Separate and Unequal: To What Extent Do Student Demographic Characteristics Predict School Accountability Ratings?

This thesis examines the extent to which one can predict school accountability ratings based only on the demographic make-up of their student bodies, especially their racial/ethnic composition. Analyses were conducted on all elementary schools in the Milwaukee metropolitan region using data from the National Center for Education Statistics, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, and the U.S. Department of Education. Ordered logistic regression analyses showed that one can largely predict accountability ratings assigned to schools by state report cards without knowing anything about various measures of improvement over time. Using only the racial/ethnic and socioeconomic composition of schools’ students, the model correctly predicted schools’ ranking more than 60 percent of the time. Simulation results indicated that predominately white schools have almost a 95 percent predicted chance of being ranked as meeting or exceeding expectations, while predominately black schools have more than a 95 percent predicted chance of being ranked as meeting few expectations or failing to meet expectations. These findings raise serious questions about the report card system. After decades of educational reform that have promised equal education to all students, accountability systems appear to reify inequality rather than effectively measure how schools’ serve their student populations

A Nation Rated? School Segregation and the Distribution of a School Resource: the Role of Accountability Ratings in Metropolitan Public Schools

Overview. This dissertation examines how school accountability ratings are associated with school segregation, how they shape public perceptions of school quality and how they influence parents’ enrollment decisions. In theory, school ratings were developed to raise achievement for all students by identifying poor performing schools and intervening to improve them. Across the United States, school segregation concentrates Black, Latinx and lower income students in schools with low average test scores. As such, school ratings may both reflect and even reinforce educational inequalities associated with school segregation because a component of the rating relies on performance on standardized exams. To the extent that ratings reflect which groups of students attend which schools rather than how effectively schools serve their student populations, the system may be problematic. Scholars have yet to understand the association of school ratings and school segregation. This is an important consideration, not only because ratings may reflect broader patterns of inequality, but also because they may serve as a resource for stakeholders, including public officials and parents who may rely on ratings as an indication of school quality. Internationally, the publication of school ratings has led to lower enrollment and school closures, but it is unclear how ratings are associated with segregation or how they impact parent’s perceptions and attitudes within the United States. This dissertation addresses three key questions: Are school ratings associated with school segregation? If so, by what metric (i.e. within- or between-district segregation)? Do ratings influence parent’s perceptions and attitudes? I answer these by examining school report cards and school segregation across 112 metropolitan regions. By using original data from a survey experiment, I am also able to examine causal effects of school ratings on parents’ perceptions and attitudes. Findings show that in more segregated metropolitan regions, schools with higher proportions of Black students have higher probabilities of receiving a lower school rating relative to a higher one. Moreover, I show that parents’ perceptions of school quality are significantly less favorable when shown a school profile with a lower school rating and that parents’ are less likely to enroll their children in a hypothetical school with a lower rating (C-F). Intellectual Merit. Segregation researchers argue that the distribution of resources and their effect on students’ educational outcomes is poorly understood (Reardon and Owens 2014). This project contributes to the scholarly literature in two ways. First, I conceptualize school ratings as a resource vital to the educational experience of students which impacts students, families and schools differently in patterns that are reflective of existing social inequality. Second, I contribute to sociological understanding of the relationships among race/ethnicity, class, schools, variations in accountability policies in general, and perceptions of school quality and enrollment decisions. These are significant contributions because they have the potential to transform future school segregation research as well as the design and dissemination of educational accountability metrics. Broader Impacts. Findings from this research provide benefits to scholars across multiple disciplines allowing sociologists, educational researchers, methodologists and policy makers to effectively collaborate. The scientific contributions of this research include the expansion of theory and the treatment of accountability policies as a resource that plays a key role in parental decision making, which, in turn, may influence school segregation patterns. Methodologists likely gain a richer understanding of how perceptions vary and depend on conditions of school quality indicators. Results from this study offer empirical evidence for the implementation and dissemination of alternative accountability metrics that are reliable and accurate estimates of how well schools and districts serve their students. This should prove informative to educational researchers and policy makers. The scope of this research has the potential to impact anyone conducting research on the association of school segregation and educational policy as well as those studying housing and public perceptions

Aircraft aerodynamic prediction method for V/STOL transition including flow separation

A numerical procedure was developed for the aerodynamic force and moment analysis of V/STOL aircraft operating in the transition regime between hover and conventional forward flight. The trajectories, cross sectional area variations, and mass entrainment rates of the jets are calculated by the Adler-Baron Jet-in-Crossflow Program. The inviscid effects of the interaction between the jets and airframe on the aerodynamic properties are determined by use of the MCAIR 3-D Subsonic properties are determined by use of the MCAIR 3-D Subsonic Potential Flow Program, a surface panel method. In addition, the MCAIR 3-D Geometry influence Coefficient Program is used to calculate a matrix of partial derivatives that represent the rate of change of the inviscid aerodynamic properties with respect to arbitrary changes in the effective wing shape

"Dropping the Ball": The Understudied Nexus of Sports and Politics

From the Roman Colosseum to the Yankee Stadium, the Olympics to the Super Bowl, sports have always played a central role in societies. With so much at stake—money, pride, power (and occasionally even fun)—sports are undeniably political. Yet despite this recognition, political scientists and policy scholars devote little attention to the study of sports, especially compared with other disciplines like business, law, and economics. We offer reasons for this void and suggest how political scientists can begin to fill it. In our view, the nexus between sports and politics is not only a vital topic of study on its own, but it can also provide a lens through which to examine—and test—broader questions in the discipline. We propose how scholars can think more systematically about the interaction of politics and sports and leverage the distinctive qualities of sports to improve causal identification across a range of issue areas and subfields in political science and policy studies

George Churukian

Dr. Churukian joined IWU\u27s faculty as Director of the Secondary Education program in 1976 and retired in 1993. He became active in the International Society for Teacher Education before retiring and has enjoyed a long post-career of activity with this and local community groups

Interactive Influence of Turbidity and Light on Larval Bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus) Foraging

Abstract in English and French.In a series of in situ enclosure experiments with larval bluegill (lepomis macrochirus), we demonstrate that turbidity from suspended sediments reduces bluegill consumption of crustacean zooplankton, primarily cyclopoid copepods and cogepod nauplii. However, this reduction occurred only when light intensity in parts of enclosures fell below a threshold, estimated at <450 lx. Following recent studies demonstrating copepod die1 vertical migration in response to predators, it appears that copepods in our experiments used low-light strata as a refuge. Without this apparent refuge present, larval bluegill consumption increased with increasing turbidity, but prey were smaller on average. Thus, prey biomass consumed by larval bluegill did not differ with turbidity in high-light conditions. We postulate that the shift to smaller prey across taxa at higher turbidity, when light intensity exceeded 450 lx, derives from increased prey-background contrast. In low-light conditions, larval bluegill consumed larger, but fewer, zooplankton with increasing turbidity, resulting in lower prey biomass consumed. Thus, we demonstrate the field conditions causing negative turbidity effects on larval fish foraging success, and thus growth and recruitment.This research was supported in part by National Science Foundation grants BSR-8715730 and BSR-9107173 to R. A. Stein and Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid-of-Research to J. G. Miner

The Phytoplankton of Lake Wawasee, Kosciusko County, Indiana

Lake Wawasee located at Syracuse, Indiana, is the largest body of water in the state. It has an area of 2,618 acres, a maximum depth of 68 feet and a shore line of approximately 22 miles.To our knowledge, the only paper published in which phytoplankters of Lake Wawasee are mentioned appeared in 1896. Those were Ceratium hirundinella, Rivularia and various forms of Palmella

DCPS or Sidwell Friends? How Politician Schooling Choices Affect Voter Evaluations

Voters often rely on informational shortcuts, such as the background traits of politicians, to decide which candidates to support at the ballot box. One such background trait is family composition, particularly parental status. Research, however, has mostly overlooked whether the value-laden choices that politicians make regarding their families—like what neighborhoods they live in, where they worship, and what schools they send their children to—affect how constituents view them. We conduct a survey experiment in the U.S. that presents respondents with hypothetical biographies of politicians that randomly vary one of the most important decisions that politicians make regarding their families: whether to send them to public or private school. We find that: (1) voters are more inclined to vote for politicians with children in public school; and (2) this preference may be due to voters perceiving these politicians as both warmer and more committed to public services