Racial/ethnic differences in Medicaid expenditures on psychotropic medications among maltreated children

This study quantifies racial/ethnic differences in Medicaid expenditures on psychotropic drugs among a national sample of children with suspected maltreatment. We linked 4,445 child participants in the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) – consisting of children investigated for suspected abuse and neglect – to their Medicaid claims obtained from 36 states. We used propensity score matching to construct a comparison group of children without known child welfare involvement, and estimated two-part generalized linear models to examine differences in annual psychotropic drug expenditures per child between children of different races/ethnicities. When compared to a matched sample of children, African American and Latino children incur $292 and $144 less expenditures on psychotropic drugs, respectively, than white children. Among NSCAW children alone, African American children display $614 less spending on psychotropic drugs when compared to white children. Racial/ethnic differences in expenditures on psychotropic drugs occur among all children on Medicaid, but the differences are especially pronounced among African American children in contact with the child welfare system. These findings demonstrate that policymakers will need to pay special attention to the needs of children of color as Medicaid expansions proceed nationwide.     

周口市区群众性乒乓球俱乐部开展现状及对策

采用问卷调查和访谈等方法,从经营者、消费者和教练员三个方面对周口市区群众性乒乓球俱乐部的开展现状进行调查研究,结果表明：周口市区乒乓球俱乐部数量相对偏少,运动面积超过300m。的俱乐部只有2家,设施配备相对滞后,收费标准以每月100-300元为主,教练员的薪酬较低,缺乏必要的培训．针对其中存在的问题,提出合理的建议,为当地群众性乒乓球运动的开展与普及提供科学的参考依据．     

Valuing the benefits of the education provided by public universities: A case study of Minnesota

This study estimates the value of the private and public benefits that accrue to Minnesota residents from state government subsidies to higher education. In 2005, the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system received $832 million from Minnesota's state government to support educational programs. These subsidies allow these institutions to offer lower tuition rates, increasing the number of Minnesotans with bachelor and graduate degrees. We calculate that removing these subsidies would eventually lead to 14,000 fewer graduate degree holders in Minnesota, and reduce those with bachelor's degrees or “some college” by 42,000. The annual economic cost of these subsidies is about $326 million; this is less than annual state appropriations because most of those appropriations are income transfers from taxpayers to students, not an economic cost. We estimate that the annual value of the benefits of these subsidies is between $531 and $786 million ($381 and $570 million) when a 3% (5%) discount rate is used. We also discuss some of the income distribution consequences.     

Unequal pay for equal work? Unpacking the gender gap in principal compensation

We investigate the male–female gap in principal compensation in state and national data: detailed longitudinal personnel records from Missouri and repeated cross-sections from the nationally representative Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). In both data sets, we estimate substantively important compensation gaps for school leaders. In Missouri, female principals make approximately $1,450 less annually than their male colleagues with similar characteristics, including experience level and degree attainment, leading the same school in different years. Gaps are present in both base salary and extra duty salary, and are only partially explained by career paths or workplace sorting. SASS analyses show that women make about $1,000 less than men nationally, on average, a gap that even grows larger once accounting for individual and workplace characteristics, teacher-supplied effectiveness ratings, and reported hours worked. The presence of these residual gaps after accounting for many supply-side explanations may signal gender discrimination in school principal compensation.     

RISING STAR RAISES SUCCESS

The Rising Star Scholarship program of the Dallas County (Texas) Community College District (DCCCD), is a unique approach to financial aid. The program is the brainchild of R. L. Thornton, III, the DCCCD Foundation Board Chairman. He wanted every high school graduate in Dallas County to have the opportunity to attend college regardless of financial circumstances. He took his cause to the business community of Dallas County with the goal of establishing a scholarship program that would be available to students with the academic ability to achieve in college, but without the financial means. In three years the Rising Star Fund has reached over 33% of its goal of $30,000,000, which is needed to ensure its availability to high school graduates into perpetuity. Contributors run the gamut from individuals giving less than $100 to Foundations giving $1,000,000. In between are a variety of other amounts from foundations, businesses, and individuals. In addition to a diverse funding source, another unique aspect of the Rising Star Program is its availability to those who do not meet financial need levels of federal grants.     

Financing desegregation in the Yonkers public schools

The Yonkers public school district is under a federal court order to desegregate its schools. Accordingly, the district has developed and implemented a detailed desegregation plan that will cost up to $170 million over a five-year period. However, there are various constraints on school district financing that could affect the plan. The Board of Education in Yonkers, which is appointed by the mayor, is fiscally dependent on the city. Thus, the school district budget must be approved by city officials. Also, because Yonkers appears to be a wealthy district, it receives less wealth-equalized state aid than other large-city districts. Given these circumstances, in addition to increase in state and federal aid, other measures to assist the district should be explored. Note: The opinions expressed in this paper are my own and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the New York State Education Department.     

Education and labor market risk: Understanding the role of data cleaning

This paper examines whether conclusions about the relationship between education and labor market risk depend on the use of commonly applied procedures to clean data of extreme values. The analysis uses fifteen years of data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to demonstrate that conclusions about the relationship between education and labor market risk are sensitive to how extreme values of labor income are treated. The untrimmed estimates imply that college graduates experience 75% less transitory labor market risk than high school dropouts. However, applying commonly used trimming procedures results in estimates of a one standard deviation transitory labor market shock for high school dropouts being reduced by between $2700 and $4500, or 14% and 24% of annual earnings. The results demonstrate that seemingly innocuous sample selection procedures can have substantive implications.     

A Proposal for State,Income-Targeted,Preschool Vouchers

This article proposes that states create low-income targeted voucher programs for 3- and/or 4-year-olds. The basis for this proposal is considerable research demonstrating long-term effects for a number of random assignment and quasi-experimental preschool programs. Benefit–costs rates of return for these programs are between $2 and $16 for every dollar invested. These results are also consistent with developmental and neuro-biological studies supporting early childhood interventions. Other research shows that low-income students are less likely to be in preschool, and if they are, they are more likely to receive low-quality services. Taken together, and to control costs, I propose an income-targeted program. I argue for vouchers based on improved equal opportunity and higher efficiency in the delivery of preschool services. Design details are generally to be the province of state decision makers. My one caveat is that it seems to make sense to require programs, at least for 4-year-olds, to be center based.     

To Apply or Not to Apply: FAFSA Completion and Financial Aid Gaps

In the United States, college students must complete the Free Application for Student Federal Aid (FAFSA) to access federal aid. However, many eligible students do not apply and consequently forgo significant amounts of financial aid. If students have perfect information about aid eligibility, we would expect that all eligible students complete FAFSA and no aid would go unclaimed. Using data from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Survey, I estimate a multinomial logit model which controls for all variables that contribute to aid eligibility and other student characteristics that may deter FAFSA completion. I find that students who are lower middle income, white, male and independent from parents are less likely to complete FAFSA even when they are eligible for aid. Using propensity score matching, I find that each year applicants forgo $9,741.05 in total aid (including grant and loan aid) which includes $1,281.00 of Pell Grants, $2,439.50 of the balance subsidized student loans, $1,986.65 of the balance of unsubsidized student loans, and $1,016.04 of institutional grants. These aid totals aggregate to $24 billion annually.     

Child labor in Bombay

Of the world's largest child labor force in India, Bombay has over 30,000 working children, most of them migrants. In a prospective study of 73 working children from a part of Dharavi, the biggest slum in Asia, 68% were working as hotel boys; 22% had started working before their 10th birthday, a large number doing so to increase the family income, but earning less than Rs. 100 ($11) per month. Forty percent worked more than 12 hours a day and only 16% continued schooling. Two-thirds depended entirely on their employers for food which was adequate and no child in the study was malnourished. Overall incidence of anemia and vitamin deficiency was 10% each. Only 7% had ailments related to their occupation. Because this was a cross-sectional study no conclusions can be drawn regarding long term and residual effects. Preventing children from working is likely to make worse their own as well as their families' problems unless substitute sources of income or welfare are available. Legal protection and other services near their working places are essential for those who have to work.     

Minus total κ-subdomination in graphs

Let G=(V, E)be a simple graph without isolated vertices. For positive integer κ, a 3-valued function f:V → {-1, 0, 1} is said to be a minus total k-subdominating function(MTκSF)if ∑u∈N(u)f(u)≥ 1 for at least κ vertices v in G, where N(v)is the open neighborhood of v. The minus total κ-subdomination number γ-κt(G)equals the minimum weight of an MTkSF on G. In this paper, the values on the minus total κ-subdomination number of some special graphs are investigated. Several lower bounds on γ-κt of general graphs and trees are obtained.     

A Longitudinal Analysis of Doctoral Graduate Supply in the Educational Measurement Field

For nearly three decades, researchers have been concerned that the educational measurement field is not producing enough graduate‐level specialists to meet the growing demand driven by the increased use of educational assessments in the United States. This study examined the supply‐side aspect of the proposed labor shortage by relying on data from the National Science Foundation's Survey of Earned Doctorates collected between 1997 and 2016. Over the 20 years examined, measurement programs produced 3,124 doctoral graduates, and across this time span, the annual production of graduates nearly doubled. This supply expansion can largely be attributed to the increase in the number of international graduates, which outpaced the annual growth rate of domestic PhD recipients by 156%. Moreover, 85% of graduates were found to either self‐identify as White or Asian. Less than 10 Hispanic and no more than 20 Black graduates were produced in any of the years examined. Of the 76% of graduates that reported having a job offer or accepted a position upon graduation, most entered the academy despite the overall average starting salary ($59,484) being considerably lower than the starting salary for their counterparts entering industry ($84,918), government ($69,970), or other educational institutions ($81,428).     

Examining Zero Expected Family Contribution as a New Criterion for “Low Income”: Comparing the Impact on Student Persistence at Two- and Four-Year Institutions

The designation “low income” is often assigned to students who are Federal Pell Grant eligible; however, family incomes for these recipients range from $0 to as high as $60,000 (Baum & Payea, 2011). Over 93% of all zero expected family contribution (EFC) students have a family income of $30,000 or less and constituted 67.4% of all Federal Pell Grant disbursements in 2009–2010. Given the wide range of family incomes, state need-based grant eligibility requirements, and current fiscal constraints, the purpose of this study was to compare predictors of student first- to second-year persistence, for zero and nonzero EFC students at two- and four-year institutions, as suggested by Davidson (2013). Logistic regressions showed differences between students at two- and four-year institutions as well as zero and nonzero students. Using a zero EFC as a criterion for low income could prove a valuable alternative to Federal Pell Grant eligibility for state and institutional policy makers when allocating need-based financial aid. In doing so, consideration must be given to this student population’s particular needs and factors that best foster student success.     

OECD国家高职层次院校生均经费变动情况和影响因素分析——基于1997—2017年数据的实证研究

对1997—2017年间OECD成员国高职层次院校生均经费的变动情况进行理论分析,发现其主要影响因素为该国人口构成形态、青年就业状况、当前经济发展水平等。而后以棘轮效应理论为分析框架进行数理统计,取得如下基本研究结论:影响生均经费的主要因素是一国上年度此项的生均投入和人均国内生产总值;生均经费总体随人均国内生产总值的增加而逐渐增长;人均国内生产总值为1~2万美元时,高职层次院校生均经费的涨幅大体高于同期本科高校经费涨幅,也整体高于当年人均国内生产总值增长率。     

电磁驱动无阀并联微泵的设计与制作工艺

A parallel dynamic passive valveless micropump was designed, which consists of three layers-valve, diaphragm and electromagnetic coil. The valve was wetly etched in a silicon wafer, the diaphragm was a PDMS （polydimethyl siloxane） film spun on a silicon wafer with embedded permanent magnet posts, and the coil was electroplated on a silicon substrate. Under the actuation of the magnetic field generated by coils, the flexible diaphragm could be displaced upwards and downwards. After analyzing magnetic and mechanical characteristic of the flexible membrane and direction-dependence of the nozzle, a micropump was designed. And the relative length （L/d） of the micropump nozzle was taken 4. A 7 × 7 array of permanent magnetic posts was embedded in the PDMS film. Two diaphragms worked in an anti-step mode, which could relieve the liquid shock and increase the discharge of the micropump. The ANSYS and Matlab were adopted to analyze the actuation effect of the coil and the flow characteristic of the micropump. Results show that when actuated under a 0.3 A, 100 Hz current, the displacement of the diaphragm is more than 30 μm, and the discharge of the micropump is about 6 μL/s.     

Effects of family support intervention: a ten-year follow-up

The delivery to impoverished mothers of a coordinated set of medical and social services, including day-care for their children, had effects that were evident a decade after the intervention ended. Intervention mothers were more likely to be self-supporting, and they had higher educational attainment and smaller family sizes than did control mothers. Intervention children had better school attendance, and boys were less likely to require costly special school services than were corresponding control children. The financial implications of these results were considerable, totaling about $40,000 in extra estimated welfare costs and documented school service costs needed by the 15 control families in the single year in which these follow-up data were gathered. There were no indications that the intervention had lasting effects on the children's IQ scores. The results suggest that family support procedures, including quality day-care, have considerable promise as a general model for intervention programs.     

Birth,life and death of the Victorian Education Ultranet

This article examines the development and ultimate demise of the Ultranet, a major ICT infrastructure project in the education system of the Australian State of Victoria. The case is interesting as it was a very large project, intended for 1500 schools and funded to $180 m (Au). The study traces the design and implementation of the project as a socio-technical innovation in education. Although there are examples of how this project worked very well, its uptake was less than anticipated. The study found that potential benefits from a very large project like this can be nullified by a number of factors including: change in sponsorship of the project, an over emphasis on security concerns, failure to enrol crucial stakeholders and a naive assumption by technologists that technology with potential benefits will always be accepted. The study also found that technology projects must be delivered where a need exists and one that, most importantly, is recognised by the stakeholders. This will also be the case in other education systems around the world. If resources are not to be wasted the problem must be clearly identified and its need accepted before a solution is proposed. The Victorian Government finally abandoned the Ultranet in June 2013.     

Can a doctoral degree be completed faster overseas than domestically? Evidence from Taiwanese doctorates

This paper investigates the role that studying overseas or domestically plays in Taiwanese students obtaining a doctoral degree and, in particular, whether doctorates can be completed faster overseas than domestically. This feature is quite different from the literature in the sense that previous studies focus mainly on students with different countries of origin earning their doctoral degrees in a host program/institution/country and could provide a professional reference for main source countries with a great number of students studying abroad. By taking advantage of a large data set compiled by the National Profiles of Human Resources in Science and Technology in Taiwan, we find that Taiwanese students studying in foreign schools (and who will come back to Taiwan) on average take 9.61 months (reflecting approximately a $60,000 opportunity cost) less than those earning PhD degrees domestically after netting out other controls. Other factors such as males, starting a PhD when older, younger cohorts, holding a master’s degree, school types matching, and studying in non-top tier universities, are associated with a shorter elapsed time to a doctoral degree.     

Determining validity and identifying nonresponse bias in a survey requesting income data

Two procedures for validating incomes self-reported in ranges by University of Kentucky doctoral graduates, one comparing grouped data to income data collected by the National Academy of Sciences (1974) for the same year, 1973, the other comparing individual self-report data in a double-blind process to state income tax records, indicating that the self-report data were generally accurate. A check of respondents versus nonrespondents in various categories (sex, age, graduation year, Holland type, Biglan type) showed no difference in the proportion of response in any category. Comparison of nonrespondent income with respondent income in state income tax records revealed that nonrespondents averaged almost $3,500.00 less income during that year than did respondents. This finding held true across all categories but two.     

Work sampling: An application to the university

Work sampling, an industrial technique, enables a supervisor to estimate the percent of time a worker spends on a particular activity. In the office situation studied here, it was found that the same amount of work presently produced could be accomplished by a staff reduced by 23% from the present level. This determination was made in less than five hours by the observer, yet a savings of over $9,000 could be realized from these efforts in a single year. Periodic campus-wide use of this technique could result in even more substantial savings for an institution.The research reported on was the subject of a pilot study report in which John Fornof was most helpfully an original participant. The helpful critique of Dr. Robert C. Judd, Professor of Operations Analysis at the University of Toledo, is gratefully acknowledged.