4,986 research outputs found
Parent and Student Voices on the First Year of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program
In the 50 years since economist Milton Friedman published “The Role of Government in Education” scholars and policy makers have been debating how parental choice through market mechanisms can and does operate in education. Market “optimists” argue that education is a service that can be produced under a variety of arrangements and that parents are natural education consumers. Market “pessimists” argue that education is a public good that should be produced in government-run schools, and that school choice programs suffer “market failure” because only advantaged families will have the resources and experience to choose effectively
Family Reflections on the District of Columbia Opportunity Scholarship Program: Final Summary Report
During the spring of 2004, the first federally funded voucher program – the District of Columbia Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) - was established. The School Choice Demonstration Project (SCDP) recognized that publicly-funded school vouchers represent a relatively new and unstudied approach to school choice and education reform. To address this need, the SCDP requested and received funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation to capture the “Parent and Student Voices on the OSP.” A total of 110 families, representing 180 students, that applied during the first two years of the Program volunteered to participate in this study. As the last installment in a four-part annual series that began in 2005, this report summarizes key findings from the previous reports and provides a general overview of the respondents’ “reflections” upon their three or four years in the Program. Using a phenomenological approach, which includes focus groups, personal interviews and keypad polling information gathering techniques, participants were given multiple opportunities to share or describe their experiences. A consumer framework was often used to contextualize the families’ experiences. Their insights continue to shape the scope and direction of the OSP, and they will help inform other efforts to provide low income families with access to quality school options
Parent and Student Experiences with Choice in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Scholars, advocates of various positions, and policymakers have fiercely debated whether the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP), also known as the voucher or “Choice” program, has been a godsend or a scourge for the city’s children. Wisconsin policymakers, concerned about that question, identified the School Choice Demonstration Project (SCDP) as the organization to help provide the answers.1 The SCDP is a national research organization, based in the University of Arkansas’s Department of Education Reform, dedicated to the comprehensive, objective, and nonpartisan evaluation of school choice programs. We are drawn together for this project by the opportunity to examine what effects the mature MPCP is having on the students, parents, taxpayers, schools, and communities of the city and state. Our shared commitment is to carefully and faithfully follow the evidence, wherever it may lead
The Evolution of School Choice Consumers: Parent and Student Voices on the Second Year of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program
In the 50 years since economist Milton Friedman published The Role of Government in Education 1 scholars and policy makers have been debating how parental choice through market mechanisms can and does operate in education. Market optimists argue that education is a service that can be produced under a variety of arrangements and that parents are natural education consumers.2 Market pessimists argue that education is a public good that should be produced in government-run schools, and that school choice programs suffer market failure because only advantaged families will have the resources and experience to choose effectively.3 These academic debates continue to this day
A preliminary investigation of the use of throttles for emergency flight control
A preliminary investigation was conducted regarding the use of throttles for emergency flight control of a multiengine aircraft. Several airplanes including a light twin-engine piston-powered airplane, jet transports, and a high performance fighter were studied during flight and piloted simulations. Simulation studies used the B-720, B-727, MD-11, and F-15 aircraft. Flight studies used the Lear 24, Piper PA-30, and F-15 airplanes. Based on simulator and flight results, all the airplanes exhibited some control capability with throttles. With piloted simulators, landings using manual throttles-only control were extremely difficult. An augmented control system was developed that converts conventional pilot stick inputs into appropriate throttle commands. With the augmented system, the B-720 and F-15 simulations were evaluated and could be landed successfully. Flight and simulation data were compared for the F-15 airplane
Significant differences in incubation times in sheep infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy result from variation at codon 141 in the PRNP gene
The susceptibility of sheep to prion infection is linked to variation in the PRNP gene, which
encodes the prion protein. Common polymorphisms occur at codons 136, 154 and 171. Sheep
which are homozygous for the A<sub>136</sub>R<sub>154</sub>Q<sub>171</sub> allele are the most susceptible to bovine spongiform
encephalopathy (BSE). The effect of other polymorphisms on BSE susceptibility is unknown. We
orally infected ARQ/ARQ Cheviot sheep with equal amounts of BSE brain homogenate and a
range of incubation periods was observed. When we segregated sheep according to the amino
acid (L or F) encoded at codon 141 of the PRNP gene, the shortest incubation period was
observed in LL141 sheep, whilst incubation periods in FF<sub>141</sub> and LF<sub>141</sub> sheep were significantly
longer. No statistically significant differences existed in the expression of total prion protein or the
disease-associated isoform in BSE-infected sheep within each genotype subgroup. This
suggested that the amino acid encoded at codon 141 probably affects incubation times through
direct effects on protein misfolding rates
Satisfied, Optimistic, yet Concerned: Parent Voices on the Third Year of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program
On January 23, 2004, President Bush signed the DC School Choice Incentive Act into law. This landmark piece of legislation included 7,500. The scholarships cover the costs of attending nonpublic schools within the District of Columbia that agreed to participate in the Program. In December of 2006, Congress amended the DC School Choice Incentive Act to increase the continuing eligibility requirements from 200 percent of poverty line to 300 percent for families already enrolled in the Program.2 As a pilot program, the OSP is authorized to operate for five years and is being implemented by the Washington Scholarship Fund (WSF)
Wildbook: Crowdsourcing, computer vision, and data science for conservation
Photographs, taken by field scientists, tourists, automated cameras, and
incidental photographers, are the most abundant source of data on wildlife
today. Wildbook is an autonomous computational system that starts from massive
collections of images and, by detecting various species of animals and
identifying individuals, combined with sophisticated data management, turns
them into high resolution information database, enabling scientific inquiry,
conservation, and citizen science.
We have built Wildbooks for whales (flukebook.org), sharks (whaleshark.org),
two species of zebras (Grevy's and plains), and several others. In January
2016, Wildbook enabled the first ever full species (the endangered Grevy's
zebra) census using photographs taken by ordinary citizens in Kenya. The
resulting numbers are now the official species census used by IUCN Red List:
http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/7950/0. In 2016, Wildbook partnered up with
WWF to build Wildbook for Sea Turtles, Internet of Turtles (IoT), as well as
systems for seals and lynx. Most recently, we have demonstrated that we can now
use publicly available social media images to count and track wild animals.
In this paper we present and discuss both the impact and challenges that the
use of crowdsourced images can have on wildlife conservation.Comment: Presented at the Data For Good Exchange 201
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