Racial Diversity and Measuring Merit: Evidence from Boston's Exam School Admissions

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-43
Author(s):  
Melanie Rucinski ◽  
Joshua Goodman

The impact of admissions process design on the racial diversity of schools and colleges has sparked heated debates. We study the pipeline into Boston's three public exam schools to understand racial gaps in enrollment. Admission to these schools has historically been based on a combination of GPA and a score on an optional test from a private developer. We document racial gaps in test-taking rates, test scores, GPAs, preferences for the most selective school, and ultimate admission rates to all three schools. These gaps persist even among students with similarly high baseline achievement as measured by the state's mandatory standardized test. Substantial numbers of high-achieving Black and Hispanic students do not apply to the exam schools and to the most selective school in particular. The choice of standardized test used to measure academic merit strongly affects who is admitted.

2001 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Johnson

Students of race and politics in the U.S. have long asserted a relationship between the racial composition and public policies of states. A related but distinct line of research demonstrates a strong connection between white attitudes about the perceived recipients of social welfare spending—blacks and members of other minority groups—and support for these programs. This article bridges these lines of scholarship by asking how racial diversity shapes aggregate attitudes about minorities in the American states and how these opinions in turn influence welfare spending. Using public opinion data from the General Social Survey ( 1974–96), I find that diversity has a direct influence on welfare policy in the states, as well as an indirect influence through shaping majority-group racial attitudes. Diversity and racial attitudes are found to have these effects even when controlling for factors traditionally used to explain variation in state spending levels, such as party competition, lower class mobilization, ideology, and state capacity.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-64
Author(s):  
Gian Paolo Barbetta ◽  
Paolo Canino ◽  
Stefano Cima

Abstract The availability of cheap Wi-Fi internet connections has encouraged schools to adopt Web 2.0 platforms for teaching, with the intention of stimulating students’ academic achievement and participation in school. Moreover, during the recent explosion of the SARS-CoV-2 crisis that forced many countries to close schools (as well as offices and factories), the widespread diffusion of these applications kept school systems going. Despite their widespread use as teaching tools, the effect of adopting Web 2.0 platforms on students’ performance has never been rigorously tested. We fill this gap in the literature by analyzing the impact of using Twitter as a teaching tool on high school students’ literature skills. Based on a large-scale, randomized controlled trial that involved 70 schools and about 1,500 students, we find that using Twitter to teach literature has an overall negative effect on students’ average achievement, reducing standardized test scores by about 25 percent of a standard deviation. The negative effect is stronger on students who usually perform better.


Circulation ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 142 (Suppl_3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamshed Ali ◽  
Osman Faheem ◽  
Pirbhat Shams ◽  
ghufran adnan ◽  
Maria Khan

Introduction: Social containment measures have been adopted globally to control COVID-19 outbreak. Reduction in hospital visits and inpatient admission rates have become cause for concern. Through this study we aimed to analyze the impact of SARS-CoV-2 virus Outbreak on cardiology inpatient admissions at a tertiary care hospital in Pakistan. Hypothesis: COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in significant decline in cardiology admissions. Methods: We conducted a retrospective study at our center. Admission log was accessed via electronic record system. Comparison was made for same months of 2019 and 2020 with regard to cardiology inpatient admissions. Results: A total of 239 patients were admitted to cardiology services in 2019 period and 106 in 2020 period with resultant reduction of 55.6%. Number of patients admitted to the coronary care unit were 179 and 78 respectively where as the numbers declined to 28 from 60 for cardiac step down. Reduction for admission numbered to 52.4% for males and 38.89% for females. 9.3% patients left against medical advice in 2019 and 3.4% in 2020. Conclusions: Our study concludes that numbers of cardiology admissions have dwindled. Possible explanation for this can be implementation of social containment and fear of acquiring infection. This has raised a question of whether a significant number of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality has occurred without seeking medical attention and has went unrecorded during the pandemic. This calls for stringent diagnostic measures in future to diagnose previously unrecorded burden.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 51 (5) ◽  
pp. 833-839
Author(s):  
Michael Klein ◽  
Klaus Roghmann ◽  
Kenneth Woodward ◽  
Evan Charney

The admission patterns of children to area hospitals was studied. The study design allowed for comparisons between actual users of the health center, nonusers who lived in the target area and a comparison group. During the second year of operation, the admission rate of health center users was only 33 versus 67 per thousand for nonusers and 39 per thousand for the comparison group. Comparing the first two years, hospital days per thousand among users dropped by approximately half. Due to higher admission rates and longer average stays, nonusers had a rate of 2.5 times that of the users for hospital days per thousand. The rate for the comparison group remained constant. Users had fewer admissions for respiratory infectious diseases and more admissions for surgical restorative procedures. These trends were not present for the nonusers or for the comparison group. Despite extensive outreach, physician availability, and the team approach, the health center continued to have a large number of child admissions who reached the hospital without referral (the "leakers").


2013 ◽  
Vol 37 (8) ◽  
pp. 272-275
Author(s):  
Laura Boyd ◽  
Colin Crawford ◽  
Eugene Wong

Aims and methodWe examined the impact of implementing a new Acute Mental Health Emergency Assessment Protocol (AMHEAP) on joint psychiatric assessments out of hours within Forth Valley, Scotland, over the course of 4 calendar months. The protocol states that assessments should be carried out by a junior doctor and a registered, qualified mental health nurse. The impact measures were taken as admission rates and experience of the doctor in training.ResultsIn the 4 months that were examined (1 June–30 September 2011), 79.5% of out-of-hours emergency assessments were performed jointly. Admission rates were significantly decreased (P<0.001) compared with a similar period in 2008, before the AMHEAP protocol was developed. Most junior doctors valued the experience of joint assessment.Clinical implicationsJoint assessment can enhance patient experience, reduce hospital admission, and provide a learning opportunity for junior doctors in emergency psychiatric assessments. However, it represents a move away from the doctor as sole decision maker.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Ke Nicole Hu

With music consumption being increasingly prominent in everyday modern life, it has become critical to examine the impact of music on the performance of cognitive tasks. Despite preexisting academic literature on the correlation between music and memorization, test-taking ability, and executive planning, conclusions from past studies regarding these cognitive tasks may not be directly applicable to writing, leaving the effects of music on writing tasks a relatively unexplored territory. Given the prevalence of music in the 21st century among all age groups, the current study explores the effects of induced mood (happy versus sad) and language (native versus foreign) of popular songs on writing productivity, measured by number of words written in a set time period. Participants in the experiment were randomly separated into four conditions based on the language and mood of songs, and each given two argumentative writing prompts to complete while listening to the songs assigned to them. Results revealed that the induced mood of the songs significantly affected the writing productivity, with participants listening to sad music producing word counts that are significantly higher than those given happy songs. No effects, however, were found for the language of the music&rsquo;s lyrical content, suggesting that the language of a song has no significant impact on writing productivity.


2020 ◽  
pp. 197-214
Author(s):  
Ben Vincent

The conclusion considers what systemic improvements may be made to queer communities and medical provisions, to allow the heterogeneity of non-binary identifying people to feel legitimised in their identities, and have equal access and experience of services. One of the most fundamental recommendations for medical practice that can be made is inspired by those communities that non-binary people expressed affinity with, such as bisexual and kink communities. Such spaces were sensitive and reflexive to gender plurality, and tended to construct language and space to be more fully inclusive. Gendered assumptions rooted in cisnormativity should be challenged within medical practice. Practices in gendered medicine may be similarly adjusted at the administrative level to improve preventative health screening for trans individuals. Much of this may be attained initially through the provision of training to both medical students and existent medical staff and administrators. This is followed by a critical reflection on gender affirming medical services, whereby the impact of a shift to an informed-consent focused model is considered. In order to optimise such recommendations, the limitations of this study and future necessary directions of enquiry are then addressed. This includes final methodological reflections and intersectional factors – such as the limited classed and racial diversity of the participants.


2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Tak Cheung Chan

This study examines the impact of technology application on student achievement in the state of Georgia. Technology application includes elements such as technology access, technology integration, and teacher technology proficiency. Student achievement refers to students’ standardized test scores in language, social studies, sciences, and mathematics in elementary, middle, and high schools. Results of Multiple Regression analysis yielded significant percentages of variance in student achievement that was attributable to Internet connected computer access. Another purpose of the study was to investigate the equity issues of school technology. School levels and student socioeconomic status were used as independent variables to determine if significant differences in technology application existed among the school levels and the socioeconomic status categories. Results of Analysis of Variance indicated that students of low socioeconomic status had far less opportunities to access Internet connected computers than students of high socioeconomic status. The level of technology application increased as students moved up the school level.


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