Welfare Reform and Non-Marital Fertility in the 1990s: Evidence from Birth Records

The 1996 Personal Responsibility Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act dramatically altered the economic incentive to bear children out-of-wedlock for economically disadvantaged women or couples most likely to avail themselves of welfare programs. We use data from vital statistics and a difference-in-differences research design to investigate whether state and federal welfare reform in the 1990s reduced rates of non-marital childbearing among women aged 19 to 39 at highest risk of welfare use, relative to women at lower risk. We find little consistent evidence for an effect of welfare reform on non-marital childbearing. This finding is similar to the literature that found little or mixed evidence for an effect of AFDC benefits. If anything, federal welfare reform has been associated with a small positive effect of two to three percent for white and black women ages 19 to 39.

An Analysis of the Reading Program at Big Rock Elementary School

An applied project presented to the faculty of the School of Education at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Education Specialist in Administration by Joyce T. Sanders July 25, 1988

Family Cap Provisions and Changes in Births and Abortions

As part of welfare reform efforts in the 1990s, twenty-three states implemented family caps, provisions that deny or reduce cash assistance to welfare recipients who have additional births. We use birth and abortion records from 24 states to estimate effects of family caps on birth and abortion rates. We use age, marital status and completed schooling to identify women at high risk for use of public assistance, and parity (number of previous live births) to identify those most directly affected by the family cap. In family cap states, birth rates fell more and abortion rates rose more among high-risk women with at least one previous live birth compared to similar childless women, consistent with an effect of the family cap. However, this parity-specific pattern of births and abortions also occurred in states that implemented welfare reform with no family cap. Thus, the effects of welfare reform may have differed between mothers and childless women, but there is little evidence of an independent effect of the family cap.

Documenting Illustrations; To Justify or Not to Justify ; Public Communication Campaigns; The Public Understanding of Science; Communicate!

Rreview of Documenting nIustrations, by Mary C. Hester, Jacquelyn L. Monday. and John I. Snead ; To Justify or Not to Justify, by Allan Haley; Public Communication Campaigns (Second Edition), edited by Ronald E. Rice and Charles K. Atkin; The Public Understanding of Science, by J.R. Durnat, G.A. Evans, and G.P. Thomas; Communicate!, by the Philippine Association of Communication Educators

Communication Responsibilities of the International Agricultural Research Centers; Designing a Program Viewers Remember; Get the Facts, Not the Chicken: How to Use and Instructional Film; Precision Journalism; News Writing

Reviews of Communication Responsibilities of the International Agricultural Research Centers, published by Agricultural Developmenl Council, Inc., and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI); Designing a Program Viewers Remember, by Gary A. Witt; and Get the Facts, Not the Chicken: How to Use and Instructional Film, by Gary A. Witt; Precision Journalism, by Phillip Meyer; and News Writing\u3c,em\u3e, by George A. Hough III

Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk: Report #22

The Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk (CRESPAR) was established in 1994 and continued until 2004. It was a collaboration between Johns Hopkins University and Howard University. CRESPAR’s mission was to conduct research, development, evaluation, and dissemination of replicable strategies designed to transform schooling for students who were placed at risk due to inadequate institutional responses to such factors as poverty, ethnic minority status, and non-English-speaking home background.To better understand how some secondary schools are working to encourage continued family and community involvement as children progress from elementary to middle and high school, twenty-two educators, parents, and students at two middle schools and two high schools were interviewed. The four schools are members of the National Network of Partnership Schools, which brings together and provides technical assistance to schools, districts, and states committed to developing comprehensive and permanent programs of school-family-community partnership. This report is organized in five sections. The first section discusses social networks, social capital, and a theory of overlapping spheres of influence to elucidate the conceptual foundation for school-family-community partnerships. The second section outlines and discusses essential elements of a comprehensive program of school-family-community partnerships.Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education (R-117-D40005)

Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk: Report #32

The Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk (CRESPAR) was established in 1994 and continued until 2004. It was a collaboration between Johns Hopkins University and Howard University. CRESPAR’s mission was to conduct research, development, evaluation, and dissemination of replicable strategies designed to transform schooling for students who were placed at risk due to inadequate institutional responses to such factors as poverty, ethnic minority status, and non-English-speaking home background.This study analyzes survey data from 423 parents at six high schools in Maryland—two rural, two urban, and two suburban.Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education (R-117-D400005

Comparative analysis of the vaginal microbiome of pregnant women with either Trichomonas vaginalis or Chlamydia trachomatis

BACKGROUND:Although the significance of the human vaginal microbiome for health and disease is increasingly acknowledged, there is paucity of data on the differences in the composition of the vaginal microbiome upon infection with different sexually transmitted pathogens. METHOD:The composition of the vaginal bacterial community of women with Trichomonas vaginalis (TV, N = 18) was compared to that of women with Chlamydia trachomatis (CT, N = 14), and to that of controls (N = 21) (women negative for TV, CT and bacterial vaginosis). The vaginal bacterial composition was determined using high throughput sequencing with the Ion 16S metagenomics kit of the variable regions 2, 4 and 8 of the bacterial 16S ribosomal RNA gene from the vaginal swab DNA extract of the women. QIIME and R package "Phyloseq" were used to assess the α- and β-diversity and absolute abundance of the 16S rRNA gene per sample in the three groups. Differences in taxa at various levels were determined using the independent T-test. RESULTS:A total of 545 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were identified in all the three groups of which 488 occurred in all three groups (core OTUs). Bacterial α-diversity, by both Simpson's and Shannon's indices, was significantly higher, (p = 0.056) and (p = 0.001) respectively, among women with either TV or CT than among controls (mean α-diversity TV-infected > CT-infected > Controls). At the genus level, women infected with TV had a significantly (p < 0.01) higher abundance of Parvimonas and Prevotella species compared to both controls and CT-infected women, whereas women infected with CT had a significantly (p < 0.05) higher abundance of Anaerococcus, Collinsella, Corynebacterium and Dialister. CONCLUSION:The vaginal microbiomes of TV and CT-infected women were markedly different from each other and from women without TV and CT. Future studies should determine whether the altered microbiomes are merely markers of disease, or whether they actively contribute to the pathology of the two genital infections

Understanding the "Family Gap" in Pay for Women with Children

As the gender gap in pay between women and men has been narrowing, the "family gap" in pay between mothers and nonmothers has been widening. One reason may be the institutional structure in the United States, which has emphasized equal pay and opportunity policies but not family policies, in contrast to other countries that have implemented both. The authors now have evidence on the links between one such family policy and women's pay. Recent research suggests that maternity leave coverage, by raising women's retention after childbirth, also raises women's levels of work experience, job tenure, and pay