Trends in Career and Technical Education in Montana

Montana has joined the Career & Technical Education Policy Exchange (CTEx), which is a consortium of researchers and education policymakers studying how state contexts affect participation in high school Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs and student outcomes. Carly Urban, the author of this report, is an associate professor of economics at Montana State University and studies the Montana context.With fewer than 200 public schools in the state and a median high school size of 681 students, the Montana context represents a more-rural population than other CTEx partner states. Further, every high school student in Montana must complete one credit of CTE to earn their diploma.Roughly half of Montana high school students are CTE concentrators—meaning they completed at least two credits in a specific career pathway—and that rate has remained consistent for the graduating classes of 2009 through 2016. Male concentration rates consistently outpace female concentration rates. Similarly, students in more-rural areas of the state are more likely to concentrate in CTE than students in more-populated areas of the state. A combination of the two groups shows that female students in less-populated areas of the state are equally likely to concentrate in CTE as male students in more-populated areas. Female concentration rates in Montana are higher than male CTE concentration rates in other CTEx partner states. Differences in CTE concentration based on race and ethnicity are negligible.CTE concentration has important implications for future success. In Montana, students who concentrated in CTE were more likely to graduate high school than non-concentrators. This advantage in high school graduation rates was larger for students in special education and students living in more-rural areas. Overall, both the benefits and the demand for CTE (particularly in the more-remote areas of the state) are high in Montan

How the presidential primary season boosts states’ economies.

US presidential campaigns may be long and drawn out, but according to research by Rebecca Lessem and Carly Urban, they can bring considerable economic benefitsis to the states hosting primary elections

Why a viable third party might lead to less negative political advertising in campaigns.

More than 80 percent of advertisements in political campaigns are negative; a type of messaging that is much less common in markets for consumer goods and services. Why is negativity so specific to political campaigns? In new research, Amit Gandhi, Daniela Iorio, and Carly Urban explain that the dual Democrat-Republican nature of US politics encourages candidates to go negative. They find that elections with two candidates are twice as likely to see negative ads compared to those with a greater number of candidates, and argue that the rise of a viable third party in the US might reduce the amount of attack advertising

Financial Education Affects Financial Knowledge and Downstream Behaviors

We study the rapidly growing literature on the causal effects of financial education programs in a meta-analysis of 76 randomized experiments with a total sample size of over 160,000 individuals. The evidence shows that financial education programs have, on average, positive causal treatment effects on financial knowledge and downstream financial behaviors. Treatment effects are economically meaningful in size, similar to those realized by educational interventions in other domains and are at least three times as large as the average effect documented in earlier work. These results are robust to the method used, restricting the sample to papers published in top economics journals, including only studies with adequate power, and accounting for publication selection bias in the literature. We conclude with a discussion of the cost-effectiveness of financial education interventions

Response Regarding Bureau Financial Education Programs (Docket No. CFPB-2018-0015)

Response discussing whether the Consumer Federal Protection Bureau should continue its financial education programs

Bovine cryptosporidiosis: impact, host-parasite interaction and control strategies

International audienceAbstractGastrointestinal disease caused by the apicomplexan parasite Cryptosporidium parvum is one of the most important diseases of young ruminant livestock, particularly neonatal calves. Infected animals may suffer from profuse watery diarrhoea, dehydration and in severe cases death can occur. At present, effective therapeutic and preventative measures are not available and a better understanding of the host–pathogen interactions is required. Cryptosporidium parvum is also an important zoonotic pathogen causing severe disease in people, with young children being particularly vulnerable. Our knowledge of the immune responses induced by Cryptosporidium parasites in clinically relevant hosts is very limited. This review discusses the impact of bovine cryptosporidiosis and describes how a thorough understanding of the host–pathogen interactions may help to identify novel prevention and control strategies

Does State-Mandated Financial Education Reduce High School Graduation Rates?

Concerned about low levels of financial literacy among teens and the importance of their looming financial decisions as emerging adults, state policymakers have expanded high school personal finance graduation requirements. Did these added requirements create an additional barrier for students? Comparing students in states with and without standalone personal finance course requirements before and after the requirements went into place, there is no evidence that these requirements reduced graduation rates overall, by race, by gender, or by family income. Existing research quantifies improvements in debt and credit behaviors, and these findings suggest there are not simultaneous adverse effects overall or for at-risk students

WI21-Q1: Access to a Local Public Housing Authority Office and SSI Participation

This project seeks to understand what types of counties have a brick-and-mortar local Public Housing Authority (PHA). Since there are more people eligible for housing assistance than there are benefits available, allocations systems are designed to prioritize benefits. In addition, there are not enough resources for every US county to have a local PHA office. Instead, some—but not all—less-populated counties are served by either nearby county’s offices or state-level offices housed in state capital cities. The lack of a local PHA office may increase the cost of application. We seek to understand how county-level population demographics correlate with whether or not a county has a local PHA. We then seek to understand how county-level SSI applications correlate with access to a local PHA, as the two programs often serve similar populations. We conclude that counties with relatively more non-Hispanic Black residents and counties with more Hispanic residents are more likely to have a local PHA, as well as counties with a greater fraction of their age distribution between 18 and 64. Further, SSI applications and local PHA presence are highly correlated, suggesting perhaps that placement of local PHAs is determined at least in part by the need of local populations