Federal Oversight, Local Control, and the Specter of "Resegregation" in Southern Schools

Analyzing data for the 100 largest districts in the South andBorder states, we ask whether there is evidence of "resegregation"of school districts and whether levels of segregation can belinked to judicial decisions. We distinguish segregation measuresbased on racial isolation from those based on racial imbalance.Only one measure of racial isolation suggests that districtsin these regions experienced resegregation between 1994 and2004, and changes in this measure appear to be driven largelyby the rising nonwhite percentage in the student populationrather than by district policies. Although we find no time trendin racial imbalance over this period, we find that variationsin racial imbalance across districts are nonetheless associatedwith judicial declarations of unitary status, suggesting thatsegregation in schools might have declined had it not been forthe actions of federal courts.     

The Neglected Power of Elite Opinion Leadership to Produce Antipathy Toward the News Media: Evidence from a Survey Experiment

Today, most Americans dislike the news media as an institution. This has led to considerable debate about why people dislike the media and how their public standing could be improved. This paper contributes to this literature by using a survey experiment to test the effect of several different considerations on evaluations of the media. It finds, consistent with the broader literature on political persuasion, that elite partisan opinion leadership can powerfully shape these attitudes. Additionally, it finds that tabloid coverage creates antipathy toward the press regardless of predispositions and that horserace coverage has a negative effect on opinions among politically aware citizens on both sides of the political spectrum. Contrary to some claims in the literature, this study finds no detectable effect of news negativity.     

Status versus growth: The distributional effects of school accountability policies

Although the federal No Child Left Behind program judges the effectiveness of schools based on their students' achievement status, many policy analysts argue that schools should be measured, instead, by their students' achievement growth. Using a 10‐year student‐level panel data set from North Carolina, we examine how school‐specific pressure associated with status and growth approaches to school accountability affect student achievement at different points in the prior‐year achievement distribution. Achievement gains for students below the proficiency cut point emerge in schools failing either type of accountability standard, with the effects clearer for math than for reading. In contrast to prior research highlighting the possibility of educational triage, we find little or no evidence that failing schools in North Carolina ignore the students far below proficiency under either approach. Importantly, we find that the status, but not the growth, approach reduces the reading achievement of higher performing students. Our analysis suggests that the distributional effects of accountability pressure depend not only on the type of pressure for which schools are held accountable (status or growth), but also the tested subject. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

From Birth to School: Early Childhood Initiatives and Third‐Grade Outcomes in North Carolina

This study examines the community‐wide effects of two statewide early childhood policy initiatives in North Carolina. One initiative provides funding to improve the quality of child care services at the county level for all children between the ages of 0 to 5, and the other provides funding for preschool slots for disadvantaged four‐year‐olds. Differences across counties in the timing of the rollout and in the magnitude of the state financial investments per child provide the variation in programs needed to estimate their effects on schooling outcomes in third grade. We find robust positive effects of each program on third‐grade test scores in both reading and math. These effects can best be explained by a combination of direct benefits for participants and spillover benefits for others. Our preferred models suggest that the combined average effects on test scores of investments in both programs at 2009 funding levels are equivalent to two to four months of instruction in grade 3.     

Distinguishing juvenile homicide from violent juvenile offending

Juvenile homicide is a social problem that has remained a central focus within juvenile justice research in recent years. The term juvenile murderer describes a legal category, but it is purported to have significant scientific meaning. Research has attempted to conceptualize adolescent murderers as a clinical category that can be reliably distinguished from their nonhomicidal counterparts. This study examined 33 adolescents adjudicated delinquent or awaiting trial for murder and 38 adolescents who committed violent, nonhomicidal offenses to determine whether the two groups differed significantly on family history, early development, delinquency history, mental health, and weapon possession variables. The nonhomicide group proved more problematic on many of these measures. Two key factors did distinguish the homicide group: These adolescents endorsed the greater availability of guns and substance abuse at the time of their commitment offenses. The significance of this finding is discussed, and the implications for risk management and policy are reviewed.     

Reviews

Joseph L. Nogee and Robert H. Donaldson, Soviel Foreign Policy Since World War II. New York: Pergamon Press, 1981. viii + 320 pp. Flexicover, £5.45.

Robert H. Donaldson (ed.), The Soviet Union in the Third World: Successes and Failures. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press / London: Croom Helm, 1981. xiv + 458 pp. Hardcover, $25.00.

Karen Dawisha and Philip Hanson (eds.), Soviet—East European Dilemmas: Coercion, Competition, and Consent. London: Heinemann for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1981. xiv + 226 pp. Paper, £5.95.

Jerry F. Hough, Soviet Leadership in Transition. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1980. viii + 175 pp. $11.95 and $4.95.

Sheila Fitzpatrick, Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union 1921–1934. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. x + 355 pp. £15.50.

Jan Ake Dellenbrant, Soviet Regional Policy: A Quantitative Inquiry into the Social and Political Development of the Soviet Republics. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1980. 192 pp. Sw. kr. 105.—

Maria Hirszowicz, The Bureaucratic Leviathan: A Study in the Sociology of Communism. Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1980. x + 208 pp. £12.50.

Theodore H. Friedgut, Political Participation in the USSR. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1979. xvi + 353 pp. £11.70.

Ronald J. Hill, Soviet Politics, Political Science and Reform. Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1980. x + 221 pp. Hardcover. £12.00.

Daniel N. Nelson, Democratic Centralism in Romania: A Study of Local Communist Politics. Boulder: East European Monographs, distributed by Columbia University Press, New York 1980. xii + 186 pp. $19.50.

Timothy Dunmore, The Stalinist Command Economy: The Soviet State Apparatus and Economic Policy 1945–53. London: Macmillan, 1980. xii + 176 pp. £20.00.

Paul Marrer and John Michael Montias (eds.), East European Integration and East‐West Trade. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980. vi+432 pp. US, Canada $32.50, UK £19.50, Elsewhere $40.63.

Christoph Bertram (ed.), Prospects of Soviet Power in the 1980s. London: Macmillan in association with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1980. 126 pp. £15.00.

Jiri Valenta, Soviet Intervention in Czechoslovakia, 1968: Anatomy of a Decision. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979. xii + 208 pp. £7.75.

R. Selucky, Marx, socialism and freedom. London: Macmillan, 1979. 237 pp. £12.00.

Mihaly Vajda, The State and Socialism. London: Allison and Busby, 1981. 150 pp. £9.95 and £4.50.

Elizabeth Pond, Russia Perceived. A Trans‐Siberian Journey. London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1981. 296 pp. £9.95.

Philip T. Grier, Marxist Ethical Theory in the Soviet Union. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1978. xvii + 276 pp. No price.

Edward M. Swiderski, The Philosophical Foundations of Soviet Aesthetics: Theories and Controversies in the Post‐War Years. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1979. xviii + 225 pp. DM.65, US $34.00.

Edward Braun, The Theatre of Meyerhold: Revolution on the Modern Stage. London: Eyre Methuen, 1979. 299 pp. £9.95.