"How America Disguises its Violence: Colonialism, Mass Incarceration, and the Need for Resistant Imagination"

This paper examines how a delusive social imaginary of criminal-justice has underpinned contemporary U.S. mass incarceration and encouraged widespread indifference to its violence. I trace the complicity of this criminal-justice imaginary with state-organized violence by comparing it to an imaginary that supported colonial violence. I conclude by discussing how those of us outside of prison can begin to resist the entrenched images and institutions of mass incarceration by engaging the work and imagining the perspective of incarcerated people

The Garden of the Heart: HeartMath - The New Biotechnology for Treating Children with ADD/ADHD and Arrhythmia

This article gives a practitioner's account of her success using HeartMath's techniques and emWave(R) PC heart rhythm coherence feedback system in treating children with AD/HD. Dr. St. Martin's report describes how she helped nearly 400 children eliminate their need for medication using the emWave(R) PC and HeartMath tools

Macroeconomics and Growth Policies

This United Nations Policy Note on Macroeconomics and Growth provides practical guidance on how to operationalize alternative equitable and employment-generating macroeconomics and growth policies in National Development Strategies. This Policy Note has been developed in cooperation with UN agencies, and has been officially reviewed by distinguished academics/ development specialists such as Jose Antonio Ocampo, Jomo K.S. and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz.macroeconomics, growth, development planning

UP FROM SIN: A PORTFOLIO APPROACH TO FINANCIAL SALVATION

In this paper, we develop a proposal with the potential to greatly improve the ability of developing countries to reduce their exposure to other countries´ interest rate and exchange rate volatility and to lower their cost of raising capital abroad. The key to achieving these goals is for developing countries to borrow in their own currencies and for investors to lend by creating portfolios of local-currency government debt securities that employ the risk management technique of diversification to generate a return-to-risk that competes favourably with other major capital market security indices. We show, based on data from the early 1990s, that a portfolio of emerging market local currency debt can generate rates of return relative to risk that compete with those of major securities indices in international capital markets. It bears noting that the early 1990s witnessed several severe shocks to international capital markets, including the crises in East Asia, the Russian Federation and Brazil, and the failure of Long-Term Capital Management. We also analyse the implications of deploying such a policy for attracting capital to developing countries, the impact on the stability of their financial systems and on their costs of borrowing, and the implications for future development of local capital markets.

Improving Early Literacy in PreK-3: Lessons Learned

In 2011, The McKnight Foundation partnered with a set of districts and schools in the Twin Cities area, all serving high-needs students, on a PreK–3 literacy initiative. The Pathway Schools Initiative aims to dramatically increase the number of students who reach the critical milestone of third-grade reading proficiency, an indicator predictive of later academic outcomes and high school graduation. This report focuses on findings from Phase I of the Pathway Schools Initiative (2011–2015).The McKnight Foundation selected the Urban Education Institute (UEI) at the University of Chicago to serve as the initiative's intermediary. UEI was tasked with providing the intellectual, conceptual, and managerial leadership for the initiative as well as professional development and technical assistance focused on literacy and leadership to the Pathway districts and schools. UEI anchored this support on two, validated diagnostic tools developed at the University of Chicago: the Strategic Teaching and Evaluation of Progress (STEP) developmental literacy assessment and the 5Essentials Survey.Participating Pathway schools and districts carried out the day-to-day work of the initiative. They used grant funds to expand or refine their PreK programs; hire additional staff such as program managers, literacy coaches, classroom aides, and family engagement liaisons; and purchase high-quality instructional materials, such as classroom libraries or tablets.An advisory group, the Education and Learning National Advisory Committee (ELNAC), was established in 2010 to help inform decisions about the initiative. SRI International has served as the initiative's evaluator since 2010

Writing about accessibility

In this forum we celebrate research that helps to successfully bring the benefits of computing technologies to children, older adults, people with disabilities, and other populations that are often ignored in the design of mass-marketed products. --- Juan Pablo Hourcade, Editor </jats:p