Head Start's Comparative Advantage: Myth or Reality?

In recent years, Head Start's prominent role in preparing low‐income 4‐year‐olds for school has been affected by rapid growth in state‐funded pre‐K programs, some of which are based in public schools. This has led to questions about the comparative advantages of these two approaches to early education. An analysis of data from Tulsa, Oklahoma, indicates that the school‐based pre‐K program is more effective in improving early literacy outcomes, while Head Start is more effective in improving health outcomes. The two programs are comparable with regard to early math learning. Social–emotional effects are more subtle, but the school‐based pre‐K program has demonstrable positive effects, while the Head Start program does not.     

BEYOND THE QUANTITATIVE CUL-DE-SAC: A QUALITATIVE PERSPECTIVE ON YOUTH EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMS*

There is a pressing need in the United States to develop effective programs that address youth unemployment and the transition from school to work. Based on work at 47 sites in 31 states, this paper reports on a policy evaluation strategy that heavily relied on qualitative research. On-site observers at each of these sites focused on key issues of program implementation, linkages to other agencies and organizations serving youth, and on the effectiveness of different program strategies for different target populations. The utility of qualitative analysis for in-depth assessments of these programs is stressed.     

School Choice and Educational Stratification

Recent growth in the number of school choice programs across the country has ignited debate on the stratifying effects of these programs. In the context of interdistrict open enrollment, this paper analyzes—both theoretically and empirically—how choice programs affect stratification levels through the mechanisms of (i) the relative characteristics of program participants and nonparticipants and (ii) the schooling choices of different groups of program participants. The theoretical analysis uses Monte Carlo simulation techniques to analyze a hypothetical world where interdistrict choice is available to students in three school districts that are allowed to vary in student composition, the type of students who take advantage of the interdistrict choice program, and schooling choices of students who open enroll. The results of these simulations provide an understanding of the conditions under which an interdistrict open enrollment program leads to increases, decreases, or no changes in stratification levels. The empirical analysis uses data from the universe of students attending Colorado public schools in 2009–10 to examine how the state's interdistrict choice program affects stratification levels. It also analyzes the factors responsible for any increases or decreases in stratification and finds both participation patterns and differences in schooling decisions across groups to play important roles. The paper concludes with a discussion of its implications for research and policy.     

School Choice in Milwaukee

For decades educational reformers have identified school choice programs as a strategy for restructuring public school systems. Practically every state has considered or adopted a school assignment program that qualifies as a "choice" initiative, one in which students and parents have some choice in school selection. Increasingly, school districts are contemplating plans that include a choice of private, as well as public, schools. One of the most far-reaching of these school choice plans is the Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Parental Choice Program, which, as legislated, allows parents to use vouchers to enroll their children in both sectarian and nonsectarian schools in the community. This paper explores the evolution of school choice in Milwaukee and examines the extent to which school choice is representative of other privatization efforts currently under way in the United States.     

Bone Modifications Resulting from Captive Chimpanzee Mastication: Implications for the Interpretation of Pliocene Archaeological Faunas

In order to obtain chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) mastication damage on bones, cleaned, disarticulated ribs and long bones of bovids and cervids were coated with food substances found palatable by captive chimpanzees. The bones were then presented to four groups of mixed sex and mixed age chimpanzees from the Tulsa Zoo (Oklahoma) and the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (San Antonio, Texas). In the process of feeding on the coated bones, the chimpanzees inflicted discernible mastication damage on 73·61% of the total recovered bone specimens. Analysis of these chimpanzee-induced bone modifications reveals that non-technological hominoids of the same approximate size and with comparable dentition and bite force to the gracile australopithecines and earliestHomoare very capable of inflicting the same range and degree of damage to bones as are feeding carnivores. This finding implies that zooarchaeologists must take a contextual (configurational) approach when analysing mastication damage on arch-aeological bones, rather than automatically attributing all such damage to carnivores.     

Learning from Schools: School Choice,Political Learning,and Policy Feedback

This article investigates the policy feedback and political learning effects of school vouchers. Of particular interest is how market‐based policies affect the likelihood that program participants will connect their experiences with the policy to the government. I examine parent survey data from an evaluation of the Milwaukee school voucher program. I find that voucher parents are more likely than public school parents to perceive that the government has influenced their child's schooling and to believe that their experiences with their child's school have taught them about how government works. Further, voucher parents report that their experiences with the policy have made them more politically active. While majorities of voucher and public school parents support increased public school expenditures, there is some evidence that school vouchers may decrease support for public schools.     

English-Language Assistance Programs, English-Skill Acquisition, and the Academic Progress of High School Language Minority Students

Utilizing the 1988–1992 surveys from the Restricted-Use National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, I find that language minority students who received English-language assistance (ELA) programs beyond the third grade reported lower English-skill acquisition and made smaller academic progress in high school than their peers. Moreover, while the type of high school ELA program (e.g., bilingual education) differently affected scholastic outcomes, students in such programs did not surpass their counterparts in monolingual-English classes on average.     

Iodization: case report: Indonesia

Historically, most of Indonesia's interior has been severely iodine-deficient, resulting in high levels of endemic goiter and cretinism. In some interior hamlets during the 1980s, cretinism prevalence was found to be 15%, among the world's highest levels. Early in 1995, a national survey of iodized salt consumption found that half of 220,000 households were using adequately iodized salt, 28% inadequately iodized salt, and the rest noniodized salt. A program to teach primary school students about the existence of and rationale for using iodized salt was launched in West Java and six other provinces in 1995. The program was subsequently expanded in 1996 with the training of 100,000 more teachers nationwide. 95% of children in Indonesia attend primary school. Part of Indonesia's goal to eliminate iodine deficiency disorders by the year 2000, the program involves children testing samples of salt consumed at home for the presence of adequate iodine content. Students and parents are then expected to tell their neighbors about the need for iodized salt and share their school iodine test kit with them.     

Multilevel Instruments for Infrastructure Investment: Evaluating State Revolving Funds for Water

In recent decades, the federal government has introduced complex, multilevel state‐operated revolving loan fund programs as an instrument for promoting state and local investment in national infrastructure priorities while limiting direct federal involvement in implementation. A federally funded state revolving fund (SRF) program combines features of a categorical matching grant to states and a subsidized loan program to localities, both of which should lower the effective price of infrastructure investment and therefore promote higher levels of infrastructure investment. However, little evidence exists to date on whether these programs stimulate new subnational spending or instead displace spending that would have occurred otherwise. We evaluate the stimulus effects of SRFs by examining the two largest such programs, the Clean Water and the Drinking Water SRF Programs. Analyzing 17 years of state‐level panel data, we find evidence that the flow of federal funds to states under the SRF programs stimulates new local investment in wastewater infrastructure, but not in drinking water infrastructure. In discussing several possible explanations for these divergent results, we argue for further research that emphasizes the intergovernmental features of this financing tool.     

GEOPHYSICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS AT THE CLEMENT SITE,A CADDO MOUND COMPLEX IN SOUTHEASTERN OKLAHOMA

Abstract

Since the 1960s, few professional archaeological excavations have been conducted at Caddo sites in southeastern Oklahoma. This article summarizes the initial phase of a research program designed to increase our knowledge of this area. Geophysical and archaeological investigations at the Clement site (34Mc8) were conducted during the summer of 2008 by the University of Oklahoma. These revealed deep middens, intact mound stratigraphy, and architecture, and suggest that Clement had multiple Caddo occupations spanning approximately 300 years.     

School Vouchers and Student Attainment: Evidence from a State‐Mandated Study of Milwaukee's Parental Choice Program

In this article we examine educational attainment levels for students in Milwaukee's citywide voucher program and a comparable group of public school students. Using unique data collected as part of a state‐mandated evaluation of the program, we consider high school graduation and enrollment in postsecondary institutions for students initially exposed to voucher schools and those in public schools at the same time. We show that exposure to voucher schools was related to graduation and, in particular, to enrollment and persistence in a 4‐year college. These differences are apparent despite controls for student neighborhoods, demographics, early‐career test scores and—for a subsample of survey respondents—controls for parental education, income, religious behavior, and marital status. We conclude by stressing the implications for future scholarship and policy, including the importance of attainment outcomes in educational research.     

The Importance of Home-Area Studies for Soviet Geography

The article discusses the Soviet Union's nation-wide program of krayevedeniye, a Russian term that is difficult to translate but equivalent in meaning to the German Heimatkunde. The English “home-area studies,” though admittedly unsatisfactory, has been used to avoid foreign terms. The Soviet home-area study program includes amateur studies by local residents, school-sponsored studies to acquaint students with their school district, and government-directed study programs centered on regional museums.     

French Immersion Programs: New Identities and Recurring Concerns

This study focuses upon French immersion programs, an educational innovation which seeks to produce bilingual students in Canada. As part of publicly supported school systems, the program recruits from non-French speaking families. Research findings bearing on the nature of the program, its organization and its eventual outcome are examined. Three problems are discussed: availability and accessibility to the program, competition and conflict arising from it and its meaning for French-Canadian communities.     

DO CAPITAL TAX INCENTIVES ATTRACT NEW BUSINESSES? EVIDENCE ACROSS INDUSTRIES FROM THE NEW MARKETS TAX CREDIT

In this paper, we examine how government policy affects the sorting of industries across jurisdictions using the New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) program. When estimating the impact of the tax credit on business activity, there are likely to be unobservable local characteristics that are correlated with business location decisions that would cause OLS estimates to be biased. To control for this endogenous selection, we use a plausibly exogenous eligibility cutoff and compare census tracts that are just eligible for the NMTC program to those that are just ineligible. Using data from the Dun and Bradstreet MarketPlace Files, we find that eligibility for the NMTC program caused industries to sort across eligible and noneligible tracts. In particular, we find that there is an increase in retail employment, both among new businesses and existing businesses, and an increase in manufacturing employment at existing businesses in tracts that were eligible for the program. However, we find negative effects on employment at new firms in the wholesale and transportation industries, and decreases in the number of new firms in FIRE and services. Policy makers should be cognizant of these results, as the implications of the sorting across industries on local areas must be considered to design effective policy.     

THE POLITICS OF MEASURING POVERTY AMONG THE ELDERLY

We discuss the special problems associated with efforts to measure poverty among the elderly. Income measures must be adjusted for a variety of non-income sources of well-being such as net worth, human capital, and in-kind, transfers. While such adjustments are needed, efforts to date are problematic to the extent that new sources of error are introduced. A close analysis of official government measures of poverty reveals that they reflect a variety of political assumptions and compromises. Examination of the eligibility criteria associated with various government social programs for the elderly reveal implicit poverty lines that differ from the official poverty lines. The importance of these operational poverty lines cannot be overestimated.     

THE SECTION 8 RENTAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAM: COSTS AND POLICY OPTIONS

Housing benefits and income transfers realized by Section 8 program participants are examined. The distribution of benefits depends on income eligibility rules and the level of Fair Market Rents, the latter establishing an upper limit on the quality of housing available to households. By establishing Fair Market Rents for an entire urban area, program regulations tend to exclude the poor from better quality neighborhoods. Subsidy costs for newly constructed units are twice as high as for existing units. Income eligibility rules are such that many more households are eligible than can be supported, creating difficult problems of horizontal equity. Lowering Fair Market Rents or raising the required share of tenant's income paid in rent would tend to reduce these horizontal equity problems.     

Multiple Intelligence Styles in Relation to Improved Academic Performance in Kuwaiti Middle School Reading

Research was conducted with middle‐school Kuwaiti children to assess the effectiveness of student multiple intelligence styles in predicting students' improved reading skills through academic performance. A group of middle school students who had received first quarter grades and enrolled in an after‐school tutoring program were studied, with half of the students in a traditional tutoring program and the other half in a Gardner multiple intelligence style‐tutoring program. Results show that the students in the experimental group (mean = 48.99), whose multiple intelligence was applied to learning, performed better overall for the academic year than the students in the control group (mean = 45.30) who studied using traditional teaching methodology. Gender, school type, and residential living area were all analyzed within the experimental group. The experimental group results show that, with regards to grades during each quarter period, female students attending private institutions living in suburban areas had greater reading improvement.     

Children's agency in resettlement: a study of Swedish cultural orientation programs in Kenya and Sudan

The focus of this study is cultural orientation programs (COPs) for refugees being resettled from Kenya and Sudan in Sweden in 2011. This study aims to highlight how, if at all, children's agency was facilitated during the COPs. The programs were video recorded in order to look at the continuous negotiations during the meetings between the Swedish delegation and the children and youth. The concept of thick and thin agency is used in order to understand how sometimes the overall context of the program as a part of the resettlement process thins the agency of the children.     

Enrichment Training Program and Successful Marriage in Kuwait: a Field Study on Kuwaiti Couples

The main purpose of the current study was to determine whether a marriage enrichment program could effectively increase and improve marital satisfaction and marital communication of Kuwaiti couples. In addition, most of the previous studies which focused on marriage enrichment programs have been conducted with predominantly white, North American married couples (Yelsma, 1988). The study of the impact of the marriage enrichment will provide insight into the ways couples from other cultural backgrounds interact with each other in achieving marital satisfaction, especially, couples from Muslim countries. Participants were 62 married couples (16 couples in the experimental group; 16 couples in the control group) — their marital duration ranging from one year to thirty‐one years. The study examined whether a marital enhancement program could make any change in the marital satisfaction of Kuwaiti couples. The study focused on the following research questions: 1) Do socio‐demo‐graphic factors (age, income, education, duration of marriage, children) play a role on the marital satisfaction level of Kuwaiti couples? 2) Is there a difference in the marital satisfaction scale between male and female in the pre‐test, post‐test marital satisfaction scale? 3) Does the marriage enhancement training program in the Social Development Office (SDO) influence the post‐test level of the marital satisfaction of the participants? The study concluded that the marriage enrichment program in the SDO of Kuwait has had a significant positive effect on marital communication and marital adjustment immediately following the enrichment experience.     

Towards Household Sustainability in Sydney? Impacts of Two Sustainable Lifestyle Workshop Programs on Water Consumption in Existing Homes

Residential water consumption accounts for approximately 70 per cent of Sydney's water consumption. The capacity of households to reduce water consumption is limited by expectations and conventions of water supply shaped by existing water infrastructure ( Allon and Sofoulis, 2006 ) and ‘saver‐unfriendly’ household water fittings ( Sofoulis, 2005 ). Sustainable lifestyle workshop programs – many of which address water use – are relatively new, and rigorous research into their impacts is scarce. Existing research generally relies on reported behaviour change from participants, which is then used to estimate resource savings. This paper examines water consumption data, and the questionnaire responses of participants in two sustainable lifestyle workshop programs, to examine whether reported behavioural and technical changes are translating into significant water savings. The Sustainability Street (Penrith) and GreenHome (Parramatta) programs are changing participant behaviours, but reductions achieved by Sustainability Street are not significant at the 0.05 level. GreenHome reductions, while significant, cannot be fully attributed to the program due to the downward trend commencing prior to the program. The improved behaviour of participants – in comparison to their previous behaviour and the behaviour of non‐participants – is thus not translating into significant water savings. This indicates that the relationship between improved environmental behaviour and actual water savings is not as straightforward as program operators might assume. The implications of this are that research should use real consumption data and not estimations derived from behaviour change, and strategies to reduce household water consumption need to involve bigger technical changes to household water infrastructures.