An Urban Myth? New Evidence of Equity, Adequacy and the Efficiency of Educational Resources

In this article, we offer an empirical rejoinder to the oft-told story that large urban districts, like Philadelphia, are inefficient. We situate our study during the very short period in Pennsylvania’s recent history when efforts were dedicated to addressing the inequitable distribution of resources through a fair funding formula and to increasing the amount of resources available for education spending. Even in the presence of a funding formula, school districts like Philadelphia (SDP) with its large percentage of low-income students and English language learners were disproportionately burdened. Unsurprisingly, the SDP, like many districts across the nation, did not receive sufficient resources to educate its students. However, we find that contrary to conventional wisdom, SDP did more per pupil with the resources at its disposal than the average peer district in terms of student poverty and achievement

Ideas and the Politics of School Choice Policy: Portfolio Management in Philadelphia

In this article, we examine the role of ideas in the politics of school choice policy. We situate our study within scholarship that understands frames and logics as types of ideas that operate in the foreground and background of policy debates. We focus on portfolio management, a model of reform in which a central office oversees a network of schools functioning under varying forms of governance. Our data are drawn from a case study of political contention over portfolio management reform in Philadelphia. We find that the frames and counterframes deployed by stakeholders are resonant with societal-level logics of community localism, market transaction, and state bureaucratic administration. Much scholarship on education reform efforts focuses on their effectiveness and sustainability; our study addresses sociological processes involved and demonstrates how ideational processes shape political contention in education reform. We challenge the notion that opponents of portfolio reform are merely defenders of the status quo, and demonstrate the ways in which portfolio opponents critique and seek to change existing conditions

School Vouchers in the Trump Era: How Political Ideology and Religion Shape Public Opinion

Expanding school vouchers is a central component of the Trump Administration’s education agenda.1 However, the extent to which the Administration can fully realize this policy goal may hinge, in part, on the level of public support or opposition for the voucher method of reform and on the particular components of any proposed voucher system. In this policy brief, we report on a randomized survey experiment we conducted to identify how two key dimensions of school voucher systems—source of funding and scope of coverage—affect public opinion across various sectors of the American public

An Urban Myth? New Evidence on Equity, Adequacy, and the Efficiency of Educational Resources in Pennsylvania

How and in what ways money matters in education is a long-standing question among policymakers and education researchers. This issue is particularly salient to large, urban school districts, where debates on the organization of school often gravitate toward issues of financial resources and academic performance. Large urban districts, the story goes, spend more money per pupil but generate lower than expected results. In this policy brief, University of Pennsylvania researchers Matthew P. Steinberg and Rand Quinn present evidence that addresses the oft-told story that large urban districts, such as the School District of Philadelphia (SDP), are inefficient

Factor structure and construct validity of the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit for Carers (ASCOT-Carer)

Background: The ASCOT-Carer is a self-report instrument designed to measure social care-related quality of life (SCRQoL). This article presents the psychometric testing and validation of the ASCOT-Carer four response-level interview (INT4) in a sample of unpaid carers of adults who receive publicly-funded social care services in England. Methods: Unpaid carers were identified through a survey of users of publicly-funded social care services in England. 387 carers completed a face-to-face or telephone interview. Data on variables hypothesised to be related to SCRQoL (for example, characteristics of the carer, cared-for person and care situation) and measures of carer experience, strain, health-related quality of life and overall QoL were collected. Relationships between these variables and overall SCRQoL score were evaluated through correlation, ANOVA and regression analysis to test the construct validity of the scale. Internal reliability was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha and feasibility by the number of missing responses. Results: The construct validity was supported by statistically significant relationships between SCRQoL and scores on instruments of related constructs, as well as with characteristics of the carer and care recipient in univariate and multivariate analyses. A Cronbach’s alpha of 0.87 (7 items) indicates that the internal reliability of the instrument is satisfactory and a low number of missing responses (<1%) indicates a high level of acceptance. Conclusions: The results provide evidence to support the construct validity, factor structure, internal reliability and feasibility of the ASCOT-Carer INT4 as an instrument for measuring social care-related quality of life of unpaid carers who care for adults with a variety of long-term conditions, disability or problems related to old age

Measuring category intuitiveness in unconstrained categorization tasks

What makes a category seem natural or intuitive? In this paper, an unsupervised categorization task was employed to examine observer agreement concerning the categorization of nine different stimulus sets. The stimulus sets were designed to capture different intuitions about classification structure. The main empirical index of category intuitiveness was the frequency of the preferred classification, for different stimulus sets. With 169 participants, and a within participants design, with some stimulus sets the most frequent classification was produced over 50 times and with others not more than two or three times. The main empirical finding was that cluster tightness was more important in determining category intuitiveness, than cluster separation. The results were considered in relation to the following models of unsupervised categorization: DIVA, the rational model, the simplicity model, SUSTAIN, an Unsupervised version of the Generalized Context Model (UGCM), and a simple geometric model based on similarity. DIVA, the geometric approach, SUSTAIN, and the UGCM provided good, though not perfect, fits. Overall, the present work highlights several theoretical and practical issues regarding unsupervised categorization and reveals weaknesses in some of the corresponding formal models

An HST/ACS investigation of the spatial and chemical structure and sub-structure of NGC 891, a Milky Way analogue

We present a structural analysis of NGC891, an edge-on galaxy that has long been considered to be an analogue of the Milky Way. Using starcounts derived from deep HST/ACS images, we detect the presence of a thick disk component in this galaxy with vertical scale height 1.44+/-0.03 kpc and radial scale length 4.8+/-0.1 kpc, only slightly longer than that of the thin disk. A stellar spheroid with a de Vaucouleurs-like profile is detected from a radial distance of 0.5 kpc to the edge of the survey at 25 kpc; the structure appears to become more flattened with distance, reaching q = 0.50 in the outermost halo region probed. The halo inside of 15 kpc is moderately metal-rich (median [Fe/H] ~ -1.1) and approximately uniform in median metallicity. Beyond that distance a modest chemical gradient is detected, with the median reaching [Fe/H] ~ -1.3 at 20 kpc. We find evidence for subtle, but very significant, small-scale variations in the median colour and density over the halo survey area. We argue that the colour variations are unlikely to be due to internal extinction or foreground extinction, and reflect instead variations in the stellar metallicity. Their presence suggests a startling conclusion: that the halo of this galaxy is composed of a large number of incompletely-mixed sub-populations, testifying to its origin in a deluge of small accretions.Comment: 21 pages, 16 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Big dams and salmon evolution: changes in thermal regimes and their potential evolutionary consequences

Dams designed for hydropower and other purposes alter the environments of many economically important fishes, including Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha). We estimated that dams on the Rogue River, the Willamette River, the Cowlitz River, and Fall Creek decreased water temperatures during summer and increased water temperatures during fall and winter. These thermal changes undoubtedly impact the behavior, physiology, and life histories of Chinook salmon. For example, relatively high temperatures during the fall and winter should speed growth and development, leading to early emergence of fry. Evolutionary theory provides tools to predict selective pressures and genetic responses caused by this environmental warming. Here, we illustrate this point by conducting a sensitivity analysis of the fitness consequences of thermal changes caused by dams, mediated by the thermal sensitivity of embryonic development. Based on our model, we predict Chinook salmon likely suffered a decrease in mean fitness after the construction of a dam in the Rogue River. Nevertheless, these demographic impacts might have resulted in strong selection for compensatory strategies, such as delayed spawning by adults or slowed development by embryos. Because the thermal effects of dams vary throughout the year, we predict dams impacted late spawners more than early spawners. Similar analyses could shed light on the evolutionary consequences of other environmental perturbations and their interactions