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Institution

Arkansas Department of Education

GovernmentLittle Rock, Arkansas, United States
About: Arkansas Department of Education is a government organization based out in Little Rock, Arkansas, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: School choice & Voucher. The organization has 37 authors who have published 112 publications receiving 1325 citations. The organization is also known as: ADE.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors provide a methodological critique of the conventional method for assessing the impact of investment shortfalls and other contributors to unfunded pension liabilities, and offer a methodologically sound replacement with substantive policy implications.
Abstract: In this paper I provide a methodological critique of the conventional method for assessing the impact of investment shortfalls and other contributors to unfunded pension liabilities, and offer a methodologically sound replacement with substantive policy implications. The conventional method – simply summing the annual actuarial gain/loss figures over time – provides a neat, additive decomposition of the sources of the rise in the Unfunded Accrued Liability (UAL). In doing so, however, it implicitly assumes that in the counterfactual exercise, amortization would adjust dollar-for-dollar with the interest on additional UAL. That is, even if the total (and average) shortfall from covering interest is substantial, the marginal shortfall is assumed to be zero. This is not how contribution shortfalls arise under funding formulas typically used by public plans in the United States. Using the actual funding formula in the counterfactual – with contribution shortfalls on the margin -- leads to much higher estimates of the UAL impact of investment shortfalls than the conventional method. The reason is that there are large interactions over time between investment shortfalls and marginal contribution shortfalls. The conventional counterfactual implicitly assumes away these interactions. The resulting additivity is alluring, but illusory. The conventional method also leads to untenable results on other UAL-drivers. Most striking is the implication that the cumulative UAL impact of pension obligation bonds (POB’s) is no different from the initial impact of receiving the proceeds, independent of the return (actual or assumed) on those proceeds. The underlying problem with the conventional framework is that it has emerged without careful attention to the counterfactual scenarios it is meant to address. This paper provides explicit and internally consistent counterfactuals to better understand the conventional method and its flaws, as well as the reasons for using instead the actual amortization formula in the counterfactual. Mathematical methods are used to illuminate the theoretical issues that lie behind any simulations. The analytical results are illustrated empirically with an adapted version of the actuarial history of the Connecticut State Teachers’ Retirement System (CSTRS), FY00-FY14. The example is instructive because it is a highly underfunded system, notable for its high (and unreduced) assumed rate of return (8.5 percent), as well as its use of $2 billion in POB proceeds to reduce the UAL in FY08, just before the market crash.

4 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The second year results from the first ever multi-visit, longitudinal experiment on the benefits from arts-focused field trips are presented in this article. But the results are limited to the first year of the experiment.
Abstract: This paper presents second year results from the first ever multi-visit, longitudinal experiment on the benefits from arts-focused field trips. Students in fourth and fifth grades in ten elementary schools in a large urban school district were randomly assigned to receive three arts-related field trips throughout the school year, including an art museum, a live theater production, and a symphony performance or to serve as a control. We find that treatment students exhibit higher levels of school engagement as measured by students’ behavioral infractions and self-reported engagement. We also find that treatment students perform significantly better on their end of year standardized tests, up to 16% of a standard deviation increase. These effects are persistent even one year following treatment. However, the effects appear to be stronger for the first cohort of students in our sample.

4 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a qualitative study of urban elementary students in fourth and fifth grade was conducted, where they were randomly assigned to receive three arts field trips including an art museum, a live theater performance, and a symphony concert.
Abstract: This descriptive, qualitative study, an extension of an experimental primary study, documents stakeholders’ experiences and perceptions of attending multiple field trips where urban elementary students in fourth and fifth grades were randomly assigned to receive three arts field trips including an art museum, a live theater performance, and a symphony concert. Evidence of declining K-12 attendance to educational cultural or arts field trips has been mounting for decades. Further, minority students in struggling schools and their teachers report attending fewer field trip experiences, as well as limited access to arts experiences in their schools. The full impact of this declining and restricted access to arts and culture on social-emotional learning (SEL) as well as on other academic outcomes is unknown. However, rigorous empirical evidence supporting the educational benefits of culturally enriching field trips continues to amass. I find that adult as well as student stakeholders report the importance of experience and exposure as the main impacts of educational arts field trips. Additionally, I find that classroom teachers support and advocate for experiential field trips for their students and consider it an important part of the job of educating students in their schools and community. Further, students make meaning from these experiences and articulate that meaning in intricate detail months after the field trips occur. Students also recall field trips from years past, connecting new experiences to prior learning, thus indicating that these are important and memorable experiences for them. I also find evidence of student-to-student connection via common experience, and shared meaning and learning. Lastly, students advocate for these experiences for themselves and for their peers, and articulate the importance of these experiences with poignant and compelling detail.

4 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article found that attending a private school has no impact on voter turnout, but attending some private school appears to have a liberalizing effect, indicating that private schooling has a positive effect on civic outcomes including voter participation.
Abstract: The United States has one of the lowest election turnout rates in the developed world. Consequently, social scientists are perpetually seeking to expand upon their knowledge of what factors are associated with voting, or the lack thereof. Commonly identified factors including age, income, educational attainment and race have been studied extensively. However, there is one plausible factor associated with voting that might be underappreciated: the effect of private schooling. The limited literature that exists on the topic suggests that private schools, the majority of them Catholic, have a positive effect on civic outcomes, including voter participation. In using a rich, nationally representative dataset -- the Understanding America Study based out of the University of Southern California -- I can reexamine whether attending a private school has an effect on whether Americans vote. I can also shed light on a heretofore unanswered question: How does private schooling impact which candidate an individual supports? Overall, the data indicates that private schooling appears to have no impact on voter turnout, but that attending some private school appears to have a liberalizing effect.

4 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: The authors evaluated the effectiveness of the Arkansas Teacher Corps, an alternative teacher certification program that places teachers in high-needs schools in rural, southern Arkansas and found that ATC teachers are rated significantly higher on constructs of content knowledge, teacherstudent relationships in class, and teacher-student relationships out of class by students.
Abstract: This study is an evaluation of the Arkansas Teacher Corps, an alternative teacher certification program that places teachers in high needs schools in rural, southern Arkansas. This evaluation focuses on an intermediate goal of the organization — effective teaching practices — and uses a matching strategy to determine the effectiveness of Arkansas Teacher Corps Fellows. Data comes from third party observations and student surveys. ATC teachers are rated significantly higher on constructs of content knowledge, teacher-student relationships in class, and teacher-student relationships out of class by students. There are no significant differences between ATC and non-ATC teachers noted by observers or on other constructs measured by student surveys.

3 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers from the Institution in previous years
YearPapers
20204
201916
20185
201719
201622
201517