Enhancing GED Instruction to Prepare Students for College and Careers

To better understand how adult education programs might strengthen pathways to college and careers, MDRC, with financial support from the Robin Hood Foundation and MetLife Foundation, partnered with LaGuardia Community College of the City University of New York (CUNY) to launch a small but rigorous study of the GED Bridge to Health and Business program. The GED Bridge program represents a promising new approach to GED instruction, as it aims to better prepare students not only to pass the GED exam, but also to continue on to college and training programs. MDRC has conducted several evaluations of programs that include GED preparation as one among many program components, but this evaluation is one of only a few to focus specifically on GED curriculum, program design, and efforts to forge a stronger link to college and career training

Capturing Hate: Eyewitness Videos Provide New Source of Data on Prevalence of Transphobic Violence - Executive Summary

"Capturing Hate" is a new report from the WITNESS Media Lab which collected and analyzed eyewitness videos of transphobic violence, primarily viewed for entertainment purposes, in order to illustrate the extent of hate and violence faced by the LGBTQ community in the United States.The data, and the stories and voices which contextualize this data, aims to equip advocacy groups and the media with the tools to effectively and ethically use eyewitness videos to document and report on violence affecting the LGBTQ community.

Asian Pacific Marine Minerals and Industry Structure

Eventual development of marine minerals potential in the Asian Pacific would likely draw on the technology, skills, and experience of the emerging international seabed mining industry. As a result of strategic behavior by its firms, this small-numbers industrial "strategic group" has created a level of capacity for seabed mining exploration and research and development (R&D) that far exceeds the near-term level of activity expected in seabed mining. The paper reports on the nature of preproduction industrial structure (or "protostructure") in seabed mining and draws implications for efforts to develop the resource potential of Asian Pacific marine minerals. Seabed minerals exploration and R&D services might be offered to Asian Pacific nations at bargain prices (below unit cost) by firms with first-starter advantages in the emerging industry. However, cautionary notes are included about constraints on the economic potential of the region's deep-sea minerals such as manganese nodules, polymetallie sulfides, and cobalt crusts.Environmental Economics and Policy, International Relations/Trade, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Machine Gun Voices: Favelas and Utopia in Brazilian Gangster Funk

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A Cost Benefit Analysis of BluPass: The University of Kentucky\u27s Fare Free Transit Partnership with Lextran

Parking is an omnipresent headache for urban-based universities across the United States. The University of Kentucky took a distinctive approach to shifting commuter mode share away from single-occupancy vehicles in 2015 by initiating a fare-free partnership with the local transit authority. This study aims to determine the relative success of this program by weighing the costs and benefits for the University over the first four years of implementation. In order to offset the limited supply of parking available for personally owned vehicles, the University of Kentucky (UK) launched BluPass, a fare-free transit initiative that aimed to significantly increase the number of students and employees who used bus routes to travel to and from campus. While the benefit to cost ratio of this program was over 4:1, ridership on off-campus routes did not increase, nor did sales of parking permits across campus decrease as was the case in virtually every other campus that was evaluated throughout the literature review. However, the percentage of students and employees who purchased parking permits decreased even as the campus population and number of parking spaces increased over the years of the study. Over all, the value per dollar spent on BluPass was much greater for UK than for the average university that initiates a fare-free transit program

Boundary Law: The Rule of Monument Control in Washington

The rule of monument control has developed as a necessary corollary to the Statute of Frauds as applied to land conveyances. Confusion in the application of the two rules can be avoided by examining their underlying equitable policies. A consideration of these policies is necessary for a reasoned approach to judging the admissibility and weight of evidence needed to prove a boundary monument. San Juan County v. Ayer illustrates the confusion which can result when a court attempts to apply these rules in a technical manner divorced from their historical background. Many boundary disputes could properly be resolved by using the rule of monument control as a rule of construction, thereby allowing the court to weigh the equities of the dispute before it, rather than as a rule of law to be contrasted with the Statute of Frauds

Staying on Course: Three Year Results of the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Evaluation

Evaluates the effectiveness of a quasi-military residential and mentoring program that aims to place high school dropouts in employment, education, or military service and improve outcomes including indicators of health, lifestyle, and delinquency

Examining Parental Involvement in Impoverished Schools

A decline in parent participation in one impoverished Pre-K through Grade 5 school in Texas over recent years has been an ongoing concern for school administrators. The purpose of this instrumental case study was to investigate parent perceptions of the school\u27s efforts to involve parents in the school. Research questions focused on identifying factors that inhibited parental involvement concentrating on parent perceptions of school efforts. Constructivist theory and the advocacy/liberatory framework formed the conceptual framework for this study. A triangulation method for data collection included parent interviews, teacher questionnaires, and observations of parental involvement activities over 12 weeks. Participants were a typical sampling of 9 teachers and 9 parents. Observations were logged and coded. Teacher questionnaires were thematically coded and used to create probing questions for parent interviews. Interview transcripts were coded, and member checks validated findings. Results indicated that school practices for parent involvement were unclear to parents, inconsistently implemented, and poorly communicated. Parents reported that consistent communication and encouragement could help break down barriers to participation. As a result of these findings, a parental involvement project was formulated including research based goals, a plan for implementation, and a program evaluation. These findings and proposed project could lead to positive social change by assisting local staff to design a parental involvement program that gives parents a voice in school practices and by providing a model for other schools struggling to involve parents