Tinkering Toward Accolades: School Gaming Under a Performance Accountability System

We explore the extent to which schools manipulate the composition of students in the test-taking pool in order to maximize ratings under Texas' accountability system in the 1990s. We first derive predictions from a static model of administrators' incentives given the structure of the ratings criteria, and then test these predictions by comparing differential changes in exemption rates across student subgroups within campuses and across campuses and regimes. Our analyses uncover evidence of a moderate degree of strategic behavior, so that there is some tension between designing systems that account for heterogeneity in student populations and that are manipulation-free.

Feathers to Flesh

I drive down the dirt road to my mother’s house. The potholes have gotten deeper and more aggressive in welcoming me home. The house looks more or less the same, except the front door has been painted red. I leave my camera in the car, I don’t want to give away my reasons for being here. Twitching legs while we slept, legs that didn’t take up space. Snores and mumbles. Maroon uniforms; crests and collars not quite white. I stand in the front doorway, hesitant to pass the threshold. They amble about the kitchen, nonchalant and confident in faded swim team tee-shirts from middle school. They have refined their movement, limbs no longer a nuisance. Their faces have shifted; longer noses and thinner cheeks. Their expressions too, the perfected nuances of the glare. I am reminded of the changes that happen while we sleep. We wake up with growing pains, our muscles are stretched tight and we walk out of our bedrooms taller. Our mother fights with the pastor; I am horrified and humiliated. That will be the last time we attend bible study. Our youngest admits that she prays in secret. Unsure, whether to believe or whether she’s allowed to believe. The sun shifts positions and through the window, light lands perfectly on the hairs of her arm; an image. I pull the lens board upward and click the shutter wide open. Moving underneath the dark cloth, the edges pulled tight around my chin. Camouflaged behind the camera, I am allowed to stare She collects dead birds to paint. They lay around the house, blue feathers turn grey, and paintings of flower bouquets hang on the walls instead. Focus falls on the hands; the fingers wear rings now and the nails that are no longer left bitten and bleeding. The focus moves upward; the nose has begun to sculpt an arch that is all too familiar. Darker eyebrows, and plucked too. I stare at the innermost corner of her eye, breath held, willing the focus to cooperate. If they’re good subjects, or if you’re a comforting photographer; they will allow you to look. These days, the birds collected on the mantle frighten me less. I understand the fascination with being allowed to stare. Without binoculars, without tiptoeing around the yard , without holding your breath as to not scare the bluebird off the branch; my mother immortalizes the bird on the mantle, and in doing so asks us to look

Fiscal Spillovers between Local Governments: Keeping up with the Joneses' School District

Although there is a large theoretical literature concerning tax and expenditure competition between local governments, there is relatively little empirical evidence concerning whether such competition actually occurs. In the context of U.S. public school districts, the fiscal behavior of one district could affect the revenue decisions of other, nearby districts. Using financial and geographic data for every school district in the U.S. from 1972 to 2002, this paper estimates the magnitude of fiscal spillovers between districts. The results confirm that districts' revenues are influenced by exogenous shocks in their neighbors' revenues, especially for districts that are already outspending their neighbors. A one dollar increase in the mean revenues per pupil of nearby districts leads to about a 20-cent increase in a district's own revenues per pupil. These results have important implications for the optimal design of school finance programs

High-risk Sexual Behavior is Associated with Post-Exposure Prophylaxis Non-adherence among Men who have Sex with Men Enrolled in a Combination Prevention Intervention.

Methamphetamine use among men who have sex with men (MSM) is associated with increased HIV prevalence, due to increased engagement in high-risk sexual behavior. Fifty-three HIV-negative, methamphetamine-using MSM were enrolled in a biobehavioral combination prevention intervention in Los Angeles, CA, to assess the feasibility of administering postexposure prophylaxis (PEP) in combination with contingency management (CM) to prevent HIV seroconversion. The study combined a CM behavioral intervention targeting reductions in methamphetamine use with a PEP biomedical intervention for HIV prevention. Those who reported recent exposure to HIV were initiated on tenofovir/emtricitabine- (Truvada)-based PEP (n=35). This secondary analysis sought to determine whether recent and/or lifetime sexual risk taking was associated with PEP adherence. Regression analyses controlling for participant sociodemographics demonstrated that, at baseline, increased number of lifetime sexually transmitted diseases (STDs; Coef.=-0.07; 95% CI=(-0.12) - (-0.01)) and recent episodes of unprotected anal intercourse (UAI; Coef.=-0.01; 95% CI= (-.01) - (-0.002)) were each associated with reductions in medication adherence. Given these associations between baseline sexual risk and PEP adherence, providers working with high-risk MSM may look to target reductions in sexual risk taking; this will reduce direct risk of HIV infection and may work to optimize medication adherence in the case of PEP initiation. Clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT00856323

Addressing the Barriers to Bicycling: A Bike Access Program in Lewiston and Auburn, ME

Efforts by municipalities and advocacy groups to encourage biking for transportation and recreation has been associated with improvements in emissions reductions, economic development, public health, and social equity (Gardner and Gaegauf 2014, 2013). The aim of this project was to identify barriers to biking in the towns of Lewiston and Auburn. Given this aim, the primary objective was to determine a strategy to overcome these barriers in the form of a bike access program. There are many methods that support biking as a viable form of transportation, including bicycling infrastructure (parking and bike lanes), promotional events, and educational initiatives. The primary focus of our group, however, was to determine the viability of some form of a “bike access” program in Lewiston and Auburn. In order to determine what an equitable bike access program might look like, we sought community feedback from local businesses and residents through interviews and surveys, discussed the project with government officials in both Lewiston and Auburn, consulted operators of other bike access programs in Maine and across the US, and identified some local leaders to champion this program. Such conversations and outreach provided a thorough understanding of the primary barriers to bicycling, the specific locations where people want access to bikes, and the existing bicycling culture of town. Additionally, our conversations with traditional bikeshare operators and other Maine bike access programs helped us gain a better understanding of the costs of these programs, as well as the logistics of implementation and maintenance. Our findings indicated a large interest in bicycling for both recreational and transportation purposes, as well as general interest in a program that would allow for greater access to bikes in the downtown Lewiston and Auburn areas. From an economic and equity standpoint, we found that a traditional ‘bikeshare’ program would be too costly and too much of an infrastructural investment. Rather, our outreach and research lead us to conclude that a ‘bike library’ or other type of public bike access program would be more effective at promoting ridership. A bike access program also serves as a proof of concept. If such a program is successful for a pilot period, perhaps it will generate support for a more comprehensive bikeshare program in the future. For the time being, energy and funding should be concentrated on developing and implementing a bike access program. We recommend developing bike access programs out of the public libraries at both Lewiston and Auburn, in which users can check out a bicycle for free, and in exchange for collateral that they will get back at the end of their rental. While users are free to take the bikes wherever they wish, we also recommend establishing a safe route that leads cyclists on low-stress paths away from car traffic where they are supported with signage and infrastructure. Such a route enables users to freely travel between the two libraries, thereby gaining confidence travelling on a bicycle. Encouraging bicycle transportation on one specific route is likely to result in a a significantly safer bicycling environment due to the phenomenon of “Safety in Numbers” (Jacobsen, 2003). Once this route is established and the program gains some visibility and credibility in the community, there is the possibility that this could extend to other venues. In its initial implementation, though, we suggest starting with just two locations with a protected “safe route”

Jockeying for Position: Strategic High School Choice Under Texas' Top Ten Percent Plan

Beginning in 1998, all students in the state of Texas who graduated in the top ten percent of their high school classes were guaranteed admission to any in-state public higher education institution, including the flagships. While the goal of this policy is to improve college access for disadvantaged and minority students, the use of a school-specific standard to determine eligibility could have unintended consequences. Students may increase their chances of being in the top ten percent by choosing a high school with lower-achieving peers. Our analysis of students’ school transitions between 8th and 10th grade three years before and after the policy change reveals that this incentive influences enrollment choices in the anticipated direction. Among the subset of students with both motive and opportunity for strategic high school choice, as many as 25 percent enroll in a different high school to improve the chances of being in the top ten percent. Strategic students tend to choose the neighborhood high school in lieu of more competitive magnet schools and, regardless of own race, typically displace minority students from the top ten percent pool. The net effect of strategic behavior is to slightly decrease minority students’ representation in the pool.

Under Pressure: Job Security, Resource Allocation, and Productivity in Schools Under NCLB

The most sweeping federal education law in decades, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, requires states to administer standardized exams and to punish schools that do not make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for the fraction of students passing these exams. While the literature on school accountability is well-established, there exists no nationwide study of the strong short-term incentives created by NCLB for schools on the margin of failing AYP. We assemble the first comprehensive, national, school-level dataset concerning detailed performance measures used to calculate AYP, and demonstrate that idiosyncrasies in state policies create numerous cases where schools near the margin for satisfying their own state’s AYP requirements would have almost certainly failed or almost certainly made AYP if they were located in other states. Using this variation as a means of identification, we examine the impact of NCLB on the behavior of school personnel and students’ academic achievement in nationally representative samples. We find that accountability pressure from NCLB lowers teachers’ perceptions of job security and causes untenured teachers in high-stakes grades to work longer hours than their peers. We also find that NCLB pressure has either neutral or positive effects on students’ enjoyment of learning and their achievement gains on low-stakes exams in reading, math, and science.

Development of an Educational Three Dimensional Model to Describe the Masticatory Apparatus of the Phalangeroid Possum: Trichosurus vulpecula

Phalangeroid possums of New Guinea and Australia possess many traits convergent with Malagasy Strepsirrhines. As such, possums provide researchers with an opportunity to shed light on the order of adaptive traits that lead to the appearance of the first primate. Like Strepsirrhines, Phalangeroids are thought to have evolved in geographic isolation. They are well adapted to arboreal life by way of primate like traits such as grasping hands and feet with reduced claws and an opposable first digit on the hind foot, increased orbital convergence for better depth perception and an overall larger brain to body size ratio. While Strepshirrines have been well studied from several scientific perspectives, data on phalangeroids is limited to morpho-ecological observations. A strong case has been made for in-depth study of phalangeroids. A logical place to start is the jaw adductors and dentition as such information provides scientists with an important foundational understanding of a mammals phylogeny, adaptive history, diet and trophic structure. Characterization of mammalian masticatory apparatus, however, requires a thorough understanding of spatial relationships as well as biomechanical traits derived from muscle mass, fiber length, physiological cross-sectional area and location of attachments sites. This is a challenging task when studying a single species and increasingly so when comparing two or more taxa. Unfortunately, the tools most commonly employed to document the three-dimensional nature of chewing muscles are limited to two-dimensional outputs such as text, quantitative data displays, black and white line drawings and photography. To make matters worse, the efficacy of such tools is compromised by poor quality of execution. This study aims to improve the ability of the scientist to draw meaningful comparisons between two taxa, Malagasy Strepsirrhines and phalangeroid possums, by introducing a refined set of visual communication tools including traditional flat illustration, as well as a three dimensional reconstruction driven by volumetric data acquired from dissection of a single representative species of phalangeroid, Trichosurus vulpecula. It is our hope that the contribution of these resources to the scientific community will help further the academic discussion regarding the order of adaptation that defined the first primate

Hidrocarbonetos nos manguezais do complexo estuarino de Paranaguá

Orientador: Prof. Dr. César de Castro MartinsTese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal do Paraná, Centro de Estudos do Mar, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Sistemas Costeiros e Oceânicos. Defesa : Pontal do Paraná, 28/05/2019Inclui referênciasResumo: Hidrocarbonetos são compostos orgânicos formados por cadeias de átomos de carbono e hidrogênio. Estão amplamente distribuídos nos ambientes costeiros e marinhos, apresentando diferentes classes com propriedades e origens diversas (tanto antrópicas quanto naturais). O presente trabalho realizou, pela primeira vez, a caracterização e a quantificação dos hidrocarbonetos (n-alcanos, hidrocarbonetos policíclicos aromáticos (HPAs) e biomarcadores de petróleo) nos ambientes de manguezal do Complexo Estuarino de Paranaguá (CEP). O estudo foi dividido em três capítulos, em formato de artigos. O primeiro artigo buscou verificar a distribuição dos hidrocarbonetos em dois transectos (um em uma área impactada e o outro em uma área de controle), dispostos ao longo do gradiente de zonação manguezal-marismaplanície não vegetada. As zonas mais elevadas, com menor tempo de imersão (marismas e manguezais) se mostraram mais propícias para acúmulo de hidrocarbonetos. Os n-alcanos revelaram a predominância de aportes naturais, porém HPAs e biomarcadores de petróleo (atribuídos a aportes crônicos de petróleo e derivados, provenientes principalmente das atividades de navegação) indicaram sinais de contaminação. O somatório de n-alcanos variou entre 0,640 e 11,930 ?g g- 1(n-C12 a n-C39); o somatório de 16 HPAs entre 1,28 e 78,60 ng g-1; os hopanos totais entre 3,69 e 282,30 ng g-1 (19 compostos); os terpanos totais entre 1 em relação aos compostos biogênicos. As Baías de Antonina e de Guaraqueçaba foram áreas preferenciais de acumulação dos terpanos e hopanos naturais. Analogamente, essas regiões internas do CEP podem ser apontadas como locais de alta vulnerabilidade para contaminação por compostos hidrofóbicos e possuem baixo potencial de remobilização/recuperação. O terceiro artigo estudou a distribuição espacial dos HPAs nos sedimentos superficiais do CEP. O somatório dos 16 HPAs variou entre 1, in relation to the biogenic compounds. Antonina and Guaraqueçaba Bays were preferential areas for the accumulation of natural terpanes and hopanes. These inner, sheltered areas of PEC can be identified as highly vulnerable sites for contamination with hydrophobic compounds having low remobilization/recovery potential. The third paper presents the spatial distribution of PAHs in the superficial sediments of PEC. The sum of 16 PAHs ranged from < LD to 234,3 ng g-1. The highest concentration was located in Encantadas Bay (Mel Island), followed by sites located at Paranaguá and Antonina Bays and Gamela Village (Laranjeiras Bay). In general terms, the anthropic impact by hydrocarbons in the PEC mangroves can be considered low but signs of impact were observed in Antonina and Paranaguá Bays and around Mel Island. The East-West axis of the PEC showed evidence of chronic hydrocarbon inputs from urban occupations and port activities. The North-South axis showed low evidence of anthropogenic hydrocarbon inputs but increased levels of PAHs were identified in one site (Gamela Village). Such conditions are relevant for impact studies and must be considered for the assessment of impacts of new ventures in the area. Keywords: Hydrocarbons. South Atlantic. PAHs. Hopanes. Terpane

Evaluating the provision of school performance information for school choice

We develop and implement a framework for determining the optimal performance metrics to help parents choose a school. This approach combines the three major critiques of the usefulness of performance tables into a natural metric. We implement this for 500,000 students in England for a range of performance measures. Using performance tables is strongly better than choosing at random: a child who attends the highest ex ante performing school within their choice set will ex post do better than the average outcome in their choice set twice as often as they will do worse