The Effect of Charter Schools on Districts’ Student Composition, Costs, and Efficiency: The Case of New York State

Charter schools can influence a school district's costs by reducing economies of scale and by changing the share of high cost students a district serves, but might also increase the district's efficiency through competition. Utilizing data for New York State school districts from 1998/99 to 2013/14, we estimate difference-in-differences models to assess the effect of charter schools on enrollment and student composition. Then, we estimate an expenditure function, using data prior to the charter school program, to measure the costs associated with reaching a given performance standard for students in various need categories and different enrollments. Next, using the entire data set, we run a second expenditure function to determine changes in efficiency associated with charter school entry. We find that charter schools increase the cost of providing education, and that these cost increases are larger than short-run efficiency gains, but are offset by efficiency gains in the long term

The long-term effects of childhood neglect or abuse. Implications for child and family services in the UK

Childhood neglect or abuse is damaging, with lifelong impacts on functioning, clinical and physical health. It can also transmit risk to the next generation. Child abuse is related to social deprivation, a source of family breakup, common in families under stress and is associated with other social ills such as domestic violence, and parental mental health problems. It is therefore costly to society financially, emotionally and in terms of family wellbeing. It is increasingly seen as a major public health issue given its wide prevalence. Contemporary issues in the UK concern not only ongoing neglect or abuse of children, but also the impact of historical abuse, a psychological burden to a significant number of adults. Often untreated, and occurring before adequate child protection policies were in place, the impacts of historical abuse is an ongoing concern both for health and social care services. This paper will describe the Childhood Experience of Care and Abuse (CECA) interview research findings and application in child and family services. It enables an accurate assessment of historical abuse, and its scoring system can be used on ongoing case files for children for better classification. A social and attachment model are described as explaining how damage from neglect and abuse can extend into later life

Family history and searching for hidden trauma—a personal commentary [Commentary]

Background: Searching family history is now popular through increased internet access coinciding with a need for understanding identity. Prior unresolved war trauma can help explain impacts on subsequent generations and the need to search for family narrative, particularly in refugee families. This paper explores the search for trauma narratives through personal family history research, with links to community groups. Method: The author’s own Polish family history research provides examples of trauma and loss from World War II in Poland. This is supplemented by quotes from an existing interview study of second-generation Poles to amplify themes and indicate their wider community relevance

Public School Choice And Integration: Evidence from Durham, North Carolina

Using evidence from Durham, North Carolina, we examine the impact of school choice programs on racial and class-based segregation across schools. Theoretical considerations suggest that how choice programs affect segregation will depend not only on the family preferences emphasized in the sociology literature but also on the linkages between student composition, school quality and student achievement emphasized in the economics literature. Reasonable assumptions about the distribution of preferences over race, class, and school characteristics suggest that the segregating choices of students from advantaged backgrounds are likely to outweigh any integrating choices by disadvantaged students. The results of our empirical analysis are consistent with these theoretical considerations. Using information on the actual schools students attend and on the schools in their assigned attendance zones, we find that schools in Durham are more segregated by race and class as a result of school choice programs than they would be if all students attended their geographically assigned schools. In addition, we find that the effects of choice on segregation by class are larger than the effects on segregation by race

Relaxing state-access constraints in stateful programmable data planes

Supporting the programming of stateful packet forwarding functions in hardware has recently attracted the interest of the research community. When designing such switching chips, the challenge is to guarantee the ability to program functions that can read and modify data plane's state, while keeping line rate performance and state consistency. Current state-of-the-art designs are based on a very conservative all-or-nothing model: programmability is limited only to those functions that are guaranteed to sustain line rate, with any traffic workload. In effect, this limits the maximum time to execute state update operations. In this paper, we explore possible options to relax these constraints by using simulations on real traffic traces. We then propose a model in which functions can be executed in a larger but bounded time, while preventing data hazards with memory locking. We present results showing that such flexibility can be supported with little or no throughput degradation.Comment: 6 page

A Contactless Sensor for Pacemaker Pulse Detection:Design Hints and Performance Assessment

Continuous monitoring of pacemaker activity can provide valuable information to improve patients' follow-up. Concise information is stored in some types of pacemakers, whereas ECG can provide more detailed information, but requires electrodes and cannot be used for continuous monitoring. This study highlights the possibility of a continuous monitoring of pacemaker pulses by sensing magnetic field variations due to the current pulses. This can be achieved by means of a sensor coil positioned near the patient's thorax without any need for physical contact. A simplified model of coil response to pacemaker pulses is presented in this paper, along with circuits suitable for pulse detection. In vitro tests were carried out using real pacemakers immersed in saline solution; experimental data were used to assess the accuracy of the model and to evaluate the sensor performance. It was found that the coil signal amplitude decreases with increasing distance from the pacemaker lead wire. The sensor was able to easily perform pacemaker spike detection up to a distance of 12 cm from the pacemaker leads. The stimulation rate can be measured in real time with high accuracy. Since any electromagnetic pulse triggers the same coil response, EMI may corrupt sensor measurements and thus should be discriminated

Assessing child abuse: "We need to talk!"

This discussion paper adds to the recent critical debate concerning retrospective measurement of childhood abuse and adverse experiences. A series of recent articles found only modest overlap of prospective informant-based records with retrospective self-report questionnaires, with biases evident in the latter. However, this literature has omitted the use of investigator-based interviews as an alternative retrospective tool for triangulation of measurement. Validated interview approaches can ascertain accurate data using expert scoring that can be used to test both dose-effect and specificity analyses for further research and treatment purposes. Arguments for the retention and further promotion of intensive interview measures for retrospective assessment of childhood neglect and abuse in relation to lifetime clinical outcomes are presented, with illustrative analyses. A network analytic approach is outlined, with six types of childhood abuse or neglect experiences scored via a well-validated interview (the Childhood Experiences of Care and Abuse). This indicates distinct pathways between types of neglect and abuse, but also from more common emotional abuse (antipathy, critical parenting) through to more pernicious psychological abuse (coercive, sadistic control) involving physical abuse or sexual abuse pathways. This is supplemented by a case vignette to illustrate the different pathways indicated. The interview approach gives victims a voice with their narrative (chance to talk) needed for better understanding of the specific dynamics of child abuse and neglect and for an entry into psychotherapeutic work. We need to ensure that such methods are retained in the research and practitioner portfolio of measurement tools. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Il custode della democrazia parlamentare: nota a prima lettura alla sentenza del Tribunale costituzionale federale tedesco del 7 settembre 2011 sui meccanismi europei di stabilità finanziaria

1no1. Al di là degli aspetti tecnici, la sentenza del Tribunale costituzionale federale tedesco del 7 settembre 2011 riafferma la centralità del principio democratico come motore e, allo stesso tempo, limite dell'integrazione europea. Secondo il Giudice delle leggi tedesco, il diritto fondamentale al voto non si esaurisce nel conferimento di “una formale legittimazione del potere statale a livello federale”, bensì garantisce i cittadini da svuotamenti sostanziali della sovranità popolare attraverso trasferimenti di compiti e poteri dal Parlamento nazionale a istituzioni sovranazionali (98) . Tale diritto fondamentale, per come disciplinato dall'art. 38 LF (Legge fondamentale) , esprime il principio democratico sancito nell'art. 20 LF , che è a sua volta dichiarato intangibile, in quanto espressione dell'identità costituzionale, dall'art. 79, c.3, LF Sono proprio questi tre articoli, in sintesi, a rappresentare i parametri costituzionali alla stregua dei quali il Tribunale affronta e risolve la questione sottopostagli (120). Non è questa la sede per entrare nell'analisi dettagliata della sentenza. Provo a riassumere qui i principali e, per lo più, coincidenti motivi dei due ricorsi, dividendoli, per comodità, in due gruppi: quelli più strettamente attinenti al testo costituzionale tedesco e quelli relativi, direttamente o indirettamente, alle norme dei Trattati unionali (mi si perdoni l'inelegante ma utile neologismo). Con riguardo ai primi, il c.d. Währungsunion-Finanzstabilisierungsgesetz del 7 maggio 2010 (la legge che autorizza gli aiuti finanziari alla Grecia) e il c.d. Euro-Stabilisierungsmechanismus-Gesetz del 21 maggio 2010 (la legge che ha recepito il provvisorio meccanismo di stabilizzazione previsto dagli Stati dell'unione monetaria) , entrerebbero in illegittima collisione con l'art. 38 LF, che, oltre a garantire il fondamentale diritto al voto, prevede il divieto di mandato imperativo per i membri del Bundestag. Secondo i ricorrenti, la norma garantirebbe che ogni fase del processo d'integrazione unionale venga scandita da adeguate decisioni dei due rami del Parlamento tedesco. Altro rilevante profilo di contrasto con l'art. 38 LF si produrrebbe nella parte in cui il secondo provvedimento normativo si limita a prevedere la ricerca dell'intesa da parte del Governo con la commissione bilancio del Bundestag: esso risulterebbe illegittimo perché permetterebbe al Governo di decidere autonomamente in caso di contrasto con la suddetta commissione.openopenBifulco, RaffaeleBifulco, Raffael

Review of Connecticut's Charter School Law and Race to the Top

Bifulco's review of this report finds that it ignores relevant research and offers no evidence to support its claim that expanding charters would increase low-income student achievement

Osservazioni sulla legge n.42 del 2009 in materia di federalismo fiscale

1noopenopenBifulco, RaffaeleBifulco, Raffael