Printmedia poll reporting in Poland: Poll as news in Polish parliamentary campaigns, 1991–2007

Information about the support given by the public opinion to political actors has become a constant element of the public debate in Poland after the fall of Communism. Very soon polls became an argument in debates, a premise, or a way to justify decisions. At the same time they were criticized both by politicians and journalists convinced that polls can significantly influence the election results. But the fact was not noticed in Poland that all debates about the influence of polls on election outcomes should be preceded by a discussion of the way they are presented in the media. The present article joins this debate by subjecting to analysis the polls published in the Polish press during parliamentary campaigns in the dimensions of the role they played during the recent several years, the quality of methodological information, and of the way the polls were used in the media.As opposed to European and American analyses, no improvement in the conformity to standards of minimal disclosure in newspapers’ reporting of public opinion polls was noticed, although—like in other countries—a dramatic increase in the number of polls reported was observed.     

Would a Value‐Added System of Retention Improve the Distribution of Teacher Quality? A Simulation of Alternative Policies

In this paper, we consider several features of teacher‐retention policies based on value‐added measures of effectiveness under a variety of empirically grounded rules and parameters. We consider the effects of policy design by varying the standard above which satisfactory teachers are expected to perform. We simulate recently adopted policies that remove teachers based on consecutive unsatisfactory performance and compare these to policies that remove teachers based on poor performance on average over a multiyear period. We also consider the precision of the performance measure and the underlying variation in teacher quality on policy effects. Finally, the simulation makes a step forward by incorporating recent empirical findings of a relationship between teacher quality and natural attrition from the profession. Our results indicate that deselection policies based on value‐added measures have the potential to improve teacher quality, although understanding the role of policy design, self‐selected exits, and the underlying variation in teacher quality is essential for determining policy effects.     

The Effects of Uncontested Elections on Legislator Performance

Political competition lies at the core of representative democracy. Yet, uncompetitive elections and uncontested races are widespread in the United States, particularly at the state level. In this article, we analyze the consequences of uncontested elections on lawmaking activity. Our primary hypothesis is that legislators who run unopposed are less active lawmakers than those who were selected through competitive elections. Studying roll‐call vote participation and bill introduction and enactment for most of the U.S. states for 1999–2000, we find that state legislators elected in unopposed elections perform more poorly compared to their colleagues elected in competitive contests.