Educating in the Spirit: An Examination of the Person and Role of the Holy Spirit in Christian School Education (Part Two)

This study is the second of a two-part article that examines the Person and role of the Holy Spirit in Christian school education. Part One (ICCTE Journal, 10(1)) was an extensive literature review of the Person and role of the Holy Spirit from the two perspectives. Part Two is a cross-case study of two principals who led schools representing each perspective. The rationale for this study is that since Christian schools submit to the authority of the Bible, and Scripture recognizes the preeminence of the Holy Spirit, these schools would seek to comply with these biblical prescriptions. The employment of semi-structured interviewing in a qualitative, cross-case research design suited the study. We sought to encapsulate the in-depth experience of two principals, one from a Reformed and the other from a Pentecostal/Charismatic Christian school. Through a within-case analysis of each interview, important themes were identified. In the subsequent cross-case comparative analysis, the most important themes included the transmission of truth, staff matters, and goals for learners. Additional discussion raised separately by only one of the principals addresses the themes of compliance with authority and relationship with the Spirit

The vicious cycle: fundraising and perceived visibility in US presidential primaries

Scholars of presidential primaries have long posited a dynamic positive feedback loop between fundraising and electoral success. Yet existing work on both directions of this feedback remains inconclusive and is often explicitly cross-sectional, ignoring the dynamic aspect of the hypothesis. Pairing high-frequency FEC data on contributions and expenditures with Iowa Electronic Markets data on perceived probability of victory, we examine the bidirectional feedback between contributions and viability. We find robust, significant positive feedback in both directions. This might suggest multiple equilibria: a candidate initially anointed as the front-runner able to sustain such status solely by the fundraising advantage conferred despite possessing no advantage in quality. However, simulations suggest the feedback loop cannot, by itself, sustain advantage. Given the observed durability of front-runners, it would thus seem there is either some other feedback at work and/or the process by which the initial front-runner is identified is informative of candidate quality

A Zebrafish Model of Mycobacterium leprae Granulomatous Infection.

Understanding the pathogenesis of leprosy granulomas has been hindered by a paucity of tractable experimental animal models. Mycobacterium leprae, which causes leprosy, grows optimally at approximately 30°C, so we sought to model granulomatous disease in the ectothermic zebrafish. We found that noncaseating granulomas develop rapidly and eventually eradicate infection. rag1 mutant zebrafish, which lack lymphocytes, also form noncaseating granulomas with similar kinetics, but these control infection more slowly. Our findings establish the zebrafish as a facile, genetically tractable model for leprosy and reveal the interplay between innate and adaptive immune determinants mediating leprosy granuloma formation and function

The Nonequivalence of High School Equivalents

This paper analyzes the causes and consequences of the growing proportion of high-school-certified persons who achieve that status by exam certification rather than through high school graduation. Exam-certified high school equivalents are statistically indistinguishable from high school dropouts. Both dropouts and exam-certified equivalents have comparably poor wages, earnings, hours of work, unemployment experiences and job tenure. This is so whether or not ability measures are used to control for differences. Whatever differences are found among exam-certified equivalents, high school dropouts and high school graduates are accounted for by their years of schooling completed. There is no cheap substitute for schooling. The only payoff to exam certification arises from its value in opening post-secondary schooling and training opportunities. However, exam-certified equivalents receive lower returns to most forms of post-secondary education and training. We also discuss the political economy of the recent rapid growth of exam certification. There has been growth in direct government subsidies to adult basic education programs that feature exam certification as an output. In addition, there has been growth in government subsidies to post-secondary schooling programs that require certification in order to qualify for benefits. These sources account for the rapid growth in the use of exam certification in the face of the low economic returns to it.

The Dynamics of Educational Attainment for Blacks, Hispanics, and Whites

This paper estimates a dynamic model of schooling attainment to investigate the sources of discrepancy by race and ethnicity in college attendance. When the returns to college education rose, college enrollment of whites responded much more quickly than that of minorities. Parental income is a strong predictor of this response. However, using NLSY data, we find that it is the long-run factors associated with parental background and income and not short-term credit constraints facing college students that account for the differential response by race and ethnicity to the new labor market for skilled labor. Policies aimed at improving these long-term factors are far more likely to be successful in eliminating college attendance differentials than are short-term tuition reduction policies.

Living in the real world: The nuclear posture review

“We live in a real world, not a virtual world” was Nicolas Sarkozy’s veiled riposte to Barack Obama’s vision of a globe free from nuclear weapons, articulated in his Prague speech of April 2009. Some commentators on the right are echoing this criticism in response to the administration’s declaration in its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), “that the United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations.” This would pertain even if the US came under biological or chemical attack

Making Photographs Speak

It has often been said that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Making that picture spit out those mythical thousand words, as we can all attest, is no easy task. Over the course of the first half of the fall semester, the three of us were tasked with developing brief interpretive captions for two Civil War photographs each, with the end goal to display our work at the Civil War Institute’s 2019 Summer Conference. What initially appeared as a simple project quickly revealed itself to be a difficult, yet rewarding, challenge that taught us all important lessons concerning history, photography, and writing that we will not soon forget. Producing the photography exhibit enhanced our skills as historical writers, introduced us to the challenge of writing for a popular audience, and deepened our understanding of Civil War photography. [excerpt

U.S. East Coast Trough Indices at 500 hPa and New England Winter Climate Variability

Using monthly gridded 500-hPa data, two synoptic indices are defined to better understand the principle mechanisms controlling intraseasonal to multiannual winter climate variability in NewEngland (NE). The “trough axis index” (TAI) is created to quantify the mean longitudinal position of the common East Coast pressure trough, and the “trough intensity index” (TII) is calculated to estimate the relative amplitude of this trough at 42.5°N. The TAI and TII are then compared with records for NE regional winter precipitation, temperature, and snowfall with the goal of understanding physical mechanisms linking NE winter climate with regional sea surface temperatures (SST), the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), and the Pacific–North American (PNA) teleconnection pattern. The TAI correlates most significantly with winter precipitation at inland sites, such that a western (eastern)trough axis position is associated with greater (lower) average monthly precipitation. Also, significant correlations between the TAI and both NE regional SSTs and the NAO suggest that longitudinal shifting of the trough is one possible mechanism linking the North Atlantic with NE regional winterclimate variability. The NE winter temperature is significantly correlated with the TII, regional SSTs, and the NAO. While the PNA also correlates with the TII, NE winter climate variables are apparently unrelated to the PNA index