly more effective in their first year to offset the negative effects of their high exit rates.

Do Sex Offender Registration and Notification Laws Affect Criminal Behavior?

Sex offenders have become the targets of some of the most far-reaching and novel crime legislation in the U.S. Two key innovations in recent decades have been registration and notification laws which, respectively, require that convicted sex offenders provide valid contact information to law enforcement authorities, and that information about sex offenders be made public. Using the evolution of state law during the 1990s and 2000s, we study how registration and notification affect the frequency of reported sex offenses and the incidence of such offenses across victims. We find evidence that registration reduces the frequency of sex offenses by providing law enforcement with information on local sex offenders. As we predict using a simple model of criminal behavior, this decrease in crime is concentrated among “local” victims (e.g., friends, acquaintances, neighbors) with no evidence of less crime occurring against strangers. We also find evidence that notification has reduced crime, but not, as legislators anticipated, by disrupting the criminal conduct of convicted sex offenders. Our results instead suggest that notification deters nonregistered sex offenders, and may, in fact, increase recidivism among registered offenders by reducing the relative attractiveness of a crime-free life. This finding is consistent with work by criminologists showing that notification imposes social and financial costs on registered sex offenders, perhaps offsetting the relative benefits of forgoing criminal activity. We regard this latter finding as important, given that the purpose of notification is to reduce recidivism

Do Sex Offender Registration and Notification Laws Affect Criminal Behavior?

Sex offenders have become the targets of some of the most far-reaching and novel crime legislation in the U.S. Two key innovations in recent decades have been registration and notification laws which, respectively, require that convicted sex offenders provide valid contact information to law enforcement authorities, and that information about sex offenders be made public. Using the evolution of state law during the 1990s and 2000s, we study how registration and notification affect the frequency of reported sex offenses and the incidence of such offenses across victims. We find evidence that registration reduces the frequency of sex offenses by providing law enforcement with information on local sex offenders. As we predict using a simple model of criminal behavior, this decrease in crime is concentrated among “local” victims (e.g., friends, acquaintances, neighbors) with no evidence of less crime occurring against strangers. We also find evidence that notification has reduced crime, but not, as legislators anticipated, by disrupting the criminal conduct of convicted sex offenders. Our results instead suggest that notification deters nonregistered sex offenders, and may, in fact, increase recidivism among registered offenders by reducing the relative attractiveness of a crime-free life. This finding is consistent with work by criminologists showing that notification imposes social and financial costs on registered sex offenders, perhaps offsetting the relative benefits of forgoing criminal activity. We regard this latter finding as important, given that the purpose of notification is to reduce recidivism

School Segregation, Educational Attainment, and Crime: Evidence from the End of Busing in Charlotte-Mecklenburg

We study the impact of the end of race-based busing in Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools (“CMS”) on academic achievement, educational attainment, and young adult crime. In 2001, CMS was prohibited from using race in assigning students to schools. School boundaries were redrawn dramatically to reflect the surrounding neighborhoods, and half of its students received a new assignment. Using addresses measured prior to the policy change, we compare students in the same neighborhood that lived on opposite sides of a newly drawn boundary. We find that both white and minority students score lower on high school exams when they are assigned to schools with more minority students. We also find decreases in high school graduation and four-year college attendance for whites, and large increases in crime for minority males. The impacts on achievement and attainment are smaller in younger cohorts, while the impact on crime remains large and persistent for at least nine years after the re-zoning. We show that compensatory resource allocation policies in CMS likely played an important role in mitigating the impact of segregation on achievement and attainment, but had no impact on crime. We conclude that the end of busing widened racial inequality, despite efforts by CMS to mitigate the impact of increases in segregation

Information and Employee Evaluation: Evidence from a Randomized Intervention in Public Schools

We examine how employers learn about worker productivity in a randomized pilot experiment which provided objective estimates of teacher performance to school principals. We test several hypotheses that support a simple Bayesian learning model with imperfect information. First, the correlation between performance estimates and prior beliefs rises with more precise objective estimates and more precise subjective priors. Second, new information exerts greater influence on posterior beliefs when it is more precise and when priors are less precise. Employer learning affects job separation and productivity in schools, increasing turnover for teachers with low performance estimates and producing small test score improvements. (JEL D83, I21, J24, J45

Consumers\u27 Perceptions of Patient-Accessible Electronic Medical Records

Background: Electronic health information (eHealth) tools for patients, including patient-accessible electronic medical records (patient portals), are proliferating in health care delivery systems nationally. However, there has been very limited study of the perceived utility and functionality of portals, as well as limited assessment of these systems by vulnerable (low education level, racial/ethnic minority) consumers. Objective: The objective of the study was to identify vulnerable consumers’ response to patient portals, their perceived utility and value, as well as their reactions to specific portal functions. Methods: This qualitative study used 4 focus groups with 28 low education level, English-speaking consumers in June and July 2010, in New York City. Results: Participants included 10 males and 18 females, ranging in age from 21-63 years; 19 non-Hispanic black, 7 Hispanic, 1 non-Hispanic White and 1 Other. None of the participants had higher than a high school level education, and 13 had less than a high school education. All participants had experience with computers and 26 used the Internet. Major themes were enhanced consumer engagement/patient empowerment, extending the doctor’s visit/enhancing communication with health care providers, literacy and health literacy factors, improved prevention and health maintenance, and privacy and security concerns. Consumers were also asked to comment on a number of key portal features. Consumers were most positive about features that increased convenience, such as making appointments and refilling prescriptions. Consumers raised concerns about a number of potential barriers to usage, such as complex language, complex visual layouts, and poor usability features. Conclusions: Most consumers were enthusiastic about patient portals and perceived that they had great utility and value. Study findings suggest that for patient portals to be effective for all consumers, portals must be designed to be easy to read, visually engaging, and have user-friendly navigation

A direct path to dependable software

What would it take to make software more dependable? Until now, most approaches have been indirect: some practices – processes, tools or techniques – are used that are believed to yield dependable software, and the argument for dependability rests on the extent to which the developers have adhered to them. This article argues instead that developers should produce direct evidence that the software satisfies its dependability claims. The potential advantages of this approach are greater credibility (since the argument is not contingent on the effectiveness of the practices) and reduced cost (since development resources can be focused where they have the most impact)

Teacher quality in the twenty first century: new lives, old truths

This chapter is based upon a keynote address to the first global teacher education summit, organised by Beijing Normal University in 2011, in which research across the world about influences which affect teachers' sense of professional identity, capacity for compassion, commitment, resilience and effectiveness long after they have graduated from their pre-service education and training programmes in universities and colleges were shared. The findings suggest that teaching pre-service students about how the conditions in which they work may enhance or diminish their capacity to teach to their best and how they might act to mediate these is a key part of the work of all teacher educators and an important focus for the work of educational researchers

The role of war in deep transitions: exploring mechanisms, imprints and rules in sociotechnical systems

This paper explores in what ways the two world wars influenced the development of sociotechnical systems underpinning the culmination of the first deep transition. The role of war is an underexplored aspect in both the Techno-Economic Paradigms (TEP) approach and the Multi-level perspective (MLP) which form the two key conceptual building blocks of the Deep Transitions (DT) framework. Thus, we develop a conceptual approach tailored to this particular topic which integrates accounts of total war and mechanisms of war from historical studies and imprinting from organisational studies with the DT framework’s attention towards rules and meta-rules. We explore in what ways the three sociotechnical systems of energy, food, and transport were affected by the emergence of new demand pressures and logistical challenges during conditions of total war; how war impacted the directionality of sociotechnical systems; the extent to which new national and international policy capacities emerged during wartime in the energy, food, and transport systems; and the extent to which these systems were influenced by cooperation and shared sacrifice under wartime conditions. We then explore what lasting changes were influenced by the two wars in the energy, food, and transport systems across the transatlantic zone. This paper seeks to open up a hitherto neglected area in analysis on sociotechnical transitions and we discuss the importance of further research that is attentive towards entanglements of warfare and the military particularly in the field of sustainability transitions