Policy Topics

Community and Social Issues

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Showing 301 - 330 of 769 results
MPPS

Beyond trust in government: government trust in citizens?

March 1, 2013
This is the first of several reports on the opinions of Michigan’s local government leaders regarding citizen engagement in their jurisdictions. This report focuses on the levels of trust local officials feel toward their citizens as responsible...
Working Papers

Who Benefits from KIPP?

April 1, 2011
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Joshua Angrist (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Susan Dynarski (University of Michigan), Thomas Kane (Harvard University), Parag Pathak (MIT), and Christopher Walters (MIT)
The nation's largest charter management organization is the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP). KIPP schools are emblematic of the No Excuses approach to public education, a highly standardized and widely replicated charter model that features a long...
Working Papers

Labor Market Outcomes and the Transition to Adulthood

June 1, 2010
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Sheldon H. Danziger and David Ratner, University of Michigan
This paper focuses on the labor market outcomes that represent a key marker of the transition to adulthood—the attainment of economic stability and self-sufficiency. Achieving labor market success is a necessary condition for a successful transition...
Working Papers

Mandating Change: Assessing the Implementation of the Michigan Merit Curriculum

June 1, 2010
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Steven Byrd and Kasia Langer, University of Michigan
This report seeks to identify and quantify some of the challenges faced by districts as they push their students to higher academic levels in a time of fiscal hardship. We have conducted surveys and interviews of school and district level personnel...
Working Papers

The Risk of Unemployment among Disadvantaged and Advantaged Male Workers, 1968-2003

June 1, 2010
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Benjamin Keys and Sheldon Danziger, University of Michigan
Over the last three decades, structural changes in the American labor market eliminated many highly‐paid, stable jobs that had previously been available to workers with a high school diploma or less. Job security is important, particularly for the...
Working Papers

Changing Poverty and Changing Antipoverty Policies

June 1, 2010
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Maria Cancian, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Sheldon Danziger, University of Michigan
Since the early 1970s, dramatic changes in the economy, demographic composition of the population and in public policies have combined to reduce the antipoverty effects of economic growth. Because economic growth is now necessary, but not...
Working Papers

Prospects for Expanding Regional Planning Efforts

June 1, 2010
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Elisabeth Gerber, Carolyn G. Loh
We assess the potential for expanding regional planning by asking local government officials their perspectives on the potential for increasing regionalism in their communities, and the most promising approaches to achieving greater regionalism. Our...
Michigan Research Briefs

The Prison Population and Corrections Expenditures

March 1, 2010
The sixth brief reviews trends in crime rates, the incarceration rate, and corrections expenditures. The brief also examines potential solutions to reduce the cost of corrections while maintaining public...
Michigan Research Briefs

Smoke-Free Legislation

March 1, 2010
This first brief examines a variety of policy issues related to smoke-free legislation including economic issues, public health issues, and questions of the role of government in the private...
Working Papers

The Impact of No Child Left Behind on Student Achievement.

February 1, 2010
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Thomas S. Dee, Brian Jacob
The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act compelled states to design schoolaccountability systems based on annual student assessments. The effect of this Federal legislation on the distribution of student achievement is a highly controversial but...
Working Papers

Do Principals Fire the Worst Teachers?

February 1, 2010
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Brian Jacob
This paper takes advantage of a unique policy change to examine how principals make decisions regarding teacher dismissal. In 2004, the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) signed a new collective bargaining agreement that...
Working Papers

Can You Recognize an Effective Teacher When You Recruit One?

February 1, 2009
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Brian Jacob, Thomas J. Kane, Jonah E. Rockoff, Douglas O. Staiger
Research on the relationship between teachers' characteristics and teacher effectiveness has been underway for over a century, yet little progress has been made in linking teacher quality with factors observable at the time of hire. However, most...
Working Papers

The Effect of Grade Retention on High School Completion

February 1, 2009
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Brian Jacob, Lars Lefgren
Low-achieving students in many school districts are retained in a grade in order to allow them to gain the academic or social skills that teachers believe are necessary to succeed academically. In this paper, we use plausibly exogenous variation in...
Working Papers

The Persistence of Teacher-Induced Learning Gains

February 1, 2009
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Brian Jacob, Lars Lefgren, David Sims
Educational interventions are often narrowly targeted and temporary, and evaluations often focus on the short-run impacts of the intervention. Insofar as the positive effects of educational interventions fadeout over time, however, such assessments...
Working Papers

Improving Educational Outcomes for Poor Children

February 1, 2009
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Brian Jacob, Jens Ludwig
This review paper, prepared for the forthcoming Russell Sage volume Changing Poverty, considers the ability of different education policies to improve the learning outcomes of lowincome children in America. Disagreements on this question stem in...