History of whaling in and near North Carolina

This study aims to reconstruct the history of shore whaling in the southeastern United States, emphasizing statistics on the catch of right whales, Eubalaena glacialis, the preferred targets. The earliest record of whaling in North Carolina is of a proposed voyage from New York in 1667. Early settlers on the Outer Banks utilized whale strandings by trying out the blubber of carcasses that came ashore, and some whale oil was exported from the 1660s onward. New England whalemen whaled along the North Carolina coast during the 1720s, and possibly earlier. As some of the whalemen from the northern colonies moved to Nortb Carolina, a shore-based whale fishery developed. This activity apparently continued without interruption until the War of Independence in 1776, and continued or was reestablished after the war. The methods and techniques of the North Carolina shore whalers changed slowly: as late as the 1890s they used a drogue at the end of the harpoon line and refrained from staying fast to the harpooned whale, they seldom employed harpoon guns, and then only during the waning years of the fishery. The whaling season extended from late December to May, most successfully between February and May. Whalers believed they were intercepting whales migrating north along the coast. Although some whaling occurred as far north as Cape Hatteras, it centered on the outer coasts of Core, Shackleford, and Bogue banks, particularly near Cape Lookout. The capture of whales other than right whales was a rare event. The number of boat crews probably remained fairly stable during much of the 19th century, with some increase in effort in the late 1870s and early 1880s when numbers of boat crews reached 12 to 18. Then by the late 1880s and 1890s only about 6 crews were active. North Carolina whaling had become desultory by the early 1900s, and ended completely in 1917. Judging by export and tax records, some ocean-going vessels made good catches off this coast in about 1715-30, including an estimated 13 whales in 1719, 15 in one year during the early 1720s, 5-6 in a three-year period of the mid to late 1720s, 8 by one ship's crew in 1727, 17 by one group of whalers in 1728-29, and 8-9 by two boats working from Ocracoke prior to 1730. It is impossible to know how representative these fragmentary records are for the period as a whole. The Carolina coast declined in importance as a cruising ground for pelagic whalers by the 1740s or 1750s. Thereafter, shore whaling probably accounted for most of the (poorly documented) catch. Lifetime catches by individual whalemen on Shackleford Banks suggest that the average annual catch was at least one to two whales during 1830·80, perhaps about four during the late 1870s and early 1880s, and declining to about one by the late 1880s. Data are insufficient to estimate the hunting loss rate in the Outer Banks whale fishery. North Carolina is the only state south of New Jersey known to have had a long and well established shore whaling industry. Some whaling took place in Chesapeake Bay and along the coast of Virginia during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, but it is poorly documented. Most of the rigbt whales taken off South Carolina, Georgia, and northern Florida during the 19th century were killed by pelagic whalers. Florida is the only southeastern state with evidence of an aboriginal (pre-contact) whale fishery. Right whale calves may have been among the aboriginal whalers' principal targets. (PDF file contains 34 pages.

The Effects of School Location on Math and Science Achievement Trends: A Primer on Growth Modeling in Education Policy Research

The effect of school location on math and science learning is currently an important policy issue in the United States and in other countries, such as Australia. The present paper uses a 5-year series of math and science achievement data from the state of Kentucky to determine the effects of school location on learning in these subject areas. Adopting an organizational assessment approach, I show how growth models may be used to estimate achievement trends. I also demonstrate methods for discovering two important sources of invalidity in growth models: regression artifacts and spuriousness. Failure to account for these sources of invalidity may lead to erroneous policy conclusions. Two examples of growth models are provided—a linear model and a nonlinear model. The results of these analyses do not support the common contention that there is a rural achievement gap in math and science. One implication of these findings is that, if policymakers wish to enhance math learning, they will accomplish this more effectively by interventions and programs that increase the motivation and opportunity to learn among low-income students, regardless of school location. Because current U.S. education policy is focused on documenting “adequate yearly progress” in schools, growth modeling is likely to become the preferred methodology of policy researchers

Parent Resources and High School Quality in the Context of the Rural Gap in Postsecondary Educational Attainment

The goal of the present study is to explain the effects of parent resources and secondary school quality in bringing about these patterns in the context of the rural gap in higher educational attainment. Using a nationally representative data set that tracks individual student careers in high school and beyond (which NELS provides) lays a strong empirical foundation for the investigation of this topic

Do Contextual Effects Bias Kentucky School District Accountability Index Scores?

Kentucky’s system of high-stakes accountability raises the question: Should teachers and school administrators be held accountable for student test results if the scores are influenced by external factors over which these educators have no control? The goal of the present study is to investigate if such external factors, or “contextual effects,” bias the accountability index scores. The issue is important because school districts, schools, and educators should be assessed in a fair manner. The focus of the study is on the Kentucky school district accountability index scores for the 1992-94 and 1994-96 biennia. District scores, rather than school scores, were chosen as the focus because more suitable measures of contextual effects are available for school districts than for schools. Three contextual effects are considered: (1) median household income in the district, (2) teen birth rate, and (3) rural-metropolitan differences among districts

Edward B. Reeves Papers

MS005-201

Expenditures Streams and School Improvement in Kentucky: Does Money Matter?

Every Kentucky public school is expected to achieve the goal of proficiency on the State\u27s Accountability Index by the year 2014. Many schools may not reach the proficiency goal in time without a broad, multifaceted approach to enhance educational outcomes. A strategy to optimize the allocation of school district funds may contribute to this goal. Previous studies have attempted to answer the question does money matter? for raising school performance, but to date the findings have proven inconsistent. One reason for this might be that most of these studies have used a global measure of monetary resources, such as total per pupil expenditure. The present study explores the possibility that expenditures earmarked for different purposes - termed \u27expenditure streams\u27 - may reveal that financial allocations can make a difference

A Demonstration of ‘Regression Toward the Mean’

This paper provides a brief discussion and demonstration of regression toward the mean, a subtle statistical artifact that appears in the effort to measure change. Regression toward the mean frequently arises in educational assessment when repeated testing is used to determine achievement growth among students or schools at the extremes of the achievement distribution. This statistical artifact is important because it can lead to erroneous inferences about what is causing the observed changes in test scores. The demonstration makes use of Kentucky Core Content Test data

The Effects of School Location on Math and Science Achievement Trends: A Primer on Growth Modeling in Education Policy Research

The effect of school location on math and science learning is currently an important policy issue in the United States and in other countries, such as Australia. The present paper uses a 5-year series of math and science achievement data from the state of Kentucky to determine the effects of school location on learning in these subject areas. Adopting an organizational assessment approach, I show how growth models may be used to estimate achievement trends. I also demonstrate methods for discovering two important sources of invalidity in growth models: regression artifacts and spuriousness. Failure to account for these sources of invalidity may lead to erroneous policy conclusions. Two examples of growth models are provided—a linear model and a nonlinear model. The results of these analyses do not support the common contention that there is a rural achievement gap in math and science. One implication of these findings is that, if policymakers wish to enhance math learning, they will accomplish this more effectively by interventions and programs that increase the motivation and opportunity to learn among low-income students, regardless of school location. Because current U.S. education policy is focused on documenting “adequate yearly progress” in schools, growth modeling is likely to become the preferred methodology of policy researchers

A Test of Three Sociological Explanations of High School Completion

Data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988-1994 are analyzed with logistic regression to test three sociological explanations of high school completion. The first explanation, derived from meritocracy theory, holds that educational credentials are won by academically deserving students. Thus, students who demonstrate better cognitive skills and make better grades are more likely to receive a high school diploma. The second explanation, derived from social reproduction theory, hypothesizes that high school graduation depends on the resources within the student’s family, such as family income and parent’s education level. Students from more advantaged families are more likely to graduate. The third explanation, taken from social bond theory, proposes that social attachments, commitments, and time involvement related to school activities bind the student to normative expectations of the school and increase the probability of graduation. Social attachments that alienate the students from school have the opposite effect. The results of the analyses find unequivocal support for the social reproduction and social bond explanations. Meritocracy theory garners no support. Practical implications of the findings are discussed