| JPAM Preview ▪ January 2013 |
| JPAM Preview is a newsletter that calls attention to forthcoming articles in JPAM. JPAM Preview provides brief summaries of content now available digitally in Early View, Wiley's online publication system. |
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| Feature Article The Use and Efficacy of Capacity-Building Assistance for Low-Performing Districts: The Case of California's District Assistance and Intervention Teams Katharine O. Strunk, Andrew McEachin, and Theresa N. Westover The theory of action upon which high-stakes accountability policies are based calls for systemic reforms in educational systems that will emerge by pairing incentives for improvement with extensive and targeted technical assistance (TA) to build the capacity of low-performing schools and districts. To this end, a little discussed and often overlooked aspect of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) mandated that, in addition to sanctions, states were required to provide TA to build the capacity of struggling schools and Local Education Agencies (LEAs, or districts) to help them improve student achievement. Although every state in the country provides some form of TA to its lowest performing districts, we know little about the content of these programs or about their efficacy in improving student performance. In this paper, we use both quantitative and qualitative analyses to explore the actions taken by TA providers in one state-California-and examine whether the TA and support tied to California's NCLB sanctions succeeds in improving student achievement. Like many other states, California requires that districts labeled as persistently failing under NCLB (in Program Improvement year 3, PI3) work with external experts to help them build the capacity to make reforms that will improve student achievement. California's lowest performing PI3 districts are given substantial amounts of funding and are required to contract with state-approved District Assistance and Intervention Teams (DAITs), whereas the remaining PI3 districts receive less funding and are asked to access less intensive TA from non-DAIT providers. We use a five-year panel difference-in-difference design to estimate the impacts of DAITs on student performance on the math and English language arts (ELA) standardized tests relative to non-DAIT TA during the two years of the program intervention. We find that students in districts with DAITs perform significantly better on math California Standards Tests (CSTs) averaged over both treatment years and in each of the first and second years. We do not find evidence that students in districts with DAITs perform higher on ELA CSTs over the combined two years of treatment, although we find suggestive evidence that ELA performance increases in the second year of treatment relative to students in districts with non-DAIT TA. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions that explore the association between specific activities fostered by DAITs and changes in districts' gains in achievement over the two years of treatment show that DAIT districts that report increasing their focus on using data to guide instruction, shifting district culture to generate and maintain high expectations of students and staff, and increasing within-district accountability for student performance, have higher math achievement gains over the course of the DAIT treatment. In addition, DAIT districts that increase their focus on ELA instruction and shift district culture to one of high expectations have higher ELA achievement gains than do DAIT districts that do not have a similar focus. © 2012 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| Feature Article The Effects of California's Paid Family Leave Program on Mothers' Leave-Taking and Subsequent Labor Market Outcomes Maya Rossin-Slater, Christopher J. Ruhm, and Jane Waldfogel This analysis uses March Current Population Survey data from 1999 to 2010 and a differences-in-differences approach to examine how California's first in the nation paid family leave (PFL) program affected leave-taking by mothers following childbirth, as well as subsequent labor market outcomes. We obtain robust evidence that the California program doubled the overall use of maternity leave, increasing it from an average of three to six weeks for new mothers-with some evidence of particularly large growth for less advantaged groups. We also provide evidence that PFL increased the usual weekly work hours of employed mothers of 1- to 3-year-old children by 10 to 17 percent and that their wage incomes may have risen by a similar amount. Forthcoming in JPAM 32(2). Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| Feature Article Politics Can Limit Policy Opportunism in Fiscal Institutions: Evidence from Official General Fund Revenue Forecasts in the American States George Krause, David E. Lewis, and James W. Douglas Governments make policy decisions in the same areas in quite different institutions. Some assign policymaking responsibility to institutions designed to be insulated from myopic partisan and electoral pressures and others do not. In this study, we claim that differences in political context and institutional design constrain the policy choices governments make. Testable propositions based on an analysis of varying electoral incentives and time horizons created by these different contexts are empirically tested using panel data on official general fund revenue forecasts in the American states, 1987 to 2008. The empirical evidence reveals that executive branch agencies and independent commissions produce more conservative forecasts than legislatures with one important exception. Executive branch revenue forecasts in states with gubernatorial term limits are indistinguishable from legislative branch forecasts. Further, we find that legislative branch forecasts are more conservative in the presence of divided partisan legislatures than unified party government. In turn, this implies that entrusting policymaking authority to either the executive branch or an independent commission may only be consequential when the political system itself fails to check legislative excesses or executive myopia. Forthcoming in JPAM 32(2). Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| Feature Article Spillover Effects of Voluntary Environmental Programs on Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Lessons from Mexico Irene Henriques, Brian W. Husted, and Ivan Montiel We compare the environmental performance of voluntary environmental programs (VEPs) with different attributes. Using club theory, we argue that the differential performance of VEPs is due in part to their specific design attributes that will either enhance or diminish their ability to improve both targeted and untargeted environmental impacts. We analyze two VEPs in Mexico, the global standard ISO 14001 and the local standard Clean Industry. These two VEPs differ in the stringency of the standards and in their ability to sanction noncompliant facilities. These differences ensure that firms adopting the local standard are less likely to shirk their responsibilities and enhance potential spillover effects on untargeted environmental emissions. Our empirical results support our hypotheses and show that the local Clean Industry program is more effective in improving both targeted (toxic emissions) and untargeted environmental impacts (greenhouse gas emissions). Forthcoming in JPAM 32(2). Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| Point/Counterpoint China's One-Child Policy Kenneth A. Couch China embarked on a national campaign of family planning in the 1970s after concerns regarding the carrying capacity of its national resources. By 1980, a policy that encouraged families to have only one child was in place along with contraceptive measures and penalties for noncompliance. Some aspects of these policies cut against the idea that reproductive choices should be made freely. Nonetheless, the policies, along with economic development, appear to have resulted in the desired reduction in the growth rate of the Chinese population. What was perhaps less foreseen, as these polices were adopted, was the influence that declining fertility would have on the demographic structure of a Chinese society. Like many other countries, China is facing problems of a rapidly aging society. The implications are familiar: A disadvantageous ratio of the young to the old and a possible decline over time in size of the labor force. In this Point/Counterpoint, I invited two Chinese scholars-Yijia Jing and Xizhe Peng-to discuss the following questions: 1. What was the intention and what have been the results of the one-child policy? 2. Does China need fundamental change to its one-child policy? 3. What are the best alternatives to the one-child policy? Yijia Jing is a Professor in the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University. Xizhe Peng is Dean of the School of Social Development and Public Policy, Professor of Population and Development, and Director of the State Innovative Institute for Public Management and Public Policy Studies at Fudan University. Forthcoming in JPAM 32(2). Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| Point/Counterpoint The One-Child Policy Needs an Overhaul Yijia Jing Family planning emerged in the 1950s as a potential policy instrument to handle China's quick population expansion. In June 1957, Yinchu Ma, economist and president of Peking University, submitted his New Population Theory to the fourth plenary session of China's First National People's Congress, proposing governmental control over fertility. Soon the idea of birth control was politically condemned and abandoned until early 1970s. In 1971, China's population reached 853.3 million, a 57 percent growth from 1949. In that year, the State Council began to include population growth control as one indicator of China's national economic development. In 1973, the Family Planning Leading Team of the State Council was established to create comprehensive population control policies. Contraception and late births were encouraged. In the 1970s, the Chinese government promoted two children for one couple, encouraged one child, and discouraged three children. The policy became increasingly stringent, and in 1978, it was written into the Constitution that the "state promotes and enforces family planning." The legal marriage age was postponed by two years to 22 years for males and 20 years for females in 1980. In the same year, one-couple-one-child was made a formal policy that was later written into the 2001 Law of Population and Family Planning. A second child has only been allowed under certain conditions: (1) The spouses are both single children or are from minority ethnic groups, (2) the first child has a serious disability, (3) the first child is a female (this is only applicable for peasant families), and (4) one of the spouses has a risky occupation such as mining. Forthcoming in JPAM 32(2). Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| Point/Counterpoint China's Demographic Challenge Requires Integrated Coping Strategy Xizhe Peng China has entered into a new stage of demographic dynamics whereby population-related challenges are more complicated than ever before. The current one-child policy should be modified. However, the anticipated impacts of such a policy change should not be overexaggerated. China's demographic challenge requires an integrated coping strategy. RAPID CHANGES IN CHINA'S DEMOGRAPHIC DYNAMICS Along with its rapid socioeconomic development over the past few decades, China experienced profound demographic transitions, and has entered into a new stage of demographic development. Information released from China's 2010 population census indicates that some fundamental changes have occurred (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2011).1 China has successfully slowed down its population growth to an annual population growth rate of 0.57 percent between 2000 and 2010, a figure similar to that of most developed countries. China has also developed into an urban society with more than half of its population living in cities and towns, and the annual increase in the rate of the urban population has exceeded 1.3 percentage points over the past 10 years. The Chinese people are no longer staying in the same place as they did for thousands of years; instead, a huge number of the Chinese population are currently migrants: There are about 220 million rural–urban migrants and another 40 million urban residents who live in places where they are not officially registered. The elderly population aged 60 years and older reached 178 million in 2010 (accounting for 13.6 percent of the total population), and the number will increase rapidly in the near future. China has become an aging society. In addition, Chinese society has become highly diversified, and there are marked rural–urban, regional, and societal differences. These demographic changes occurred in a very short time period, and will continue in the near future. Forthcoming in JPAM 32(2). Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| Point/Counterpoint Barriers to Policy Change and a Suggested Path for Change Yijia Jing I agree with Xizhe Peng that the reform of the one-child policy is not a panacea for all the threatening demographic problems. However, its significant adjustment is a central and foundation-laying task that new population policy cannot bypass to deal with the problems that have been caused or exacerbated by the one-child policy. A substantial change in the one-child policy will not just embark on the fundamental transformation of China's population policy, but also lend support in resolving various related socioeconomic issues. As the one-child policy has been kept almost intact for decades despite the emergence of many dangerous signals and serious critiques, it is important to diagnose the reasons that may hinder the decisionmakers from taking decisive action. Forthcoming in JPAM 32(2). Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| Point/Counterpoint Understanding China's Demographic Dividends and Labor Issue Xizhe Peng One of the major concerns about the one-child policy is its negative impact on the current and future labor force in China. People have talked about the Lewis Turning Point (for example, Cai, 2010) and the end of demographic dividends. Some of these arguments, however, can be misleading. The working-age population (ages 15 to 59) can be treated as the potential labor force supply. It is true that the continuous decline of China's fertility level over the past 30 years has partially resulted in the recent decline of the proportion of the young labor force. Nevertheless, there is no major change in the total size of the labor force. At the moment, 68 percent of the Chinese population is of working age, and the proportion will remain above 65 percent at least for the next decade, and above 60 percent until the early 2030s (see Figure 1). In fact, China currently has an abundant labor force supply. In other words, the window for harvesting the demographic dividend is still open, but the overall labor force supply will begin to decline soon. Forthcoming in JPAM 32(2). Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| Policy Retrospectives Class Size and Student Outcomes: Research and Policy Implications Matthew M. Chingos Schools across the United States are facing budgetary pressures on a scale not seen in generations. A year after the end of federal stimulus funding and with economic growth at low rates, 31 states were projecting a combined $55 billion in shortfalls for their 2013 budget year. These numbers are large by historical standards, but are dwarfed by the combined $538 billion in shortfalls that states had to close in the previous four fiscal years-an average of $135 billion per year, much if not most of which took the form of deep spending cuts. Some, including large states such as California and Texas, projected revenue shortfalls of more than 15 percent of the size of their 2013 budgets (Oliff, Mai, and Palacios, 2012). Cuts in state spending coupled with declines in property values mean that the increases in education spending that used to occur so regularly appear to have come to an end for the foreseeable future. Forthcoming in JPAM 32(2). Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| International Conference News: Labor Activation in a Time of High Unemployment: Lessons from Abroad Douglas J. Besharov, Douglas M. Call, and Stefano Scarpetta In the 1980s and early 1990s, many member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) experienced extended periods of high and persistent unemployment, often coupled by low or declining rates of labor force participation and increasing numbers of recipients of government benefits (essentially unemployment, disability, and social assistance). In response, a number of countries over the past two decades have introduced policy reforms aimed at activating those recipients apparently able to work: requiring them to actively seek employment or engage in other specified work- or job training-related activities. In the 1990s, the United States took the lead in activating those on social assistance (cash welfare) with its welfare-to-work programs. In recent years, other OECD countries made similar reforms to their social assistance programs, but they have also made more fundamental reforms to their unemployment and disability programs. To explore these developments, the University of Maryland Center for International Policy Exchanges (CIPE) and the OECD held an international conference in Paris, France in November 2011 on "Labour Activation in a Time of High Unemployment." Forthcoming in JPAM 32(2). Link to JPAM Early View. If you want to cite this article before it is in print, please use the DOI number listed with each article. |
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| Journal of Policy Analysis and Management is published by Wiley Periodicals on behalf of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. Editor-in-Chief: Maureen Pirog ▪ Indiana University, School of Public and Environmental Affairs (and) University of Washington, Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs Managing Editors: Robert Kaestner ▪ University of Illinois at Chicago Christopher (Kitt) Carpenter ▪ University of California, Irvine | |
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