School choice,racial segregation,and test‐score gaps: Evidence from North Carolina's charter school program*

Using panel data that track individual students from year to year, we examine the effects of charter schools in North Carolina on racial segregation and black‐white test score gaps. We find that North Carolina's system of charter schools has increased the racial isolation of both black and white students, and has widened the achievement gap. Moreover, the relatively large negative effects of charter schools on the achievement of black students is driven by students who transfer into charter schools that are more racially isolated than the schools they have left. Our analysis of charter school choices suggests that asymmetric preferences of black and white charter school students (and their families) for schools of different racial compositions help to explain why there are so few racially balanced charter schools. © 2006 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

The impact of child support enforcement policy on nonmarital childbearing

The interaction of welfare and child support regulations has created a situation in which child support policy's incentives that discourage unwed fatherhood tend to be stronger than its incentives that encourage unwed motherhood. This suggests that more stringent child support enforcement creates incentives that reduce the likelihood of nonmarital childbearing, particularly among women with a significant chance of needing public assistance in the event of a nonmarital birth and their male partners. We investigate this hypothesis with a sample of women from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, to which we add information on state child support enforcement. We examine childbearing behavior between the ages of 15 and 44 before marriage and during periods of non‐marriage following divorce or widowhood. The estimates indicate that women living in states with more effective child support enforcement are less likely to bear children when unmarried, especially if they are young, never‐married, or black. The findings suggest that improved child support enforcement may be a potent intervention for reducing nonmarital childbearing. © 2006 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Changes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union: The effects on China

The rapidly changing political, economic, and security policies in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in late 1989 and 1990 have added to the complications faced by Chinese leaders since they decided to suppress the unprecedented large-scale pro-democracy demonstrations in Chinese cities in spring 1989. These changes had an obvious “ripple effect” in China, encouraging prodemocracy forces and alarming Chinese leaders. They attracted strong positive attention from the developed countries of the West and Japan, and international financial institutions and businesses. This came at the indirect expense of China. And they accelerated changes in world politics (especially in U.S.-Soviet relations) and in the politics of government decision making in the West that promised to reduce China’s relative influence in world affairs in the 1990s. The prospect of reduced influence abroad and curbed economic contacts did not appear to be sufficient cause for Beijing leaders to markedly change existing policies. Chinese leaders in mid-1990 appeared focused on issues of internal political power at a time of leadership transition. Significant changes in policy appeared most likely to await leadership changes as Deng Xiaoping and other aged leaders die or are incapacitated.     

When is Growth Not Growth? The Curious Case of Mental Health Budgeting in New York

This article argues that the adverse impact of Medicaid on state budgets alleged in various public debates has been overstated, in some measure because of the inaccurate and misleading manner in which Medicaid expenditures are appropriated in state budgeting systems. Data on Medicaid and mental health spending in the state of New York is used for analysis. The first section provides a Medicaid spending and budgeting background. The second section discusses Medicaid and mental health in New York. The third section describes actual budgeted spending for mental health in New York, and the final section provides a discussion and concluding comments.     

A Successful Transition? ACT Public Finances Under Self-government

Generous Commonwealth funding before self-government in 1989 meant that the ACT enjoyed high government expenditures and low taxation compared with the states. Self-government meant a transition to normal state funding, ultimately involving substantial reductions in Commonwealth grants. Successive governments aligned taxes with other jurisdictions, but failed to reduce expenditures, which remained well above Commonwealth Grants Commission (CGC) assessments of levels necessary to provide a standard level of services. The fiscal position — however measured — has worsened. The transition to normal funding has been unsuccessful and, without the necessary adjustments, a heavy burden will be placed on future Canberrans.     

Is racial separation inevitable and legal?

Her major publications include Dilemmas of Black Politics: Issues of Leadership and Strategy(1993) and The Making of Energy and Telecommunications Policy(1995).     

Guilty by disassociation (and innocent by association): The impact of relevant and irrelevant analogies on political judgments

We investigate how associative (X is similar to Y) and disassociative (X is different from Y) analogies may affect judgments of political target stimuli they are employed to embellish. In an experimental study it was hypothesized that the judgmental relevance of the analogy-target relation is an important determinant of the effect of the analogy on subsequent judgments. It was reasoned that for irrelevant analogies the (dis)associative relation would be less efficiently encoded and utilized than the evaluative tone of the analogy itself, resulting in relative assimilation to the connotation of irrelevant analogies, even where the analogy was actually disassociated from the target. Where the analogy-target relation was relevant to judgments of the target, these judgments were predicted to follow the specified analogy-target relation for both associative and disassociative analogies. The predictions were supported. The relation of these results to social judgment models and to the rhetorical devices used to influence political judgment is discussed.