Search Multimedia

"These 10 articles from leading scholars address federal government activism in such areas as health, education, transportation, and the arts. In some areas, federal involvement has been direct; for example, while school public systems are governed locally, Washington provides about 10% of k–12 funding. Similarly, antipoverty programs, such as the New Deal’s Social Security Act and Aid for Dependent Children, have played a major role in reducing the poverty rate from around 40% in 1900 to 11.2% in 1974. At other times, Washington has exerted influence more subtly, through regulations and research. Examples include the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, which mandated the separation of investment and commercial banking and the WWII-era research that yielded compounds to prevent and cure malaria, syphilis, and tuberculosis. Further, as public policy scholar Paul C. Light points out in a fascinating concluding piece, more than two-thirds of leading governmental initiatives have been supported by both Democratic and Republican administrations. However, Light adds, the massive tax cut in 2001 “continue[s] to constrain federal investment in problem solving.” The scholars brought together by Ohio State historian Conn (History’s Shadow) persuasively demonstrate how the growth of “big government” throughout the 20th century has benefited ordinary Americans so comprehensively and unobtrusively that they have often taken it for granted."

Publishers Weekly

http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-19-985855-2

Context  Bisphenol A (BPA), a manufactured chemical, is found in canned food, polycarbonate-bottled liquids, and other consumer products. In adults, elevated urinary BPA concentrations are associated with obesity and incident coronary artery disease. BPA exposure is plausibly linked to childhood obesity, but evidence is lacking to date.

Objective  To examine associations between urinary BPA concentration and body mass outcomes in children.

Design, Setting, and Participants  Cross-sectional analysis of a nationally representative subsample of 2838 participants aged 6 through 19 years randomly selected for measurement of urinary BPA concentration in the 2003-2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys.

Main Outcome Measures  Body mass index (BMI), converted to sex- and age-standardized z scores and used to classify participants as overweight (BMI ≥85th percentile for age/sex) or obese (BMI ≥95th percentile).

Results  Median urinary BPA concentration was 2.8 ng/mL (interquartile range, 1.5-5.6). Of the participants, 1047 (34.1% [SE, 1.5%]) were overweight and 590 (17.8% [SE, 1.3%]) were obese. Controlling for race/ethnicity, age, caregiver education, poverty to income ratio, sex, serum cotinine level, caloric intake, television watching, and urinary creatinine level, children in the lowest urinary BPA quartile had a lower estimated prevalence of obesity (10.3% [95% CI, 7.5%-13.1%]) than those in quartiles 2 (20.1% [95% CI, 14.5%-25.6%]), 3 (19.0% [95% CI, 13.7%-24.2%]), and 4 (22.3% [95% CI, 16.6%-27.9%]). Similar patterns of association were found in multivariable analyses examining the association between quartiled urinary BPA concentration and BMI z score and in analyses that examined the logarithm of urinary BPA concentration and the prevalence of obesity. Obesity was not associated with exposure to other environmental phenols commonly used in other consumer products, such as sunscreens and soaps. In stratified analysis, significant associations between urinary BPA concentrations and obesity were found among whites (P < .001) but not among blacks or Hispanics.

Conclusions  Urinary BPA concentration was significantly associated with obesity in this cross-sectional study of children and adolescents. Explanations of the association cannot rule out the possibility that obese children ingest food with higher BPA content or have greater adipose stores of BPA.

The Obama administration's budget proposal for fiscal year 2013 (FY 2013) strengthens the national economy by investing in schools, communities and safety net programs. The FY 2013 budget also includes a number of important investments in infrastructure that will spur much needed job growth in a time of economic uncertainty for many working and low-income families. It is critical that such investments take into account the persistently high unemployment in communities of color, and target spending to increase the economic security of the communities most impacted by the "Great Recession." Additionally, the budget includes important changes to the tax code that will lay the foundation for a fairer and more equitable economy.

The Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center, nestled in the foothills of the
Alps, has a storied past. It was here that the Green Revolution and the Global Aids Vaccine initiatives were conceptualised. In June this year, the Center opened its doors to 20 representatives from policy schools around the world over four days – including Dean Kishore Mahbubani, Professor Kanti Bajpai and myself from the LKY School – to discuss the ‘future of global public policy education’. Delegates grappled with the question: does our increasingly globalised world demand a fundamentally new kind of public policy education?

This article uses the Advocacy Coalition Framework to identify the stakeholders and their coalitions in the arena of after-school policy, which drew much new attention beginning in the early 1990s in many American cities. Using evidence from case studies in five cities, we show how the framework can be extended beyond stakeholder analysis to include identification of core and secondary value conflicts and of opportunities for policy analysis to help strengthen coalitions and pressures for change. Coalitions in each of the cities differ over core values relating to the purposes of after-school programs (academics versus “fun”), but policy analysts can promote common goals by developing options to deal with the secondary conflicts over the relative importance of facilities versus program content, the modes of collaboration between public schools and community based organizations, and the incentives for public school teachers to engage in staffing after-school programs.

From September 2008 to April 2009, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council collaborated with the NYU Wagner Rudin Center on a unique program to offer training courses to professional transportation staff from regional transportation agencies. The Program consisted of 23 courses organized within three distinct modules, Skill Building, Transportation Policy, and Tools and Methods. Tailored for line and mid-level staff as a parallel and complimentary track to the already established NYMTC Executive Education Program developed in the 1990s, 86% of Program participants reported the curriculum to be of strong content and with high relevance to their jobs and professional development. The Program offers a model for MPO and university research center collaboration on continuing professional education for transportation professionals. Connecting agencies through MPOs with university educational resources aligns the training goals to the MPO's regional objectives as well as national transportation education initiatives.

This paper examines informal training and skill development pathways of Latino immigrant construction workers in two different urban labor markets: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.  We find that institutional differences across local labor markets not only shape how immigrants develop skills in specific places, but also determine the localized obstacles they face in demonstrating and harnessing these skills for employment. To explain the role of local institutions in shaping differences in skill development experience and opportunities, we draw on the concept of tacit skill, a term that is rarely incorporated into studies of the labor market participation of less educated immigrants. We argue that innovative pathways that Latino immigrant workers have created to develop tacit skill can strengthen advocacy planning efforts aimed at improving employment opportunities and working conditions for marginalized workers, immigrant and non-immigrant alike.

Objective
To determine whether a diabetes case management telemedicine intervention reduced healthcare expenditures, as measured by Medicare claims, and to assess the costs of developing and implementing the telemedicine intervention.
Design
We studied 1665 participants in the Informatics for Diabetes Education and Telemedicine (IDEATel), a randomized controlled trial comparing telemedicine case management of diabetes to usual care. Participants were aged 55 years or older, and resided in federally designated medically underserved areas of New York State.
Measurements
We analyzed Medicare claims payments for each participant for up to 60 study months from date of randomization, until their death, or until December 31, 2006 (whichever happened first). We also analyzed study expenditures for the telemedicine intervention over six budget years (February 28, 2000- February 27, 2006).
Results
Mean annual Medicare payments (SE) were similar in the usual care and telemedicine groups, $9040 ($386) and $9669 ($443) per participant, respectively (p>0.05). Sensitivity analyses, including stratification by censored status, adjustment by enrollment site, and semi-parametric weighting by probability of dropping-out, rendered similar results. Over six budget years 28 821 participant/months of telemedicine intervention were delivered, at an estimated cost of $622 per participant/month.
Conclusion
Telemedicine case management was not associated with a reduction in Medicare claims in this medically underserved population. The cost of implementing the telemedicine intervention was high, largely representing special purpose hardware and software costs required at the time. Lower implementation costs will need to be achieved using lower cost technology in order for telemedicine case management to be more widely used.

Across race and age groups, education is the single greatest predictor of single-motherhood in America. This policy brief offers a profile of the American single woman mother, contemporary population trends, and the economic security of this growing demographic. See also our full report "At Ropes End: Single Women Mothers, Wealth and Asset Accumulation in the United States.

Purpose

This study investigates the degree to which the racial composition of the school environment may influence the body mass index (BMI) of children aged 10 to 18 years. This research may be viewed as extending prior work that has found that the prevalence of risk behaviors among nonwhite adolescents is influenced by exposure to white adolescents.

Methods

This research used data from the Survey of Adults and Youth, which was conducted as part of the evaluation of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Urban Health Initiative. The study population for this analysis is comprised of parent and child respondents in the 2004 to 2005 survey wave who lived in one of the five program cities: Baltimore, Detroit, Oakland, Philadelphia, and Richmond. We constructed two-level school random effects models and added school and census tract-level variables that describe the racial composition of the residential community and the school attended.

Results

Black and Hispanic adolescent girls who attend schools with a mostly nonwhite student body have higher BMIs than do their white counterparts. However, black girls in predominately white schools do not have higher BMIs than white girls. Further, black and Hispanic girls whose schoolmates are predominately white have significantly lower BMIs than black and Hispanic girls in schools where fewer than half the students are white. These associations are not found among boys, and are net of a broad variety of individual, household, and group level characteristics.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that the BMI of minority adolescent girls is influenced by the norms of the social environment.

This article uses the Advocacy Coalition Framework to identify the stakeholders and their coalitions in the arena of after-school policy, which drew much new attention beginning in the early 1990s in many American cities. Using evidence from case studies in five cities, we show how the framework can be extended beyond stakeholder analysis to include identification of core and secondary value conflicts and of opportunities for policy analysis to help strengthen coalitions and pressures for change. Coalitions in each of the cities differ over core values relating to the purposes of after-school programs (academics versus "fun"), but policy analysts can promote common goals by developing options to deal with the secondary conflicts over the relative importance of facilities versus program content, the modes of collaboration between public schools and community based organizations, and the incentives for public school teachers to engage in staffing after-school programs.

Wiki Government shows how to bring innovation to government. In explaining how to enhance political institutions with the power of networks, it offers a fundamental rethinking of democracy in the digital age. Collaborative democracy-government of the people, by the people, for the people-is an old dream. Today, Wiki Government shows how technology can make that dream a reality. In this thought-provoking book, Beth Simone Noveck illustrates how collaborative democracy strengthens public decisionmaking by connecting the power of the many to the work of the few. Equally important, she provides a step-by-step demonstration of how collaborative democracy can be designed, opening policymaking to greater participation. "Wiki Government" tells the story behind one of the most dramatic public sector innovations in recent years - inviting the public to participate in the patent examination process. Patent examiners usually work in secret, cut off from essential information and racing against the clock to master arcane technical claims. The Peer-to-Patent project radically transformed this process by allowing anyone with Internet access to collaborate with the agency in reviewing patent applications. "Wiki Government" describes how a far-flung team of technologists, lawyers, and policymakers pried open a tradition-bound agency's doors. Noveck explains how she brought both fiercely competitive companies and risk-averse bureaucrats on board. She discusses the design challenges the team faced in creating software to distill online collaboration into useful expertise, not just rants or raves. And she explains how law, policy, and technology can be revamped to help government work in more open and participatory ways in a wide range of policy arenas, including education and the environment.

In March 2009, the RAND Frederick S. Pardee Center for Longer Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition hosted a workshop called “Shaping Tomorrow Today: Near-Term Steps Towards Long-Term Goals.” The workshop gave policymakers and analysts an opportunity to explore new methods and tools that can help improve long-term decisionmaking. The intent was to conduct this exploration collaboratively, drawing from many countries a mixed group of tool builders, analysts, planners, decisionmakers and interested lay observers. Their task was to consider how analysts and policymakers can determine when it is important to make long-term (as opposed to short-term) decisions, how to make better long-term decisions, and how best to support policymakers in thinking long term, using as case studies the areas of education, international policy, and climate change. These conference proceedings summarize the main discussions and presentations that took place during the two days of the workshop and include the papers written for workshop participants. They will be of interest to anyone engaged in the study and practice of thinking and acting meaningfully over the long term, with particular reference to problems faced by planners and policymakers in public institutions of governance.

Reorganizing primary school grade spans is a tractable and relatively inexpensive school reform. However, assessing the effects of reorganization requires also examining other organizational changes that may accompany grade span reforms. Using data on New York City public schools from 1996 to 2002 and exploiting within-school variations, we examine relationships among grade span, spending, and size. We find that school grade span is associated with differences in school size, class size, and grade size, though generally not with spending and other resources. In addition, we find class size and grade size differences in the same grade level at schools with different configurations, suggesting that school grade span affects not only school size but also class size and grade size. We find few relationships, though, between grade span and school-level performance, pointing to the need to augment these analyses with pupil-level data. We conclude with implications for research and practice.

Segregation: The Rising Costs for America documents how discriminatory practices in the housing markets through most of the past century, and that continue today, have produced extreme levels of residential segregation that result in significant disparities in access to good jobs, quality education, homeownership attainment and asset accumulation between minority and non-minority households.The book also demonstrates how problems facing minority communities are increasingly important to the nations long-term economic vitality and global competitiveness as a whole. Solutions to the challenges facing the nation in creating a more equitable society are not beyond our ability to design or implement, and it is in the interest of all Americans to support programs aimed at creating a more just society.The book is uniquely valuable to students in the social sciences and public policy, as well as to policy makers, and city planners.

High school reform is currently at the top of the education policy making agenda after years of stagnant achievement and persistent racial and income test score gaps. Although a number of reforms offer some promise of improving U.S. high schools, small schools have emerged as the favored reform model, especially in urban areas, garnering substantial financial investments from both the private and public sectors. In the decade following 1993, the number of high schools in New York City nearly doubled, as new "small" schools opened and large high schools were reorganized into smaller learning communities. The promise of small schools to improve academic engagement, school culture, and, ultimately, student performance has drawn many supporters. However, educators, policy makers, and researchers have raised concerns about the unintended consequences of these new small schools and the possibility that students "left behind" in large, established high schools are incurring negative impacts.

High school reform is currently at the top of the education policy making agenda after years of stagnant achievement and persistent racial and income test score gaps. Although a number of reforms offer some promise of improving U.S. high schools, small schools have emerged as the favored reform model, especially in urban areas, garnering substantial financial investments from both the private and public sectors. In the decade following 1993, the number of high schools in New York City nearly doubled, as new "small" schools opened and large high schools were reorganized into smaller learning communities. The promise of small schools to improve academic engagement, school culture, and, ultimately, student performance has drawn many supporters. However, educators, policy makers, and researchers have raised concerns about the unintended consequences of these new small schools and the possibility that students "left behind" in large, established high schools are incurring negative impacts.

Using 10 years (1993-2003) of data on New York City high schools, we examine the potential systemic effects of small schools that have been identified by critics and researchers.

The goal of this book, the first in a series, is to bring policymakers, practitioners, and scholars up to speed on the state of knowledge on various aspects of urban and regional policy. What do we know about the effectiveness of select policy approaches, reforms, or experiments on key social and economic problems facing cities, suburbs, and metropolitan areas? What can we say about what works, what doesn’t, and why? And what does this knowledge and experience imply for future policy questions?

The authors take a fresh look at several different issues (e.g., economic development, education, land use) and conceptualize how each should be thought of. Once the contributors have presented the essence of what is known, as well as the likely implications, they identify the knowledge gaps that need to be filled for the successful formulation and implementation of urban and regional policy.

Research on childhood obesity has primarily been conducted by experts in nutrition, psychology, and medicine. Only recently have public policy scholars devoted serious work to this burgeoning public health crisis. Here the authors advance that research by surveying national experts in health/nutrition and health policy on the public health impact and the political feasibility of fifty-one federal policy options for addressing childhood obesity. Policies that were viewed as politically infeasible but having a great impact on childhood obesity emphasized outright bans on certain activities. In contrast, education and information dissemination policies were viewed as having the potential to receive a favorable hearing from national policy makers but little potential public health impact. Both nutrition and policy experts believed that increasing funding for research would be beneficial and politically feasible. A central need for the field is to develop the means to make high-impact policies more politically feasible.

In two studies, we investigate the effects of individuals’ power motivation on decision-making. We distinguish between two types of power motivation [McClelland, D. C. (1970). The two faces of power. Journal of International Affairs, 24, 29–47; Winter, D. G. (1973). The power motive. New York: The Free Press] and demonstrate that both types of power motivation facilitate influential decision-making but that each type plays a different role in different contexts. In a conflict context (Study 1), individuals’ personalized (self-serving) power motivation was associated with antisocial decisions, and in a healthcare context (Study 2), individuals socialized (other-serving) power motivation was associated with prosocial decisions. Furthermore, the type of power motivation elicited in each context was associated with less perceived need to deliberate over the relevant policy decision. In separating out the independent effects of each type of power motivation, we are able to explain more variance in decision-making behavior across various contexts than in models using aggregate power motivation (personalized plus socialized).

To analyze long-term consequences of homelessness, the authors compared 388 formerly homeless children 55 months after shelter entry with 382 housed peers, birth to 17, using mother- and child-reported health, mental health, community involvement, cognitive performance, and educational records. Both groups scored below cognitive and achievement norms. Small group differences favored housed 4- to 6-year-olds on cognition and 4- to 10-year-olds on mental health only. Child care and recent stressful events, which were high, were as or more important than prior homelessness. Only children living with mothers were included, potentially biasing results. Policy implications are discussed.

To analyze long-term consequences of homelessness, the authors compared 388 formerly homeless children 55 months after shelter entry with 382 housed peers, birth to 17, using mother- and child-reported health, mental health, community involvement, cognitive performance, and educational records. Both groups scored below cognitive and achievement norms. Small group differences favored housed 4- to 6-year-olds on cognition and 4- to 10-year-olds on mental health only. Child care and recent stressful events, which were high, were as or more important than prior homelessness. Only children living with mothers were included, potentially biasing results. Policy implications are discussed.

Telephone-survey data were gathered from parents and youth in five of
America’s largest and most distressed cities to estimate unmet demand for
after-school programs. Unmet demand was conceptualized as a function of low utilization and dissatisfaction with one’s current arrangement; furthermore, the authors argue that dissatisfaction must stem from something that can be addressed through changes in policy or programs. Large numbers of parents of children who infrequently use after-school programs were found to indicate that they would increase utilization if there were improvements in the quality, access, or types of programming. However, large numbers of parents whose children do not participate or participate infrequently in after-school programs were also found to express satisfaction with their arrangement and indicated that they do not wish to change it. Expanding services with the assumption that children from these families will participate may be misguided.

Telephone-survey data were gathered from parents and youth in five of America's largest and most distressed cities to estimate unmet demand for after-school programs. Unmet demand was conceptualized as a function of low utilization and dissatisfaction with one's current arrangement; furthermore, the authors argue that dissatisfaction must stem from something that can be addressed through changes in policy or programs. Large numbers of parents of children who infrequently use after-school programs were found to indicate that they would increase utilization if there were improvements in the quality, access, or types of programming. However, large numbers of parents whose children do not participate or participate infrequently in after-school programs were also found to express satisfaction with their arrangement and indicated that they do not wish to change it. Expanding services with the assumption that children from these families will participate may be misguided.

We find that estimates of the prevalence of teenage smoking and drinking in “urban,” “suburban,” and “rural” areas vary with different definitions of these types of geographic units. Given the salience of youth risk behavior to the public debate, we urge researchers to purposefully choose their definitions of geographic areas and to be explicit about those choices.

The Handbook traces the evolution of the field from its initial focus on school inputs (per pupil expenditures) and the revenue sources (property taxes, state aid programs, etc) used to finance these inputs to a focus on educational outcomes (student achievement) and the larger policies used to achieve them. It shows how the current decision-making context in school finance inevitably interacts with those of governance, accountability, equity, privatization, and other areas of education policy. Because a full understanding of the important contemporary issues requires inputs from a variety of perspectives, the Handbook draws on contributors from a variety of disciplines.

There is little doubt that globalization, however defined, has hit the field of
professional policy education in the twenty years since APPAM’s Hiltonhead conference on the future of policy education first took stock of a largely American landscape. Despite the title of this session, the relevant development is not merely the accretion of public policy schools and programs around the world. It is the recognition of international dimensions of the policy education enterprise that, if taken seriously (and participants in this discussion argued that it must), promises to change the way we conduct business on multiple levels. This report of the lively discussion generated in the wake of Iris Geva-May and her coauthors’ stimulating conference paper1 explores why and how.

We sought to determine whether low acculturation among Mexican American caregivers protects their children against asthma. Methods. Data were obtained from an observational study of urban pediatric asthma. Dependent variables were children's diagnosed asthma and total (diagnosed plus possible) asthma. Regression models were controlled for caregivers' level of acculturation, education, marital status, depression, life stress, and social support and children's insurance. Results. Caregivers' level of acculturation was associated with children's diagnosed asthma (P=.025) and total asthma (P=.078) in bivariate analyses. In multivariate models, protective effects of caregivers' level of acculturation were mediated by the other covariates. Independent predictors of increased diagnosed asthma included caregivers' life stress (odds ratio [OR]= 1.12, P=.005) and children's insurance, both public (OR=4.71, P=.009) and private (OR = 2.87, P=.071). Only caregiver's life stress predicted increased total asthma (OR = 1.21, P=.001). Conclusions. The protective effect of caregivers' level of acculturation on diagnosed and total asthma for Mexican American children was mediated by social factors, especially caregivers' life stress. Among acculturation measures, foreign birth was more predictive of disease status than was language use or years in country. Increased acculturation among immigrant groups does not appear to lead to greater asthma risk.

Law students are footnoting the publicly authored, online resource known as Wikipedia in their term papers. Courts have cited to Wikipedia in authoritative judicial opinions. Law professors are doing so in their journal articls. Yet some members of the legal and academic communities are up in arms, decrying the use of an encyclopedia that anyone can write and edit. To allow students to rely on an online resource that might contain mistakes encourages laziness and risks undermining the legitimacy of legal authority and professionalism.

This paper examines complex models of the associations between family income, material hardship, parenting, and school readiness among White, Black, and Hispanic 6-year-olds, using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K). It is critical to test the universality of such complex models, particularly given their implications for intervention, prevention, and public policy. Therefore this study asks: Do measures and models of low income and early school readiness indicators fit differently or similarly for White, Black, and Hispanic children? Measurement equivalence of material hardship, parent stress, parenting behaviors, child cognitive skills, and child social competence is first tested. Model equivalence is then tested by examining whether category membership in a race/ethnic group moderates associations between predictors and young children's school readiness.

This paper explores the determinants of resource allocation across schools in large districts and examines options for improving resource distribution patterns. Previous research on intra-district allocations consistently reveals resource disparities across schools within districts, particularly in the distribution of teachers. While overall expenditures are sometimes related to the characteristics of students in schools, the ratio of teachers per pupil is consistently larger in high-poverty, high-minority and low-performing schools. These teachers, though, generally have lower experience and education levels - and consequently, lower salaries - as compared to teachers in more advantaged schools. We explore these patterns in New York City,  Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio by estimating de facto expenditure equations relating resource measures to school and student characteristics. Consistent with previous research, we find schools that have higher percentages
of poor pupils receive more money and have more teachers per pupil, but the teachers tend to be less educated and less well paid, with a particularly consistent pattern in New York City schools. The paper concludes with policy options for changing intradistrict resource distributions in order to promote more efficient, more equitable or more effective use of resources. These options include allocating dollars rather than teacher positions to schools, providing teacher pay differentials in hard-to-staff schools and subjects, and adapting current district-based funding formulas to the school (and student) level.

While the distribution of resources across school districts is well studied, relatively little attention has been paid to how resources are allocated to individual schools inside those districts. This paper explores the determinants of resource allocation across schools in large districts based on factors that reflect differential school costs or factors that may, in practice, be related to the distribution of resources. Using detailed data on school resources and student and school characteristics in New York City, Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio, we find that schools with higher percentages of poor pupils often receive more money and have more teachers per pupil, but the teachers tend to be less educated and less well paid, with a particularly consistent pattern in New York City schools. We conclude with implications for policy and further research.

Although the No Child Left Behind Act was intended to help "all students meet high academic standards," it is focused on subgroups of low-achieving students. The authors analyze the possible impact of the legislation's requirement for performance reporting by racial subgroup in light of the considerable racial segregation in U.S. schools. In particular, using data on elementary and middle schools in New York State, the authors show that the schools are so highly segregated that more than half are too homogeneous to report test scores for any racial or ethnic subgroups. In addition, they show that the racial achievement gap is greatest across segregated schools rather than within integrated ones. The authors analyze the characteristics of schools that are and are not accountable for subgroups, finding that urban schools and large schools are particularly likely to be accountable, and conclude with implications for the reach of the law and for incentives for school segregation.

We examine the size and distribution of the gap in test scores across races within New York City public schools and the factors that explain these gaps. While gaps are partially explained by differences in student characteristics, such as poverty, differences in schools attended are also important. At the same time, substantial within-school gaps remain and are only partly explained by differences in academic preparation across students from different race groups. Controlling for differences in classrooms attended explains little of the remaining gap, suggesting little role for within-school inequities in resources. There is some evidence that school characteristics matter. Race gaps are negatively correlated with school size-implying small schools may be helpful. In addition, the trade-off between the size and experience of the teaching staff in urban schools may carry unintended consequences for within-school race gaps. © 2006 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

We examine the size and distribution of the gap in test scores across races within New York City public schools and the factors that explain these gaps. While gaps are partially explained by differences in student characteristics, such as poverty, differences in schools attended are also important. At the same time, substantial within-school gaps remain and are only partly explained by differences in academic preparation across students from different race groups. Controlling for differences in classrooms attended explains little of the remaining gap, suggesting little role for within-school inequities in resources. There is some evidence that school characteristics matter. Race gaps are negatively correlated with school size - implying small schools may be helpful. In addition, the trade-off between the size and experience of the teaching staff in urban schools may carry unintended consequences for within-school race gaps.

The State of Play presents an essential first step in understanding how new digital worlds will change the future of our universe. Millions of people around the world inhabit virtual words: multiplayer online games where characters live, love, buy, trade, cheat, steal, and have every possible kind of adventure. Far more complicated and sophisticated than early video games, people now spend countless hours in virtual universes like Second Life and Star Wars Galaxies not to shoot space invaders but to create new identities, fall in love, build cities, make rules, and break them.

As digital worlds become increasingly powerful and lifelike, people will employ them for countless real-world purposes, including commerce, education, medicine, law enforcement, and military training. Inevitably, real-world law will regulate them. But should virtual worlds be fully integrated into our real-world legal system or should they be treated as separate jurisdictions with their own forms of dispute resolution? What rules should govern virtual communities? Should the law step in to protect property rights when virtual items are destroyed or stolen?

These questions, and many more, are considered in The State of Play, where legal experts, game designers, and policymakers explore the boundaries of free speech, intellectual property, and creativity in virtual worlds. The essays explore both the emergence of law in multiplayer online games and how we can use virtual worlds to study real-world social interactions and test real-world laws.

Contributors include: Jack M. Balkin, Richard A. Bartle, Yochai Benkler, Caroline Bradley, Edward Castronova, Susan P. Crawford, Julian Dibbell, A. Michael Froomkin, James Grimmelmann, David R. Johnson, Dan Hunter, Raph Koster, F. Gregory Lastowka, Beth Simone Noveck, Cory Ondrejka, Tracy Spaight, and Tal Zarsky.

Each year the federal individual income tax code provides over $500 billion worth of incentives intended to encourage socially beneficial activities, such as charitable contributions, homeownership, and education. This is an enormous investment, exceeding our budget for national defense and amounting to about 4% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The design of these tax incentives is an immensely important policy matter. Yet despite their efficiency rationale, little attention has been paid to the question of what economic efficiency implies about the form these tax incentives should take.

This second edition of Child Psychology: A Handbook of Contemporary Issues reflects the increasingly sophisticated and varied research methods used to examine the highly complex interactions contributing to children's cognitive, emotional, and social development. Those chapters that appeared in the previous edition have been thoroughly updated and new chapters by outstanding researchers have been introduced. In addition, there is an entirely new section on Adolescence and thorough coverage of salient Ecological Influences, which make this second edition a truly comprehensive resource on the important issues in child psychology. The volume is divided into five sections - Infancy, Preschool Years, Childhood, Adolescence, and Ecological Influences - which: * Describe the nature of development and individual variations in developmental trajectories across multiple domains * Identify the processes and mechanisms underlying developmental and contextual change * Explore the varied contexts in which development unfolds, including family, school, neighborhood, and culture * Apply cutting-edge research designs, methodologies, and analytic approaches to models of development The volume provides an invaluable and practical resource for students and instructors on a wide variety of courses, and for researchers and professionals working in the field of child development.

New York State, because of its great diversity, has more extensive social and political conflict than most states. Governing New York State: Fifth Edition provides expert assessment of how these conflicts are organized and represented, and how the political process and political institutions work to seek to resolve them. This newly updated fifth edition contains significantly revised material and covers more topics than the prior edition.

The contributors examine conflicts between New York City and the rest of the state, and between federal, state, and local governments. The role of major political parties in organizing and representing broad coalitions of different groups is reviewed, along with the role of third parties, interest groups, and the media. Political institutions that shape the political process-the governor, the legislature, the courts, and the public authorities-are discussed, along with how these institutions affect the representation of responsiveness of various groups. Finally, Governing New York State investigates the major policy areas of the state: the economy, taxes, local education, higher education, health care, welfare, transportation, and the environment.

Public schools across the United States are educating an increasing number and diversity of immigrant students. Unfortunately, little is known about their performance relative to native-born students and the extent to which the "nativity gap" might be explained by school and demographic characteristics. This article takes a step toward filling that void using data from New York City where 17 percent of elementary and middle school students are immigrants. We explore disparities in performance between foreign-born and native-born students on reading and math tests in three ways�using levels (unadjusted scores), "value-added" scores (adjusted for prior performance), and an education production function. While unadjusted levels and value-added measures often indicate superior performance among immigrants, disparities are substantially explained by student and school characteristics. Further, while the nativity gap differs for students from different world regions, disparities are considerably diminished in fully specified models. We conclude with implications for urban schools in the United States.

Insight comes from hindsight.  By reviewing enduring problems in education finance and policy, observing what we did right and seeing when we were surprised and why, we can identify research issues that we missed, avoid similar mistakes in the future, and move forward toward work that is even more productive and useful in the field of education finance and policy.

This chapter considers whether effects of antipoverty policy on children's school performance differ by ethnicity, and if so, why. We explore several hypotheses: those that derive from human capital theory, theories about family structure and family process, and person-environment fit theory. A major finding is that, in addition to the role of human capital, we find evidence to support the hypothesis that person-environment fit matters. That is, the fit between policy contexts and personal values and goals, such as motivation to pursue one's own education, appears to play a role in explaining differences by race and ethnicity in effects of welfare and employment policies on children.

Simply stated, health literacy is the ability to obtain, understand, and effectively use health-related information. In a recent report entitled "Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion," the Institute of Medicine estimated that 90 million adults may lack the needed literacy skills to effectively use the U.S. health care system. Extrapolating from the National Adult Literacy Survey, approximately 36 percent of New York City adults would not be able to identify the name of a hospital in a short article; an additional 27 percent would not be able to fill out a standard health insurance form. Health care providers and patients typically do not identify low health literacy as a major issue, but both groups are well aware of its consequences. Health care professionals know they need improved communication with their patients so that they can better understand patient concerns and priorities, engage them as active partners in their care, improve their grasp of protocols for care management and the need for preventive care and screening, and ensure that they know when and where to seek care and how to navigate the health care system. Conversely, adults with low literacy skills often feel intimidated by the complexity of the health care system, by the forms and instructions, and by medical terminology. To avoid appearing ignorant, they may be hesitant to ask questions or express concerns, thereby compounding the problem. All of these difficulties are exacerbated when patients do not speak English well and are unfamiliar with the U.S. health care system.

The plight of urban schools and their failure to adequately and efficiently educate their students has occupied the national discussion about public schools in America over the last quarter century. While there is little doubt that failing schools exist in rural and suburban locations, the image of city school systems as under-financed, inefficient, inequitable and burdened by students with overwhelming needs is particularly well entrenched in the modern American psyche. As the largest school district in the country, New York City attracts particular attention to its problems. To some extent, this image reflects realities. New York City school children, like many urban students around the country, are more likely to be poor, non-white and immigrants, with limited English skills, and greater instability in their schooling, and the new waves of immigrants from around the world bring students with a formidable array of backgrounds, language skills, and special needs. The resulting changes in the student body pose particular challenges for schools. At the same time, despite a decade of school finance litigation and reform, New York continues to have trouble affording the class sizes, highly qualified teachers and other resources that suburban neighbors enjoy. Finally, there is evidence of continuing segregation and disparities in performance between students of different races and ethnicities.

Contains papers by state education dept. policymakers, analysts, & data providers on emerging issues in school finance. Includes: estimates of disparities & analysis of the causes of expenditures in public school districts; race, poverty & the student curriculum; court-ordered school finance equalization; resource allocation to schools under conditions of radical decentralization; building equity & effectiveness into school-based funding models; alternative options for deflating education expenditures over time; productivity collapse in schools; & evaluating the effect of teacher degree level on educational performance.

The world of policy represents the confluence of a number of intellectual strands in which the clinician brings science together with intuition, and uses his or her experience to interpret the evidence and make recommendations for treatment. This important volume brings together leading scholars to explore the "how" of thinking about policy--the questions, values, judgments and experience the analyst brings to bear.

School performance and efficiency measurement have taken center stage in much of the debate and research in education policy since at least the mid-1990s. Despite the clear theoretical and practical importance of understanding the ways in which school performance can be measured, only limited research exists on alternative ways to measure how well schools are educating their students, delivering what parents want, and using resources efficiently. In this volume, the authors of eight chapters address the measurement of school performance, an issue that lies in between the study of technical characteristics of student assessments, on the one hand, and the effectiveness of accountability systems that use those assessments, on the other. Although psychometricians focus on the reliability, validity, and fairness of individual student assessments, and social scientists address whether state and local accountability systems that use those student assessments are effective ways to influence school performance, the authors of this volume consider the pros and cons of alternative measurements of school performance and efficiency, per se.

School performance and efficiency measurement have taken center stage in much of the debate and research in education policy since at least the mid-1990s. Despite the clear theoretical and practical importance of understanding the ways in which school performance can be measured, only limited research exists on alternative ways to measure how well schools are educating their students, delivering what parents want, and using resources efficiently. The authors address the measurement of school performance, an issue that lies between the study of technical characteristics of student assessments, on the one hand, and the effectiveness of accountability systems that use those assessments, on the other. Although psychometricians focus on the reliability, validity, and fairness of individual student assessments, and social scientists address whether state and local accountability systems that use those student assessments are effective ways to influence school performance, the authors of this volume consider the pros and cons of alternative measurements of school performance and efficiency, per se.

The Resolving Conflict Creatively Program (RCCP) is one of the oldest and largest school-based conflict resolution programs in the United States. Beginning in 1994, we planned and implemented a rigorous scientific evaluation of the RCCP, involving over 350 teachers and 11,000 children from 15 public elementary schools in New York City. In this chapter, we describe the RCCP, explain the rationale for and design of the study, summarize the major results related to the program's impact on children's trajectories of social and emotional learning (SEL) and academic achievement, and discuss the implications of these findings for research, practice, and policy.

Educational reform over the past two decades has focused primarily on schools as the critical units of change, often ignoring the role of districts and their effect on schools' performance. Although national reform efforts such as the recently reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act (the No Child Left Behind Act), are directed primarily at schools, local school districts are responsible for a number of functions critical to schooling effectiveness (e.g., hiring, collective bargaining, curriculum development, assessment, fiscal operations, and ancillary functions). Refocusing attention on districts and their effect on schools, this study found differences between high-and low performing community school districts, or administrative subunits, within the NewYork City school system in terms of educational goals, instructional focus, leadership development, teacher recruitment and retention, and professional development.

Bush continues a trend toward smaller agendas begun in the wake of the 1981 tax cuts, which sharply constrained the amount of federal funding for large scale, new programs. He also continues a trend among Republican presidents toward a �less-is-more� philosophy of domestic policy. His agenda is half as large as Richard Nixon's first-term agenda in 1969-72, a third smaller than Ronald Reagan's first-term agenda in 1981-84, and a quarter smaller than his father's first-term agenda in 1989-92. Although less ambitious than his predecessors, Bush's limited number of large-scale, new proposals have been undeniably bold. His tax cuts, education reform, social security revisions, prescription drug coverage, and homeland security reorganization are easily classified as large-scale, new proposals, and match up with the large-scale, new proposals of the past such as civil rights, voting rights, and Medicare under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, environmental protection, revenue sharing, and national health insurance under Richard M. Nixon, energy and social security reform under Jimmy Carter, tax cuts under Ronald Reagan, budget reform under George H. W. Bush, and national health care, Americorps, and welfare reform under Bill Clinton. However, what sets George W. Bush apart is the relatively shallow depth of his agenda. Whereas Kennedy and Johnson pursued 54 large-scale, new proposals in their two first terms, and Nixon another 18, Bush has pursued just five in his. Simply put, George W. Bush has placed all of his domestic policy proposals in a very small basket. Half of his agenda consists of small-scale, conventional proposals, including expanded drug treatment, pension reform, and an energy package that pales in comparison to the energy bills of previous administrations.

In many urban areas in the United States, immigrant children and the children of immigrants are transforming local schools. Immigrant children face - and pose - significant challenges to these schools, challenges that are in many ways greater than those of earlier waves of immigrants. There is, however, relatively little existing research investigating the ways urban public school systems treat and are influenced by the increasing numbers of immigrant children. Using an extraordinarily rich, student-level panel data set covering all 850 of New York City's elementary and middle schools for 5 years, linked to institutional information on the schools themselves, we study the experience of one large urban school system. Given the extraordinary size and diversity of the immigrant population in New York City, we can consider separately subgroups of immigrants whose experiences in and impacts on urban schools systems are likely to differ greatly. This is particularly important for drawing lessons for other urban areas that face flows of immigrants from specific countries of origin.

Our project contains a cross-sectional and a time series component. To start, we examine the characteristics of the schools and districts attended by New York City's immigrant children, including the extent to which the teachers and resources of different groups of immigrant children differ from each other and from the typical native-born student. We examine the degree to which they are segregated within the city's districts and schools - and investigate the extent to which segregation differs between elementary and middle schools. This is particularly interesting because of the strong link between elementary school choice and residential location and the weaker link (and greater degree of choice) at the middle school level.

We will also focus on the "receiving" schools from the perspective of the native-born students, particularly minority and poorer students. While the presence of recent immigrants brings some supplemental federal funding, and additional resources are typically directed at students with Limited English Proficiency, the net resource impact on the schools and their students is poorly understood.

In the second component of our project (exploiting the time-series nature of our data) we will examine changes in school composition over time. Do specific characteristics drive patterns of change? At the school level, we will assess whether and how the presence of native-born students changes in response to changes in the share of students who are immigrants, children of immigrants, and those with limited English proficiency. By tracking the movement of children from one school to another, we can investigate the characteristics of the origin and destination schools (such as population composition and school resources) that appear to affect mobility and identify groups most sensitive to these factors. Are urban school districts in high immigrant areas likely to suffer from more middle-class flight? To what extent does the response depend upon the socioeconomic characteristics of the immigrants - their race, ethnicity, language proficiency, and/or country of origin? This second piece moves beyond a cross-sectional assessment of the resource allocations and impacts associated with immigration, to suggest how these impacts will change over time for other urban districts receiving immigrant children and, perhaps, the issues and problems that policymakers to consider in formulation policy responses.

This paper explores the determinants of resource allocation across schools in large districts and examines options for improving resource distribution patterns. Previous research on intra-district allocations consistently reveals resource disparities across schools within districts, particularly in the distribution of teachers. While overall expenditures are sometimes related to the characteristics of students in schools, the ratio of teachers per pupil is consistently larger in high poverty, high-minority and low-performing schools. These teachers, though, generally have lower experience and education levels � and consequently, lower salaries � as compared to teachers in more advantaged schools. We explore these patterns in New York City, Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio by estimating de facto expenditure equations relating resource measures to school and student characteristics. Consistent with previous research, we find schools that have higher percentages of poor pupils receive more money and have more teachers per pupil, but the teachers tend to be less educated and less well paid, with a particularly consistent pattern in New York City schools. The paper concludes with policy options for changing intradistrict resource distributions in order to promote more efficient, more equitable or more effective use of resources. These options include allocating dollars rather than teacher positions to schools, providing teacher pay differentials in hard-to-staff schools and subjects, and adapting current district-based funding formulas to the school (and student) level.

Investing in Children, Youth, Families, and Communities takes a theoretically exciting and socially critical view of human development and the power of context to shape positive outcomes. Co-editors Kenneth I. Maton, Cynthia J. Schellenbach, Bonnie J. Leadbeater, and Andrea L. Solarz bring together leading social scientists and policy experts to discuss what helps or hinders healthy development.

A transformative theme, from deficits to strengths, emerges in this book, as it surveys the mounting evidence that programs that shore up resilience can and do work. Empirically rich chapters show how children, youth, families, and communities can be vital resources in countering the challenges posed by violence, abuse, neglect, and other obstacles to development. It provides concrete examples of programs that recognize, strengthen, and marshal the abilities of individuals and groups traditionally assumed to be deficient or in need of "fixing."

Uniquely, this book also extends the scientific findings to real-world program and policy implications. Each chapter is co-authored by scholars and policy experts with complementary strengths, bringing together expertise in the psychosocial aspects of an issue and expertise in social policy.

Study objective: The study tests the extent to which primary care physician supply (office based primary care physicians per 10 000 population) moderates the association between social inequalities and infant mortality and low birth weight throughout the 50 states of the USA.

Design: Pooled cross sectional, time series analysis of secondary data. Analyses controlled for state level education, unemployment, racial/ethnic composition, income inequality, and urban/rural differences. Contemporaneous and time lagged covariates were modelled.

Setting: Eleven years (1985-95) of data from 50 US states (final n = 549 because of one missing data point).

Main results: Primary care was negatively associated with infant mortality and low birth weight in all multivariate models (p<0.0001). The association was consistent in contemporaneous and time lagged models. Although income inequality was positively associated with low birth weight and infant mortality (p<0.0001), the association with infant mortality disappeared with the addition of sociodemographic covariates.

Conclusions: In US states, an increased supply of primary care practitioners-especially in areas with high levels of social disparities-is negatively associated with infant mortality and low birth weight.

In New York City, where almost 14 percent of elementary school pupils are foreign-born and roughly half of these are "recent immigrants," the impact of immigrant students on school resources may be important. While immigrant advocates worry about inequitable treatment of immigrant students, others worry that immigrants drain resources from native-born students. In this article, we explore the variation in school resources and the relationship to the representation of immigrant students. To what extent are variations in school resources explained by the presence of immigrants per se rather than by differences in student educational needs, such as poverty or language skills, or differences in other characteristics, such as race? Our results indicate that, while schools resources decrease with the representation of immigrants, this relationship largely reflects differences in the educational needs of immigrant students. Although analyses that link resources to the representation of foreign-born students in 12 geographic regions of origin find some disparities, these are again largely driven by differences in educational need. Finally, we find that some resources increase over time when there are large increases in the percentage of immigrants in a school, but these results are less precisely estimated. Thus, elementary schools appear not to be biased either against or for immigrants per se, although differences in the needs of particular groups of immigrant students may lead to more (or fewer) school resources.

As the HIV/AIDS epidemic enters its third decade, rates of infection continue to rise in ethnic minority populations. Though the prevalence of HIV among Asian and Pacific Islander (A&PI) gay men remains to be clearly documented, research has shown that these men engage in relatively high rates of HIV risk behavior. The social discrimination that minority gay men experience may impact their HIV risk behavior and mental health (Diaz & Ayala, 2001). This article examines the experiences of and response to social discrimination among A&PI gay men, and their links to HIV risk behaviors. The study analyzes 166 narrative episodes of discrimination, as well as data on HIV risk obtained from in-depth interviews with 23 A&PI gay men. Results showed that A&PI gay men experience types of discrimination across a variety of contexts. Homophobia and anti-immigrant discrimination were linked to confrontation and social network-based responses whereas discrimination based in stereotypes of passivity / submission were linked with self-attribution. A&PI gay men who used confrontational, social network-based or avoidance response types showed less HIV risk than those who did not. Conversely, A&PI gay men who responded to discrimination with self-attribution showed greater HIV risk behaviors. These findings indicate that experiences of social discrimination and responses to discrimination may impact A&PI gay men's well-being and health.

As we enter the third decade of the AIDS epidemic, HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death for Black U.S. citizens between the ages of 25-44. Black MSM have the highest incidence of AIDS in the U.S. Research is needed on the individual and contextual factors that place these men at risk. This study asks: 1) What are the profiles of social network and social/political group involvement for Black MSM? 2) Do levels of peer norms, AIDS knowledge, self-efficacy, and AIDS ethnocentrism differ for Black MSM according to their social networks and social activity? 3) Does HIV-risk differ for Black MSM according to their social involvement? METHODS: The sample consisted of 318 Black MSM. The average age was 31 years old, and 88% of the participants were single. 33% of the sample reported engaging in sexual behavior with both men and women. Measures included age, education level, make-up of social networks (race, sexual orientation), participation in social/political groups of Black gay, White gay and heterosexual types, levels of condom efficacy, peer norms, AIDS knowledge and AIDS ethnocentrism and number of instances of unprotected anal intercourse (UAI) in the past 6 months. Data were analyzed using cluster analysis, regression analysis and ANOVA. RESULTS: Men who were active in social/political groups were less likely to engage in UAI than men who were not active. This effect was mediated by higher condom efficacy and lower AIDS ethnocentrism. The study also showed that men with largely Black and gay networks reported higher UAI than men with White gay social networks. CONCLUSION: Results show that different social patterns among Black MSM can lead to different outcomes regarding HIV-risk. These findings will inform AIDS prevention efforts for Black MSM, and promote use of a framework that incorporates both individual and contextual factors in understanding HIV-risk.

Seven percent of newborns in the United States weigh in at less than five and one half pounds. These "low birth weight" babies face challenges that others will never know--challenges that begin with a greater risk of infant mortality and extend well into adulthood in the form of health and developmental problems. Because low birth weight is often accompanied by social risk factors such as minority racial status, low education, young maternal age, and low income, the question of causes and consequences--of precisely how biological and social factors figure into this equation--becomes especially tricky to sort out. This is the question that The Starting Gate takes up, bringing a novel perspective to the nature-nurture debate by using the starting point of birth as a lens to examine biological and social inheritance. Seven percent of newborns in the United States weigh in at less than five and one half pounds. These "low birth weight" babies face challenges that others will never know--challenges that begin with a greater risk of infant mortality and extend well into adulthood in the form of health and developmental problems. Because low birth weight is often accompanied by social risk factors such as minority racial status, low education, young maternal age, and low income, the question of causes and consequences--of precisely how biological and social factors figure into this equation--becomes especially tricky to sort out. This is the question that The Starting Gate takes up, bringing a novel perspective to the nature-nurture debate by using the starting point of birth as a lens to examine biological and social inheritance.

For over a decade, perhaps no other issue in education has generated the same level of debate and policy activity as school accountability. At their most basic, accountability policies tie school rewards and sanctions to measures of school performance, typically specified as either performance levels (for example, aggregate percentile ranks or the percentage of students meeting specified benchmarks) or changes in performance (for example, increases in aggregate test scores or in the percentage of students meeting benchmarks). While most accountability efforts have been enacted at the state and local level, the peak of this movement may be the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, which requires states to demonstrate adequate yearly progress in reading and mathematics performance by school and by subgroups within schools. Common to these reform efforts is the underlying notion that incentives based upon measures of school performance will spur improvements in student performance.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The goal of this study was to test whether primary care reduces the impact of income inequality on stroke mortality. METHODS: This study used pooled time-series cross-sectional analysis of 11 years of state-level data (n=549). Analyses controlled for education levels, unemployment, racial/ethnic composition, and percent urban. Contemporaneous and time-lagged covariates were modeled. RESULTS: Primary care was negatively associated with stroke mortality in models including all covariates (P<0.0001). The impact of income inequality on stroke mortality was reduced in the presence of primary care (P<0.0001) but disappeared with the addition of covariates (P>0.05). CONCLUSIONS: In the absence of social policy that addresses sociodemographic determinants of health, primary care promotion may serve as a palliative strategy for combating stroke mortality and reducing the adverse impact of income inequality on health.

Discusses the challenges posed by incorporating Statement No. 34 of the U.S. Governmental Accounting Standards Board, Basic Financial Statements-and Management's Discussion and Analysis-for State and Local Governments (GASB 34) in the core curriculum of a school. Generally accepted accounting principles and GASB 34; Pedagogical issues in GASB 34; Dynamism in learning governmental accounting.

The use of private money to support public schools in New York City captured the attention of the public in 1997, as parents in a Greenwich Village elementary school tried to raise private salary funds to prevent one of their teachers from being reassigned. While some heralded the parents for their commitment to their children's education and their willingness to fight to improve their public school, others lamented the action, citing concerns for funding equity between more affluent schools and economically disadvantaged schools. In the end, the Chancellor decided to maintain the teacher in question, but not to accept the privately-raised revenues out of a concern for setting a precedent for allowing parents to fund "core functions" rather than "enrichment" programs. Clearly, this concern stemmed, at least in part, from an underlying worry that allowing schools to seek and accept privately-raised revenues would pose a threat to the equity of schooling in New York City. Would accepting privately-raised money lead schools serving higher income students to have better funding (or better teachers, smaller classes, for example) than those serving lower income students? At the same time, privately-raised resources may also present efficiency concerns. Would curricula or programmatic offerings be chosen based upon the availability of outside funding, rather than the particular needs of the students? This paper explores both the equity and efficiency issues surrounding the use of privately-raised revenues to support public schools, and provides some evidence on the distribution of privately-raised support across public schools in New York City.

State accountability systems as well as the system written into the reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act rely on measures of performance to judge how well schools are educating their students. While the role of districts in financing schools is well known, relatively little attention has been paid to any other function the district might have in determining school performance. Advocates for school-based budgeting and school-based financing argue that educational policymaking and primary control cover budgeting is best left to schools, with more limited responsibilities for districts in areas such as support services for joint purchasing or professional development. At the same time, the movements toward greater state financing and more stringent state accountability systems are strong forces shifting revenue raising and authority aver curriculum from the district to the state level. Do districts continue to matter at all in how schools perform? Why and in what ways?

Two key questions are addressed regarding the intersection of socioeconomic status, biology, and low birth weight over the life course. First, do the income and other socioeconomic conditions of a mother during her pregnancy affect her chances of having a low-birth-weight infant net of her own birth weight, that of the father, and other family-related, unobserved factors? Second, does an individual's birth weight status affect his or her adult life chances net of socioeconomic status? These questions have implications for the way we conceive of the relationship between socio- economic status and health over the life course, specifically in sorting out causal directionality. We use intergenerational data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, for the years 1968 through 1992. Results of sibling comparisons (family- fixed-effects models) demonstrate that maternal income does not appear to have a significant impact on birth weight. However, low birth weight results in lower educational attainment net of other factors. These findings suggest that, when considered across generations, causality may not be as straightforward as implied by cross-sectional or unigenerational longitudinal studies.

For the first time in more than four decades, the federal budget has registered two consecutive surpluses, and the need to reduce the deficit is not casting a pall over the policy debate. This new, highly accessible book examines the policy options that are available in this new environment to address the new and recurring challenges that face the nation.

The book, which continues the Brookings Institution's highly acclaimed and influential Setting National Priorities series, will serve as a guide for understanding many of the complex issues that will be discussed during the presidential and congressional campaigns of 2000. The book centers around three themes: providing opportunity in the domestic arena, restoring confidence in government, and adapting to the post-Cold War international environment. It tackles such critical issues as Medicare and social security, tax reform, and foreign policy spending, as well as many area not included in previous editions; namely, education, urban problems, the environment, trade, government renewal and reform, crime and drugs, and families.

This article reflects on a need for social and behavioral science expertise in public health departments in the U.S. for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases (STD). In the developed world, the U.S. has the highest rates of STD, higher than for some developing countries. As a result of sexual behaviors, which are shaped by social and environmental factors in communities, individuals are at risk for STD. A landmark report by the Institute of Medicine in 1997 concluded that the outbreak of STD is influenced by the lack of awareness among the general public, lack of skills and training among health professionals and the absence of an effective national system for the prevention of STD.

As youth violence continues to rise in the United States, even when adult crime rates are falling, the search for effective youth violence prevention strategies becomes more urgent. Because of near-universal school attendance by American children (until some time in high school), schools are a common site for preventive interventions, including strategies to prevent youth violence. But despite the growing need for youth violence prevention and the logic and attractiveness of using schools as prevention sites, the literature on empirical evaluations of school-based violence prevention initiatives is scattered and thin. The primary purpose of this chapter is to begin to compile the scant existing systematic literature on violence prevention programs in schools. A second purpose is to provide a developmental and contextual framework within which to understand current school-based violence prevention efforts.

Finally, a third purpose of this chapter is to briefly raise two sets of issues based on the description and analysis of school-based youth violence prevention initiatives that, in our opinion, are critical to our nation's progress in preventing youth violence. They are: (1) how to begin to move from violence prevention programs to violence prevention policies, and (2) how to develop a prevention science for school violence adequate to the task of guiding prevention policy.