Policy and Practice Brief: Delivering Advocacy Services Through P&A for Beneficiaries of Social Security Programs

This brief explores two developments that have occurred to expand the services available through PABSS programs, including: a change in grant conditions to allow PABSS attorneys and advocates to handle work-related SSI and SSDI administrative appeals, including overpayments; and amendments, as part of the Social Security Protection Act of 2004, which allow PABSS attorneys and advocates to represent former cash beneficiaries who are getting continued health insurance coverage through either section 1519(b) (Medicaid While Working) or the extended Medicare. This brief describes both the original legislation creating PABSS and original PABSS grant conditions and how amendments to both have expanded who PABSS programs can represent and the type of issues they can handle

The wound hormones of plants. I. Traumatin, the active principle of the bean test

An attempt has been made in the present investigation to work out a specific test for wound hormone activity, and to use this test in the purification of the active principle of plant tissue extracts. In this way we have isolated a substance, possessing high wound hormone activity, for which we propose the name “traumatin.” This name seems particularly appropriate in view of the historical background of the subject

The Rise and Fall of School Vouchers: A Story of Religion, Race, and Politics

This Article examines why school vouchers have failed to garner the support that so many assumed would follow the Court\u27s decision in Zelman. The explanation, I suggest, concerns religion, race, and politics. The original rationale for vouchers was what I call the values claim -vouchers protected the right of parents to send their child to a school that reinforced their values. Originally promoted by Catholics, the values claim was adopted by evangelical Christians concerned about the secularization of public schools after the 1960s. Although the values claim was central for most of the history of the voucher movement, in the decade leading up to Zelman, voucher advocates replaced the values claim with what I call the racial-justice claim. This rationale emphasized vouchers as part of a civil rights struggle to obtain academically rigorous private education for low-income and minority parents. Redefining vouchers in this manner had political and legal advantages, and paved the way for the Court\u27s decision in Zelman upholding vouchers. Since Zelman, however, two trends have emerged that spell trouble for the future of the voucher movement. First, there are tensions between the values and racial-justice claims for vouchers, as the two claims lead to very different types of voucher programs that appeal to divergent political constituencies. Second, the voucher movement has been hurt by the rise of the accountability movement in education. No Child Left Behind was enacted the same year that Zelman was decided, meaning that the Court gave the green light to the voucher movement at exactly the same time that state and national education policy began to demand greater oversight of all schools, including private schools accepting vouchers. For schools today, accountability means less local control, more tests, and stricter government standards. Conservative Christians, who once led the voucher movement, reject these intrusions into school autonomy. As a result, they are less likely to support modern voucher programs. My approach in this Article is historical, predictive, and normative. It is historical in that I trace the development of the values and racial-justice claims for school vouchers, exploring the tensions between the two claims. It is predictive because I suggest that the future of this educational reform is much less rosy than voucher supporters thought when Zelman was decided. Thus, I predict that Zelman may end up mattering much less than so many had thought it would. Finally, my approach is normative for I argue that it would be unfortunate if I am right about the demise of vouchers. While voucher defenders have vastly overstated the racial-justice claim, there is some prospect that vouchers might improve educational outcomes for low-income African American children. I argue that vouchers should be permitted at least until they can be more thoroughly evaluated to determine their impact on a group so in need of better educational opportunities

No Ordinary Success: The Boundaries of School Reform

How much can schools improve the life prospects of children growing up in poor neighborhoods? This question has divided the education community since at least the 1960s, when a group of researchers led by James Coleman attempted to quantify the extent to which segregation hurt black children. Coleman concluded that differences in family background had a greater impact on student achievement than did differences in school quality. Almost 40 years later, former New York Times education columnist Richard Rothstein revisited the question. In a series of lectures at Columbia University’s Teachers College that became the book Class and Schools (2004), Rothstein chronicled the ways in which out-of-school factors undermine low-income children. Poor kids arrive at school knowing fewer words; live in substandard (often lead-poisoned) housing; lack healthcare; spend afternoons, weekends, and summers in neighborhoods without decent parks or libraries; face discrimination in the workplace after they leave school; and so on. This part of Rothstein’s argument was not new to anyone familiar with the lives of poor children. But he made one additional claim that upset many educators. According to Rothstein, the challenges facing low-income students meant that they would always do worse, on average, than their higher-income peers. I devoured Class and Schools when it came out; it seemed an urgent call for our nation to address out-of-school factors holding poor children back. Others saw (and see) Rothstein as defeatist, apologizing for school failure and telling inner-city teachers and kids that they will never beat the odds. The argument erupted again last year when two groups of education reformers set out what were widely seen as competing agendas. The Education Equality Project—led by New York City schools Chancellor Joel Klein, Washington, D.C. schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, and minister-activist Al Sharpton—emphasized school accountability, tough standards, and changes in how teachers are hired, fired, and paid. The other group, formed by the Economic Policy Institute (Rothstein’s home), called for a “Broader, Bolder Approach,” insisting that schools alone cannot be expected to successfully educate poor students. Schools need help, they said, in the form of expanded health care, afterschool and summer programs, quality early childhood initiatives, and the like. Although the rhetoric from the two camps does not always reflect it, the gap between them is narrowing. Two important new books on schools suggest it should narrow further still

Federal Employee is Entitled to Trial De Novo on Employment Discrimination Claim and Not Merely Judicial Review of Agency Record. Hackley v. Roudebush, 520 F.2d 108 (D.C. Cir. 1975).

Ralph Hackley, an African American, was employed as an investigator within the Veteran Administration\u27s Investigation and Security Service Division. He had served for one year at the GS-12 level when he was denied promotion. Hackley complained that this denial was based solely upon his race. The charge was investigated and he was afforded a hearing before a complaints examiner, who ruled that there had been no discrimination. This finding was adopted by the Veteran\u27s Administration. Upon appeal, the Board of Appeals and Review of the Civil Service Commission affirmed. Having thus exhausted his administrative remedies, plaintiff commenced a civil action in the District Court for the District of Columbia pursuant to section 717(c) of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972 (EEOA). He sought injunctive relief, retroactive promotion, and back pay, plus a declaratory judgment to the effect that he was to be free from discrimination. The district court, in Hackley v. Johnson (Hackley 1), granted the government\u27s motion for summary judgment, holding that it only had jurisdiction to consider whether Hackley had been afforded administrative due process before the Civil Service Commission and that he had, in fact, received due process during the administrative hearing. In Hackley v. Roudebush (Hackley II), the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed, remanding Hackley\u27s claim of discrimination for trial, concluding, inter alia, that section 717(c)\u27s grant of a private right of action requires the district court to conduct a trial de novo in civil actions filed under the section. In so ruling, the court fell into line with several other jurisdictions which had held that the vindication of a federal employee\u27s rights under EEOA required more than mere review of the administrative record

Compression Pylon

A compression pylon for an aircraft with a wing-mounted engine, that does not cause supersonic airflow to occur within the fuselage-wing-pylon-nacelle channel is presented. The chord length of the pylon is greater than the local chord length of the wing to which it is attached. The maximum thickness of the pylon occurs at a point corresponding to the local trailing edge of the wing. As a result, the airflow through the channel never reaches supersonic velocities

Day Of The Dead

Anthropolog