Links
» THE CHALLENGES OF ESTABLISHING WORLD-CLASS UNIVERSITIES. World Bank.
Jamil Salmi. March 20, 2009.
The highest-ranked universities are the ones that make significant contributions to the advancement of knowledge. There is no universal
recipe or magic formula for "making" a world class university, says the report. National contexts and institutional models vary widely.
Therefore, each country must choose, from among the various possible pathways, a strategy that plays to its strengths and resources.
International experience provides a few lessons regarding the key features of such universities, high concentrations of talent, abundance
of resources, and flexible governance arrangements, and successful approaches to move in that direction, from upgrading or merging existing institutions to creating new institutions altogether.
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Full Text:
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EDUCATION/Resources/278200-1099079877269/547664-1099079956815/547670-1237305262556/WCU.pdf [PDF format, 136 pages].
» COMPARATIVE INDICATORS OF EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES AND OTHER G-8 COUNTRIES. National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education. David C. Miller et al. March 25, 2009.
The report describes how the education system in the United States compares with education systems in the other G-8 countries--Canada,
France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom. It draws on the most current information about education from four primary sources: the Indicators of National Education Systems (INES) at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).
Full Text:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/2009039.pdf Full Report. [PDF format, 119 pages].
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009039 [HTML format with links to individual chapters].
» 20TH -CENTURY U.S. GENERATIONS. Population Reference Bureau. Elwood Carlson. March 2009.
The myriad decisions people make throughout lives, affect not only individual lives, but public policy and business practices as well.
Governments formulate laws and policies about child and health care and Social Security based on the life choices they expect people to make. Private businesses make plans based on the life choices they expect from people as employees and customers. Generational differences in demographic experiences provide some clues about the sources of the generational divide seen in some political, social, and consumption choices.
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Full Text:
http://www.prb.org/pdf09/64.1generations.pdf [PDF format, 20 pages].
» 2009 ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE FACTS AND FIGURES. Alzheimer's Association. March 2009.
Total healthcare costs are more than three times higher for people with Alzheimer's and other dementias than for other people age 65 and older, according to the study. Total healthcare costs are calculated as per person payments measured from all sources. Medicare payments alone are almost three times higher for people with Alzheimer's and dementia than for others age 65 and over; Medicaid payments alone are more than nine times higher.
[Note: contains copyright material].
Full Text:
http://www.alz.org/national/documents/report_alzfactsfigures2009.pdf [PDF format, 80 pages].
» AT THE BRINK: TRENDS IN AMERICA'S UNINSURED. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. March 22, 2009.
With Congress and the Obama administration discussing how to reform the nation's health care system, the report looks at what has happened since the last significant reform effort ended in 1994 without any comprehensive congressional action. The analysis documents the situation since then.
[Note: contains copyright material].
Full Text:
http://www.rwjf.org/files/research/20090324ctuw.pdf [PDF format, 14 pages].
USA
» CLIMATE CHANGE: OBSERVATIONS ON FEDERAL EFFORTS TO ADAPT TO A CHANGING CLIMATE. Testimony, U.S. Government Accountability Office. John Stephenson. March 25, 2009.
Changes in the climate attributable to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases may have significant environmental and economic impacts in the United States. Federal, state, and local agencies are tasked with a wide array of responsibilities that will be affected by a changing climate, such as managing natural resources.
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Full Text:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09534t.pdf [PDF format, 14 pages].
» FEDERAL STUDENT AID. U.S. Government Accountability Office. March 25, 2009.
The Academic Competitiveness (AC) and National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent (SMART) Grants were established by the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005. The grants provide merit-based financial aid to certain low-income college students eligible for Federal Pell Grants and are administered by the Department of Education (Education). In the first year of implementation, participation was lower than expected.
Full Text:
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09343.pdf [PDF format,. 45 pages].
» THE MOBILE DIFFERENCE. Pew Internet & American Life Project. March 26, 2009.
Some 39% of Americans have positive and improving attitudes about their mobile communication devices, which in turn draws them further into engagement with digital resources, on both wireless and wire line platforms, according to the study. Mobile connectivity is now a powerful differentiator among technology users. Those who plug into the information and communications world while on-the-go are notably more active in many facets of digital life than those who use wires to jack into the internet and the 14% of Americans who are off the grid entirely.
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Full Text:
http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/5-The-Mobile-Difference--Typolog y/1-Summary-of-Findings/Overview.aspx?r=1 [HTML format with links to full text].
» THE NEWSPAPER REVITALIZATION ACT: A BILL. Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, U.S. House of Representatives. March 24, 2009.
The act would allow newspapers to operate as non-profits, if they choose, under 501(c)(3) status for educational purposes, similar to
public broadcasting. Under this arrangement, newspapers would not be allowed to make political endorsements, but would be allowed to freely report on all issues, including political campaigns. Advertising and subscription revenue would be tax exempt and contributions to support coverage or operations could be tax deductible. The measure is targeted to preserve local newspapers serving communities and not large newspaper conglomerates.
Full Text:
http://cardin.senate.gov/pdfs/newspaperbill.pdf [PDF format, 3 pages].
» THE EUROPE SYNDROME AND THE CHALLENGE TO AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM. American Enterprise Institute. Charles Murray. March 16, 2009.
The author sees President Obama and his leading intellectuals as the American equivalent of Europe's social democrats. The report discusses pros and cons of the European way and argues that "America's elite must once again fall in love again with what makes America different."
[Note: contains copyright material]. Full Text:
http://american.com/archive/2009/march-2009/the-europe-syndrome-and-the-challenge-to-american-exceptionalism
[HTML format, various paging].
» ENGLISH LITERACY OF FOREIGN-BORN ADULTS IN THE UNITED STATES: 2003. National Center for Education Statistics. Siri Warkentien et al. Web posted March 17, 2009.
The brief draws on data from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) to explore the English literacy of foreign-born adults living in households in the United States. It presents the English literacy scores of foreign-born adults age 16 and older by race/ethnicity, age of arrival in the United States, years spent in the United States, highest level of educational attainment, and language spoken before
starting school. Scores are reported on three literacy scales: prose, document, and quantitative. Findings indicate that English literacy scores of foreign-born adults varied across a variety of background characteristics.
[Note: contains copyright material]. Full Text:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/2009034.pdf [PDF format, 4 pages].
» HEALTH CARE, HEALTH INSURANCE, AND THE RELATIVE INCOME OF THE ELDERLY AND NONELDERLY. Center for Retirement Research, Boston College. Gary Burtless and Pavel Svaton. March 2009.
Most American families are covered by an insurance plan that pays for some or all of the health care they consume. Only a comparatively small percentage of families pay for the full cost of insurance out of their cash incomes. As health care has claimed a growing share of consumption, the percentage of care that is financed out of household incomes has declined. Because health care consumption is more important for some groups in the population than others, the growth in spending and changes in the payment system for medical care have reduced the value of standard income measures for assessing relative incomes across age groups and across the income distribution. More than a seventh of total personal consumption now consists of health care that is purchased with government insurance and employer contributions to employee health plans. Standard income measures imply that households with an aged household head have significantly lower average and median incomes than households with a head who is less than 55.
[Note: contains copyright material]. Full Text:
http://crr.bc.edu/images/stories/Working_Papers/wp_2009-10.pdf [PDF format, 60 pages]. USA
» INFORMING DECISIONS IN A CHANGING CLIMATE. National Research Council. March 2009.
Many state and local officials and private organizations are basing decisions, such as how to build bridges or manage water supplies, on the assumption that current climate conditions will continue, but that assumption is no longer valid, according to the report. The report recommends six principles that all agencies should follow in supporting decision makers who are facing the effects of climate change. For
example, agencies' efforts should be driven by the needs of end users in the field, not by scientific research priorities. And agencies should create close ties between the scientists who produce climate change information and the practitioners who use it.
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http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12626 [HTML format with links to PDF files].
» INTEGRATING U.S. CLIMATE, ENERGY, AND TRANSPORTATION POLICIES: PROCEEDINGS OF THREE WORKSHOPS. RAND Corporation. Liisa Ecola et al. March 2009.
The three workshops brought together representatives of government, industry, advocacy groups, and the research community who hold different perspectives on what the goals of climate change mitigation policy should be and which strategies should be implemented to achieve them. Addressing the interconnection of climate change mitigation policy with the key sectors of energy and transportation will be major challenges for the United States in the coming years. The report organizes the key themes of the workshops by topic, in particular, pointing out areas of agreement as well as disagreement.
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http://www.rand.org/pubs/conf_proceedings/2009/RAND_CF256.pdf [PDF format, 54 pages].
» MANY WOULD SHRUG IF THEIR LOCAL NEWSPAPER CLOSED. Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. Andrew Kohut and Michael Remez. March 12, 2009.
As many newspapers struggle to stay economically viable, fewer than half of Americans (43%) say that losing their local newspaper would hurt civic life in their community "a lot." Even fewer (33%) say they would personally miss reading the local newspaper a lot if it were no longer available. Not unexpectedly, those who get local news regularly from newspapers are much more likely than those who read less often to see the potential shutdown of a local paper as a significant loss.
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http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/497.pdf [PDF format, 12 pages].
» RURAL BROADBAND AT A GLANCE: 2009 EDITION. U.S. Department of Agriculture. March 2009.
Three-quarters of U.S. residents used the Internet to access information, education, and services in 2007. Broadband Internet access is becoming essential for both businesses and households; many compare its evolution to other technologies now considered common necessities, such as cars, electricity, televisions, microwave ovens, and cell phones. Although rural residents enjoy widespread access to the Internet, they are less likely to have high-speed, or broadband, Internet access than their urban counterparts. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the difference in access may lie in the higher cost and limited availability of broadband Internet in rural areas.
Full Text: http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/EIB47/EIB47.pdf [PDF format, 6 pages].
» STATE OF THE NEWS MEDIA. Pew Project for excellence in Journalism. March 2009.
The study provides both aggregated and original research on the eight major sectors of media-newspapers, online, network; cable, local and network TV; magazines; radio and ethnic. It also includes special reports on the Year in the News, lessons from the 2008 election, an analysis of citizen media sites and more.
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http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/2009/index.htm [HTML format with PDF links].
» STATUS VERSUS GROWTH: THE DISTRIBUTIONAL EFFECTS OF SCHOOL ACCOUNTABILITY. Urban Institute. Helen F. Ladd and Douglas L. Lauen. March 2009.
Using a ten-year student-level panel dataset from North Carolina, the authors examine how school-specific pressure related to two school accountability approaches, status and growth, affects student achievement at different points in the prior-year achievement distribution. The report finds little or no evidence that schools in North Carolina ignore students far below proficiency under either approach. Further, the status, but not the growth, approach reduces the reading achievement of higher performing students, with the losses in aggregate exceeding gains at the bottom. The distributional effects of accountability pressure depend on the type of accountability pressure and on the tested subject.
[Note: contains copyright material]. Full Text:
http://www.caldercenter.org/PDF/1001260_status_vs_growth.pdf [PDF format, 53 pages].
» FILM PIRACY, ORGANIZED CRIME, AND TERRORISM. RAND Corporation. Gregory F. Terverton et al. March 2009.
The report presents the findings of research into the involvement of organized crime and terrorist groups in counterfeiting products ranging from watches to automobile parts, from pharmaceuticals to computer software. It presents detailed case studies from around the globe in one area of counterfeiting, film piracy, to illustrate the broader problem of criminal, and perhaps terrorist, groups finding a new and not-much-discussed way of funding their activities. Piracy is high in payoff and low in risk, often taking place under the radar of law enforcement.
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http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2009/RAND_MG742.pdf [PDF format, 182 pages].
» STABILIZATION EFFECTS OF SOCIAL SPENDING: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM A PANEL OF OECD COUNTRIES. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Davide Furceri. Web posted February 27, 2009.
The aim of the paper is to assess the ability of social spending to smooth output shocks and to provide stabilization. The results show that overall social spending is able to smooth about 16 percent of a shock to GDP. Among its subcategories; social spending devoted to Old Age and Unemployment are those that contribute more to provide smoothing. Moreover; the stabilization effects of social spending are
significantly larger in those countries where the size of social spending is higher, according to the paper.
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http://www.olis.oecd.org/olis/2009doc.nsf/LinkTo/NT00000CF2/$FILE/JT03260211.PDF [PDF format, 28 pages].
» WE DON'T NEED NO EDUCATION? WHY THE UNITED STATES SHOULD TAKE THE LEAD IN EDUCATION. Center for Global Development. Desmond Bermingham. March 2, 2009.
The author, the former head of the Education for All-Fast Track Initiative (FTI), argues that the United States has a tremendous opportunity to lead the international effort to provide a decent education to all young people. While the FTI has laid down a good mechanism for global coordination in the education sector, it still faces many hurdles. A U.S.-led Global Fund for Education could take advantage of the FTI where it works and fill in the gaps where it does not.
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http://www.cgdev.org/content/publications/detail/1421215/ [HTML format with a link to PDF file].
» BANK NATIONALIZATION: WHAT IS IT? SHOULD WE DO IT? Brookings Institution. Douglas J. Elliott. February 25, 2009.
Bank nationalization is the topic "du jour" in Washington and on Wall Street. Nationalization can be a confusing topic because it means different things to different people and there are a variety of reasons given by advocates for supporting such a move. The paper explains the various meanings and purposes of "nationalization," lays out a framework for evaluating the necessity and usefulness of bank nationalization, reviews the most critical implementation issues that would arise, and provides some recommendations
[Note: contains copyrighted material] Full Text:
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2009/0225_bank_nationalization_elliott/0225_bank_nationalization_elliott.pdf
[PDF format, 15 pages].
» BEYOND THE BUBBLE: TECHNOLOGY AND THE FUTURE OF STUDENT ASSESSMENT. Education Sector. Bill Tucker. February 2009.
Students today are growing up in a world overflowing with a variety of high-tech tools, from computers and video games to increasingly sophisticated mobile devices. But there's one day a year when laptops power down and students' mobile computing devices fall silent, a testing day. Since the IBM Type 805 Test Scoring Machine first hit the market in 1938, fill-in-the-bubble test score sheets and scanners have
remained the dominant technologies used in local, state, and national assessments.
They rely heavily on multiple-choice question types and measure only a portion of the skills and knowledge outlined in state educational standards. They do not align well with what we know about how students learn.
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http://www.educationsector.org/usr_doc/Beyond_the_Bubble.pdf [PDF format, 19 pages].
» THE DEATH PENALY AND PLEA BARGAINING TO LIFE SENTENCES. Criminal Justice Legal Foundation. Kent S. Scheidegger. February 2009.
Legislatures expecting a large savings in trial costs from repealing the death penalty may be in for a disappointment, according to the study. The most widely cited estimates ignore or minimize an important cost-saving effect of having the death penalty available.In states where the death penalty is the maximum punishment, a larger number of murder defendants are willing to plead guilty and receive a life sentence. The greater cost of trials where the prosecution does seek the death penalty is offset, at least in part, by the savings from avoiding trial altogether in cases where the defendant pleads guilty. Although this effect is well known to people working in the field, there appears to be no prior study to determine the actual size of this effect.
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http://www.cjlf.org/papers/wpaper09-01.pdf [PDF format, 18 pages].
» DOES THE DOCTOR NEED A BOSS? Cato Institute. Arnold Kling and Michael F. Cannon. Web posted February 2009.
The traditional model of medical delivery, in which the doctor is trained, respected, and compensated as an independent craftsman, is anachronistic, according to the report. Patients with multiple diagnoses require someone who can organize the efforts of multiple medical professionals. At least two forces stand in the way of robust competition from corporate health care providers. First is the regime of third-party fee-for-service payment, which is heavily entrenched by Medicare, Medicaid, and the regulatory and tax distortions that tilt private health insurance in the same direction. Second, state licensing regulations make it difficult for corporations to design optimal work flows for health care delivery.
[Note: contains copyrighted material] Full Text:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/bp/bp111.pdf [PDF format, 12 pages].
» ESTIMATES OF THE UNAUTHORIZED IMMIGRANT POPULATION RESIDING IN THE UNITED STATES: JANUARY 2008. U.S. Department of Homeland Security. February 2009.
The report provides estimates of the unauthorized immigrant population residing in the United States as of January 2008 for periods of entry and leading countries of birth and states of residence.
Full Text:
http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/ois_ill_pe_2008.pdf [PDF format, 7 pages].
» THE TRANSFORMATION OF U.S. LIVESTOCK AGRICULTURE: SCALE, EFFICIENCY, AND RISKS. U.S. Department of Agriculture. James M. MacDonald and William D. McBride. Web posted March 1, 2009.
U.S. livestock production has shifted to much larger and more specialized farms, and the various stages of input provision, farm production, and processing are now much more tightly coordinated through formal contracts and shared ownership of assets. Important financial advantages have driven these structural changes, which in turn have boosted productivity growth in the livestock sector. But structural changes can also generate environmental and health risks for society, as industrialization concentrates animals and animal wastes in localized areas.
Full Text:
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/EIB43/EIB43.pdf [PDF format, 46 pages].
» HUNGRY OCEANS: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PREY IS GONE? Oceana. Margot L. Stiles et al. Web posted March 5, 2009.
Scientists are finding evidence of widespread malnutrition in commercial and recreational fish, marine mammals, and seabirds because of the global depletion of the small fish they need to survive, according to the report. These "prey fish" underpin marine food webs and are being steadily exhausted by heavy fishing, increasing demand for aquaculture feed, and climate change. Changing ocean temperatures and currents caused by climate change also make prey fish populations more vulnerable.
[Note: contains copyright material]. Full Text:
http://oceana.org/fileadmin/oceana/uploads/Hungry_oceans/hungry_oceans_OCEANA_01.pdf [PDF format, 40 pages].
» THE STATE OF WORLD FISHERIES AND AQUACULTURE 2008. Food and Agriculture Organization, United Nations]. March 2009.
The fishing industry and national fisheries authorities must do more to understand and prepare for the impacts that climate change will have on world fisheries, says the report. According to the report, existing responsible fishing practices need to be more widely implemented and current management plans should be expanded to include strategies for coping with climate change. "Best practices that are already
on the books but not always implemented offer clear, established tools towards making fisheries more resilient to climate change," said Kevern Cochrane, one of the authors.
[Note: contains copyright material]. Full Text:
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/011/i0250e/i0250e.pdf [PDF format, 196 pages].
http://www.fao.org/docrep/011/i0250e/i0250e00.htm [HTML format with PDF files]
Item#09AD682 MSP Theme: 14G Geo: Global
» 25 CITIES WITH THE MOST ENERGY STAR QUALIFIED BUILDINGS IN 2008. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Web posted March 5, 2009.
The report presents a list of U.S. metropolitan areas with the largest number of energy efficient buildings in 2008 that have earned EPA's Energy Star. The list is headed by Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Washington, D.C., Dallas-Fort Worth, Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis-St Paul, Atlanta and Seattle.
Full Text:
http://www.energystar.gov/ia/business/downloads/2008_Top_25_cities_chart.pdf [PDF format, 1 page].
» ARTISTS IN A YEAR OF RECESSION: IMPACT ON JOBS IN 2008. National Endowment for the Arts. March 2009.
Unemployment rates are up among working artists and the artist workforce has contracted, according to the research. It examines how the economic slowdown has affected the nation's working artists. The study looks at artist employment patterns during two spikes in the current recession, the fourth quarters of 2007 and 2008. This downturn reflects larger economic declines: a Commerce Department report last
week noted a 6.2 percent decrease in the gross domestic product in the last quarter of 2008.
[Note: contains copyright material]. Full Text:
http://arts.endow.gov/research/Notes/97.pdf [PDF format, 10 pages].
» THE CONSUMER AND BUSINESS LENDING INITIATIVE. U.S. Department of Treasury. March 3, 2009.
The Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), a component of the Consumer and Business Lending Initiative (CBLI) is launched. The TALF has the potential to generate up to $1 trillion of lending for businesses and households. The TALF is designed to catalyze the securitization markets by providing financing to investors to support their purchases of certain AAA-rated asset-backed securities (ABS). The
TALF will assist lenders in meeting the borrowing needs of consumers and small businesses, helping to stimulate the broader economy.
Full Text: http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/reports/talf_white_paper.pdf [PDF format, 5 pages].
» GREEN JOBS: A PATHWAY TO A STRONG MIDDLE CLASS. Middle Class Task Force, Vice President of the United States. March 4, 2009.
The White House Task Force on the Middle Class has a simple mandate: to find, highlight, and implement solutions to the economic challenges facing the American middle class. The Obama Administration is committed to reforming how we create and consume energy in America, and project of reform is the work of many different officials and agencies within the government. One part of that agenda is to promote the creation of green jobs.
[Note: contains copyright material]. Full Text:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/mctf_one_staff_report.pdf [PDF format, 33 pages].
» HISPANICS BECOME MORE PREVALENT ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES. U.S. Bureau of Census. Web posted March 4, 2009.
Hispanic students comprised 12 percent of full-time college students, both undergraduate and graduate students, in 2007, up from 10 percent in 2006, according to U.S. Census Bureau tables. Hispanics comprise 15 percent of the nation's total population.
Full Text: http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/013391.html [HTML format, various paging].
http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/school.html School Enrollment in the United States: 2007 [HTML format with links to PDF files]
» MINI-DIGEST OF EDUCATION STATISTICS 2008. National Center for Education Statistics. March 2009.
The publication is a pocket-sized compilation of statistical information covering the broad field of American education from kindergarten through graduate school. The statistical highlights are excerpts from the Digest of Education of Statistics, 2008.
[Note: contains copyright material]. Full Text:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/2009021.pdf [PDF format, 77 pages].
» PUTTING U.S. CARS ON THE HIGH ROAD TO RECOVERY. Brookings Institution. Susan Helper. March 4, 2009.
The author, Helper, says putting the U.S. auto industry on the high road to recovery will require more than a quick financial fix. It will require sustained cooperation between government and the industry around fundamental issues: what kinds of cars are made and how they are made.
[Note: contains copyright material]. Full Text:
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2009/0304_auto_industry_wial.aspx [HTML format, various paging].
» RESEARCH PRIORITIES FOR FOSSIL FUELS. Testimonies, RAND Corporation. James T. Bartis. March 5, 2009.
This is the full text of testimony presented before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The author states that the U.S. energy policy needs to focus on developing greenhouse gas reduction technology.
[Note: contains copyright material]. Full Text:
http://www.rand.org/pubs/testimonies/2009/RAND_CT319.pdf [PDF format, 13 pages].