How should american students understand their civic culture? the continuing battle over the 2002 Massachusetts history and social science curriculum framework

I write as the former administrator in the Massachusetts Department of Education who was responsible for the development of the 2002 Massachusetts History and Social Science Curriculum Framework. This essay is a slightly revised version of written testimony invited by Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, Chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, United States Senate, for a hearing titled “What Is Your Child Reading in School? How Standards and Textbooks Influence Education.” The hearing was held at the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 430, Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, September 24, 2003. The oral testimony is available on a transcription of the hearing, and the full written version of my testimony has been entered into the public record. The hearing was an exploratory one, possibly the first of many others on this topic, and unconnected at the moment to any proposed legislation

The anti-civic effects of popular culture on American teenagers

Civic participation and civic awareness is essential to the maintenance of American democracy. Strong civic communities serve to promote prosperity, ensure the resolution of collective problems, and act as a check upon the power of the state. But in 2002, there is little doubt that, across a wide range of indicators, America’s civic culture is in decline. Voting rates have fallen rapidly over the past several decades, and so too has trust in government. Equally troubling Ec002 Massachusetts Department of Education [email protected] Massachusetts Department of Education Massachusetts Department of Education Massachusetts Department of Education [email protected] Anders Lewis Jennifer Butler Melanie Winklosky Sandra Stotsky ESE Nº002 2002 is the disconcerting dearth of civic knowledge among American youths and the drop in participation, among all Americans, in numerous civic organizations, from church-affiliated groups to voluntary and fraternal organizations as well as women’s auxiliaries and unions. There are many causes for these trends. This paper examines how popular culture affects civic participation and civic awareness among a group of particularly active teenagers in Massachusetts. We found that popular culture has a generally negative influence on civic life but that its effects are not one-sided and that it can be mitigated by strong families and quality schools committed to an academic and civic education

Measuring the capability to raise revenue process and output dimensions and their application to the Zambia revenue authority

The worldwide diffusion of the good governance agenda and new public management has triggered a renewed focus on state capability and, more specifically, on the capability to raise revenue in developing countries. However, the analytical tools for a comprehensive understanding of the capability to raise revenue remain underdeveloped. This article aims at filling this gap and presents a model consisting of the three process dimensions ‘information collection and processing’, ‘merit orientation’ and ‘administrative accountability’. ‘Revenue performance’ constitutes the fourth capability dimension which assesses tax administration’s output. This model is applied to the case of the Zambia Revenue Authority. The dimensions prove to be valuable not only for assessing the how much but also the how of collecting taxes. They can be a useful tool for future comparative analyses of tax administrations’ capabilities in developing countries.Die weltweite Verbreitung der Good-Governance- und New-Public-Management-Konzepte hat zu einer zunehmenden Konzentration auf staatliche Leistungsfähigkeit und, im Besonderen, auf die Leistungsfähigkeit der Steuererhebung in Entwicklungsländern geführt. Allerdings bleiben die analytischen Werkzeuge für ein umfassendes Verständnis von Leistungsfähigkeit unterentwickelt. Dieser Artikel stellt hierfür ein Modell vor, das die drei Prozess-Dimensionen „Sammeln und Verarbeiten von Informationen“, „Leistungsorientierung der Mitarbeiter“ und „Verantwortlichkeit der Verwaltung“ beinhaltet. „Einnahmeperformanz“ ist die vierte Dimension und erfasst den Output der Steuerverwaltung. Das mehrdimensionale Modell wird für die Analyse der Leistungsfähigkeit der Steuerbehörde Zambias (Zambia Revenue Authority) genutzt. Es erweist sich nicht nur für die Untersuchung des Wieviel, sondern auch des Wie des Erhebens von Steuern als wertvoll. Die vier Dimensionen können in Zukunft zur umfassenden und vergleichenden Analyse der Leistungsfähigkeit verschiedener Steuerverwaltungen in Entwicklungsländern genutzt werden

ОСТАНОВКА КРОВООБРАЩЕНИЯ С УСПЕШНОЙ РЕАНИМАЦИЕЙ И ПРОФИЛАКТИКОЙ РЕЦИДИВА У БОЛЬНОГО С СИНДРОМОМ БРУГАДА (КЛИНИЧЕСКОЕ НАБЛЮДЕНИЕ)

We report the clinical case and data on the delayed annualmonitoring of a patient with the Brugada syndrome, complicated with the clinical deathПриводится клиническое наблюдение и данные отсроченного годичного контроля пациента с синдромом Бругада, осложненным клинической смертью

Integrating Time in Public Policy: Empirical Description of Gender-Specific Outcomes and Budgeting

Incorporating time in public policymaking is an elusive area of research. Despite the fact that gender budgeting is emerging as a significant tool to analyze the socioeconomic impacts of fiscal policies and thus identify their impacts on gender equity, the integration of time-use statistics in this process remains incomplete, or is even entirely absent, in most countries. If gender budgeting is predominantly based on the index-based empirical description of gender-specific outcomes, a reexamination of the construction of the gender (inequality) index is needed. This is necessary if we are to avoid an incomplete description of the gender-specific outcomes in budget policymaking. Further, "hard-to-price" services are hardly analyzed in public policymaking. This issue is all the more revealing, as the available gender-inequality index - based on health, empowerment, and labor market participation - so far has not integrated time-use statistics in its calculations. From a public finance perspective, the gender budgeting process often rests on the assumption that mainstream expenditures, such as public infrastructure, are nonrival in nature, and that applying a gender lens to these expenditures is not feasible. This argument is refuted by time budget statistics. The time budget data reveal that this argument is often flawed, as there is an intrinsic gender dimension to nonrival expenditures

Does Private Islamic Schooling Promote Terrorism? An Analysis of the Educational Background of Successful American Homegrown Terrorists

Some commentators argue that private religious schools are less likely to inculcate the attributes of good citizenship than traditional public schools, specifically proposing that private Islamic schools are relatively more likely to produce individuals sympathetic to terrorism. This study offers a preliminary examination of the question by studying the educational backgrounds of Western educated terrorists. While data are limited, in accord with prior work findings indicate the vast majority of both Islamic and reactionary terrorists attended traditional public schools and had no religious education; hence findings suggest that early religious training and identification may actually encourage prosocial behavior

Gender-Responsive Budgeting as Fiscal Innovation: Evidence from India on 'Processes'

Gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) is a fiscal innovation. Innovation, for the purposes of this paper, is defined as a way of transforming a new concept into tangible processes, resources, and institutional mechanisms in which a benefit meets identified problems. GRB is a fiscal innovation in that it translates gender commitments into fiscal commitments by applying a "gender lens" to the identified processes, resources, and institutional mechanisms, and arrives at a desirable benefit incidence. The theoretical treatment of gender budgeting as a fiscal innovation is not incorporated, as the focus of this paper is broadly on the processes involved. GRB as an innovation has four specific components: knowledge processes and networking, institutional mechanisms, learning processes and building capacities, and public accountability and benefit incidence. The paper analyzes these four components of GRB in the context of India. The National Institute of Public Finance and Policy has been the pioneer of gender budgeting in India, and also played a significant role in institutionalizing gender budgeting within the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, in 2005. The Expert Committee Group on "Classification of Budgetary Transactions" makes recommendations on gender budgeting - Ashok Lahiri Committee recommendations - that will become part of the institutionalization process, integrating the analytical matrices of fiscal data through a gender lens and also the institutional innovations for GRB. Revisiting the 2004 Lahiri recommendations and revamping the process of GRB in India is inevitable, at both ex ante and ex post levels