Special Education Financing in California: A Decade After Reform

Examines special education funding sources and processes at federal, state, and local levels in 2006-07 and the impact of a 1997 reform bill. Recommends equalizing funding rates across districts, with adjustments for poverty and labor market conditions

Resolving Special Education Disputes in California

Examines the use of mediation and due process hearings in resolving disputes between parents and school districts over identifying disabilities and designing individualized programs. Analyzes trends in and predictors of higher rates of hearing requests

Students With Disabilities and California's Special Education Program

Provides an overview of the state's special education programs, including eligibility, enrollment, student performance, time spent outside regular classrooms, spending, and financing, compared to national trends. Considers policy implications

Crossing boundaries: women's gossip, insults and violence in sixteenth-century France

Using evidence from cases recorded in the registers of the consistories of southern France, the author investigates the way in which Languedocian women policed each other's behaviour, enforcing a collective morality through gossip, sexual insult and physical confrontation. In contrast to case studies by other historians, it is argued here that gossip does appear to have been a peculiarly female activity, but far more than simply being an outlet for malice or prurience, it gave women a distinctive social role in the town. No less evident is the involvement of women in physical violence both against each other and against men, violence which, though less extreme than its male counterpart, nonetheless occupies a significant role in the proceedings of the consistories

[Review of] Charles V. Willie and Ronald R. Edmonds (Eds.). Black Colleges in America: Challenge, Development, Survival

This book is a collection of articles from the Black College Conference held at Harvard University in March and April of 1976. The authors are experienced administrators, teachers, and students of our nation\u27s black colleges and universities. This book attempts, through firsthand recording, through documentation of historical fact, and through analysis of governance, financing, and institutional role, to eradicate the negative images of our nation\u27s black colleges and universities

Changing the Kindergarten Cutoff Date: Effects on California Students and Schools

Summarizes a review of research on how raising the kindergarten entry age affects elementary- and middle-school test scores; achievement gaps between subgroups; grade retention, high school graduation, and college enrollment rates; and wages as adults

Early Grade Retention and Student Success: Evidence From Los Angeles

Analyzes risk factors of retention through third grade in the L.A. Unified School District, including age, gender, race/ethnicity, family income, and English learner status; retention's effectiveness in improving grade-level skills; and educators' views

Disabled or Young? Relative Age and Special Education Diagnoses in Schools

This study extends recent findings of a relationship between the relative age of students among their peers and their probability of disability classification. Using three nationally representative surveys spanning 1988-2004 and grades K-10, we find that an additional month of relative age decreases the likelihood of receiving special education services by 2-5 percent. Relative age effects are strong for learning disabilities but not for other disabilities. We measure them for boys starting in kindergarten but not for girls until 3rd grade. We also measure them for white and Hispanic students but not for black students or differentially by socioeconomic quartiles. Results are consistent with the interpretation that disability assessments do not screen for the possibility that relatively young students are over-referred for evaluation. Lastly, we present suggestive evidence that math achievement gains due to disability classification may differentially benefit relatively young students.Education, Relative Age, Special Education