The Poverty Gap in School Spending Following the Introduction of Title I

Title I of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act explicitly directed more federal aid for K-12 education to poorer areas for the first time in US history, with a goal of promoting regional convergence in school spending. Using newly collected data, we find some evidence that Title I narrowed the gap in per-pupil school spending between richer and poorer states in the short- to medium-run. However, the program was small relative to then-existing poverty gaps in school spending; even in the absence of crowd-out by local or state governments, the program could have reduced the gap by only 15 percent

Local Responses to Federal Grants: Evidence from the Introduction of Title I in the South

We analyze the effects of the introduction of Title I of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a large federal grants program designed to increase poor students\u27 educational services and achievement. We focus on the South, the poorest region of the country. Title I increased school spending by $0.50 on the dollar in the average southern school district and by more in districts with less ability to offset grants through local tax reductions. Title I-induced increases in school budgets appear to have reduced high school dropout rates of whites, but not blacks

Federal Aid and Equality of Educational Opportunity: Evidence from the Introduction of Title I in the South

Title I of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act substantially increased federal aid for education, with the goal of expanding educational opportunity. Combining the timing of the program’s introduction with variation in its intensity, we find that Title I increased school spending by 46 cents on the dollar in the average school district in the South and increased spending nearly dollar-for-dollar in Southern districts with little scope for local offset. Based on this differential fiscal response, we find that increases in school budgets from Title I decreased high school dropout rates for whites, but not blacks.

AGL StimSelect: Software for automated selection of stimuli for artificial grammar learning

Artificial Grammar Learning (AGL) is an experimental paradigm that has been used extensively in cognitive research for many years to study implicit learning, associative learning, and generalization based either on similarity or rules. Without computer assistance it is virtually impossible to generate appropriate grammatical training stimuli along with grammatical or non-grammatical test stimuli that control relevant psychological variables. We present the first flexible, fully automated software for selecting AGL stimuli. The software allows users to specify a grammar of interest, and to manipulate characteristics of training and test sequences, and their relationship to each other. The user thus has direct control over stimulus features that may influence learning and generalization in AGL tasks. The software enables researchers to develop AGL designs that would not be feasible without automatic stimulus selection. It is implemented in Matlab

On the Importance of Countergradients for the Development of Retinotopy: Insights from a Generalised Gierer Model

During the development of the topographic map from vertebrate retina to superior colliculus (SC), EphA receptors are expressed in a gradient along the nasotemporal retinal axis. Their ligands, ephrin-As, are expressed in a gradient along the rostrocaudal axis of the SC. Countergradients of ephrin-As in the retina and EphAs in the SC are also expressed. Disruption of any of these gradients leads to mapping errors. Gierer's (1981) model, which uses well-matched pairs of gradients and countergradients to establish the mapping, can account for the formation of wild type maps, but not the double maps found in EphA knock-in experiments. I show that these maps can be explained by models, such as Gierer's (1983), which have gradients and no countergradients, together with a powerful compensatory mechanism that helps to distribute connections evenly over the target region. However, this type of model cannot explain mapping errors found when the countergradients are knocked out partially. I examine the relative importance of countergradients as against compensatory mechanisms by generalising Gierer's (1983) model so that the strength of compensation is adjustable. Either matching gradients and countergradients alone or poorly matching gradients and countergradients together with a strong compensatory mechanism are sufficient to establish an ordered mapping. With a weaker compensatory mechanism, gradients without countergradients lead to a poorer map, but the addition of countergradients improves the mapping. This model produces the double maps in simulated EphA knock-in experiments and a map consistent with the Math5 knock-out phenotype. Simulations of a set of phenotypes from the literature substantiate the finding that countergradients and compensation can be traded off against each other to give similar maps. I conclude that a successful model of retinotopy should contain countergradients and some form of compensation mechanism, but not in the strong form put forward by Gierer

Directed flow of antiprotons in Au+Au collisions at AGS

Directed flow of antiprotons is studied in Au+Au collisions at a beam momentum of 11.5A GeV/c. It is shown that antiproton directed flow is anti-correlated to proton flow. The measured transverse momentum dependence of the antiproton flow is compared with predictions of the RQMD event generator.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figure

Proton and Pion Production in Au+Au Collisions at 10.8A GeV/c

We present proton and pion tranverse momentum spectra and rapidity distributions for Au+Au collisions at 10.8A GeV/c. The proton spectra exhibit collective transverse flow effects. Evidence of the influence of the Coulomb interaction from the fireball is found in the pion transverse momentum spectra. The data are compared with the predictions of the RQMD event generator.Comment: plain tex (revtex), 24 pages Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Cracks in the Melting Pot: Immigration, School Choice, and Segregation *

Abstract This paper examines whether the large wave of Mexican immigration to the United States since 1970 has lowered non-Hispanic demand for public education. Our analysis focuses on California, where many of these immigrants settled, accounts for endogeneity of immigrant inflows using established settlement patterns, and uses relative outflows of children from a district to identify shifts in district choice working through schools. We find that between 1970 and 2000, the average metropolitan school district in California lost at least 12 non-Hispanic children to other school districts and two to private school within district for every ten additional low-English Hispanic arrivals in its public schools. These responses are similar in magnitude to "white flight" from school districts court-ordered to desegregate in the 1960s and 1970s