High School Exit Exams and Dropout in an Era of Increased Accountability

A key form of student‐level accountability is the requirement for students to pass high school exit exams (HSEEs) in order to receive a diploma. In this paper, we examine the impact of HSEEs on dropout during a period when these exams became more common and rigorous. Further, we study whether offering alternate pathways to graduation for students who cannot pass HSEEs moderates any dropout effects. Using a district‐grade‐level panel assembled from the Common Core of Data, we exploit the fact that new exit exam policies first affect a particular graduating class, so we can isolate the impact of exposure to HSEEs for students in one grade in a district separate from other unaffected grades in the same district. We estimate dropout effects by grade for all students, and by race, sex, and urbanicity. We find that HSEEs increase dropout rates for students in the 12th grade, with especially large effects for African‐American students. Dropout effects are uniformly larger in states that do not provide alternate pathways to receive a diploma or alternative credentials for students that cannot pass exit exams. We estimate that 1.25 percent of 12th graders in these states do not graduate with their high school class, likely due to having a diploma withheld because of inability to pass the requisite HSEE. © 2013 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Postmodern politics and the battle for the future

Abstract

The postmodern turn which has so marked social and cultural theory also involves conflicts between modern and postmodern politics. In this study, we articulate the differences between modern and postmodern politics and argue against one‐sided positions which dogmatically reject one tradition or the other in favor of partisanship for either the modern or the postmodern. Arguing for a politics of alliance and solidarity, we claim that this project is best served by drawing on the most progressive elements of both the modern and postmodern traditions. Developing a new politics involves overcoming the limitations of certain versions of modern politics and postmodern identity politics in order to develop a politics of alliance and solidarity equal to the challenges of the coming millennium.     

德意志联邦共和国的青少年犯罪问题

<正> 从总的发展趋势来看,二次世界大战以后的一段时期,西德青少年犯罪率大大提高,到1954～1955年犯罪率暂时降低,但之后青少年犯罪越来越严重,因而犯罪学家乌尔金斯说过,现代的西德青少年是"犯罪的一代"。这个论题已载入西德的专门交献中。     

“王朝案”中的证据法难题及其破解

"王朝案"的发生引发了三个证据法上的疑难问题:一是证据的合法性问题,主要涉及侦查人员无管辖权取证的效力问题;二是瑕疵证据的补正和合理解释"度"问题;三是证据采信的公正性问题,尤其是特殊侦查措施所获证据应否公开质证的问题。从证据法理上讲,侦查机关虽然违反管辖权而取证,但若并未侵犯被追诉人公正审判权,所获证据自无排除之必要;瑕疵证据的补正或合理解释"度",以确证瑕疵证据的客观性和真实性为已足;特殊侦查措施所获的证据材料,虽然可以不向公众公开,即实行不公开审理,但却必须向辩方公开特殊侦查的结果,并允许辩护人参与该证据的质证过程。     

Institutions and Economic Performance: The Use and Abuse of Culture in New Institutional Economics

Important research programs within New Institutional Economics advance culturalist arguments to explain failures of economic development. Focusing on the work of Douglass C. North and Avner Greif, this article argues that such arguments rely on an essentialist conception of culture that is both historically inaccurate and analytically misleading. Greif’s work in particular rests on a selective use of empirical data that ultimately distorts the deductive models that are at the core of his work. As a result, both scholars use culture to account for outcomes that are more adequately explained as the product of social conflict and political struggles—struggles in which culture plays a far more contingent and destabilizing role than the one they attribute to it. What is needed, I argue, is to link arguments about the persistence of inefficient institutions with a sociologically informed conception of culture as an ensemble of resources that enhance rather than constrain the scope of individual agency. To come to terms with the effects of culture on institutional formation and change it is necessary to replace the essentialism articulated by North and Greif with a strategic-instrumentalist view in which culture is compatible with a wide spectrum of economic behaviors, individual actions, and thus institutional trajectories.

促渗透剂在鸡胚胎免疫中应用的初步研究

选用氮酮和丙二醇作促渗透剂,观察2种渗透剂在气室膜对台盼蓝的促渗透作用及对鸡胚的毒性作用.结果表明,10、20和40 g/L氮酮均有明显的促渗透作用,且其间差异不显著,但随其浓度升高,对鸡胚的毒性作用增强.     

试析建设台湾海峡航运港口体系

构建台湾海峡航运港口体系具有重大意义 ,也具备不少有利条件。建设台湾海峡航运港口体系的内容 ,包括两岸合作建设台湾海峡物流中心 ,港口群 ,港口信息网 ,多功能港口航运体系和航运管理体系 ,以及合作进行航运科研开发和人才培训等     

Challenging U.S. Policymakers' Image of an Isolationist Public

A persisting question in international studies is whether academic research can have an impact on the making of foreign policy. Much research has shown that policy decisions can be greatly influenced by misperceptions, just as much as by objective factors. The article describes an effort by academic researchers to challenge U.S. policymakers' image of an actor in the U.S. foreign policy process—the American public. The study's focus was a widely held assumption in the U.S. foreign policy community that the American public in the wake of the Cold War was entering a renewed phase of isolationism, similar to the interwar years. The study first interviewed policy practitioners on their perceptions of the public, then performed a comprehensive review of existing polling data, and finally conducted new polls with input from policymakers themselves. The net result of the elite interviews and the analysis of public attitudes revealed a significant gap in all areas, which is presented in synopsis. Interviews with policy practitioners reveal two key dynamics that could well contribute to policymakers' misreading the public: a failure to seek out information about the public and a tendency to assume that the vocal public is representative of the general public. Indications that the study did have some impact on the thinking of policy practitioners are discussed in the conclusion.