Writing Next by Graham and Perin
Authors of this report used Meta Analysis to illustrate teaching techniques effective in improving students writing proficiency.
"Education is the transmission of civilization, in short if students are to learn, they
must write."
This report offers a number of specific teaching techniques that will help 4th-12th grade students.
Meta Analysis:
"Meta-analysis is a particularly powerful way of synthesizing large bodies of research, as it relies on quantitative studies and permits the calculation of effect sizes. The strength of meta-analysis as an approach is that it allows consideration of both the strength and consistency of a practice’s effects."
Effect Size:
"Effect sizes report the average difference between a type of instruction and a comparison condition. They indicate the strength of the effect."
• Writing quality is defined here in terms of coherently organized essays containing well-developed and pertinent ideas, supporting examples and appropriate detail.
• 72% of 4th graders, 69% of 8th graders and 77% of 12th graders did not meet standards of National Assessment of Educational Progress in writing efficiency.
Examples of elements proven to be effective in improving a student’s writing. (Larger effect size to smaller effect size. Larger effect sizes are more useful.)
Writing Strategies
Summarization
Collaborative Writing
Specific Product Goals
Word Processing
Politics and Policy Analysis
by Peter J. May, 1986
Introduction
• When it comes to assessing the relevance of Political Science to Public Policy, there seems to be an identity crisis.
• However, there is substantial interest in making the discipline more policy relevant.
• Part of the difficulty of political science being relevant is the inability to translate existing theories into concrete policy guidance, or methodological advice about policy making. Policy frameworks offered by political science are too “squishy” to be of practical value.
• One major gap between the reality of policy making and the literature is attention to “political feasibility” as an element of policy making.
o Little has been written about what constitutes feasibility, how one gauges it, and its role in policy making.
• Some have argued that the political aspects of policy making are too complex to be subjects of forecasts or other prospective assessments.
• The article discusses policies cast in terms of prospective policies, which are federally introduced and domestic in nature.
Political Feasibility of Prospective Policies
• One definition considers political feasibility to be judgments about the “probabilities that within a given time, defined policy alternatives will receive sufficient political push and support to be approved and implemented.” This typically entails assessing the likelihood of clearing relevant legislative hurdles.
• Political feasibility assessments can also be viewed as “developing a sense of what [political] constraints to recognize and of when and how far to stretch those constrains…”
o Simply pointing out the probability of success is insufficient since such probabilities are dependent upon the political strategy that is used to enact and implement a policy.
• The task, then, is both devising a political strategy for gaining acceptance of a policy proposal and gauging the likely success of the strategy.
• This requires both an understanding of the bases of support and resistance to policy proposals and an ability to judge overall success. With this knowledge, one can suggest ways in which to modify policy proposals or ways to “sell” proposals in order to enhance support for enactment or prospects for implementation.
• Political feasibility can also be viewed as the “political price to be paid for a course of action.
• Securing approval or implementing a policy proposal involves a “price” in the form of policy or other concessions that diminish the policy advocate’s store of political capital.
• For example, Presidents and their staffs “openly subscribe to a theory of legislative expense; they believe that programs have specific political and economic price tags.”
o On of the factors that undermined the Reagan administration’s support for the EPAs plan for reducing acid rain, was a paper circulated among administration officials entitled “The Politics of Acid Rain.” The paper listed the states that would pay for a control plan, Reagan’s 1980 vote margins in those states, and the electoral votes those states would have in 1984.
Literature in regards to Political Feasibility
Policy Typologies:
• Substance, to a large degree, determines the politics of enactment and implementation
• Typologies are of little value in predicting the political feasibility of particular policies. It is difficult to decide for any specific policy and typology how that policy should be classified.
• The literature seems to suggest that policy typology has little relevance for the task of predicting “probabilities of success” of particular policy proposals.
• However, the literature could be helpful in thinking about constraints and opportunities when fashioning political strategies. In particular, it underscores the importance of identification of the perceptions of policy by policy makers or relevant interest groups as a key to understanding the sources of resistance or support for policy proposals.
o For example, changing labels of problems or programs, from “sulfur dioxide problem” to “acid rain” can change the perception of a given policy without necessarily changing the content of the policy.
Agenda Setting:
• This deals with the way in which issues reach official agendas and how policy proposals influence the agendas
• This literature is relevant in several ways, such as part of the feasibility assessment may consist of gauging whether or not relevant officials will pay attention to a policy proposal or problem.
• Policy Windows are useful in thinking about the timing of policy proposals. The term embodies the notions that opportunities for particular proposals only occur given the “right” circumstances and that combination of circumstances are of limited duration.
• This literature provides a foundation for thinking about political strategies for enacting and implementing policies. Central to formulation of a political strategy is recognition of the degree of public acceptance that is required for a policy to be implemented and how that can be mobilized.
• This is weakened, however, by the difficulties of ascertaining which propositions are relevant to particular policy settings.
Interest Group Theory:
• This views policy making in the United States as balancing demands of interest groups, as opposed to responding to powerful individuals, public opinion, or policy makers’ self-interests.
• The probability of successful enactment and implementation of a policy proposal can be gauged by assessing the positions and strength of relevant interest groups.
• There are three things to keep in mind:
o 1) not all interest groups with a stake in a given policy will have the same influence
o 2) an interest group’s power will vary among decision-making arenas
o 3) an interest group’s salience and issue position will vary according to which aspect of an issue is under consideration
Legislative Analysis:
• This looks at political feasibility in terms of the probabilities of, constraints upon, or opportunity costs of enacting legislation
• The most relevant topics appear to be: roll-call analyses & committee decision making
o An analysis of roll-call votes might provide a key to predicting congressional policy enactment, were it not for two problems
1) does a given theory provide an accurate prediction of how congressman actually voted?
2) how much weight does the president, a politician’s party, etc have upon a congressperson’s vote?
• Little has been written regarding committee votes, but the literature suggests that different congressional committees have their own personalities.
• This would suggest that any effort to model probabilities of successful committee clearance would require committee specific and issue-domain specific models.
Toward Feasibility Estimates
• It is fruitless to attempt to develop a predictive model that forecasts the political feasibility of policy proposals. The variability in proposals, settings, interests groups, and the like are substantial enough to inhibit such modeling efforts.
• However, political maps help to tie together notions developed with the literature discussed in the article.
Perceptual Maps:
• Policy makers’ or relevant interest groups’ perceptions may be a key to understanding the sources of resistance or support for policy proposals.
• Constructing a map showing perceptions of a policy or key features and perceptions of the impact of the proposed policy and help us gain understanding.
• However, the methodology of perceptual mapping is not well developed in the context of conducting political feasibility assessments. Any such methodological development would want to consider ways of acquiring data other than direct interviews.
Position Maps:
• This consists of mapping the positions of interest groups or key actors vis-à-vis the main features of a policy proposal.
• Again, the methodology of position mapping is also not well refined.
o Consideration needs to be given to methods for IDing key decision points in legislative flows, selection of actors or interest groups that are influential at particular decision points, data collection methods, and measurement of the sensitivity of position maps to changes in policy proposals or symbols.
Conclusion
• The literature provides insights about policy making that are potentially relevant for political feasibility assessments and political strategy formulation.
• The underlying political science theories provide little indication of how the various propositions concerning political feasibility could or should be combined to inform political feasibility calculations.
• Efforts to develop methodologies for assessing political feasibility must be tempered by recognition of the constraints imposed by the vagaries of policy making and by the limited theoretical base for combining diverse propositions about policy and politics.
• We should never expect more than a partial political feasibility calculus based upon informed judgments.
• The challenge is to develop methodological guidance that informs judgments about the probabilities of legislative enactment, political strategies, or the political costs of policy proposals.
Fernandez, Kenneth and Max Neiman. 1998. “California’s Inmate Classification System: Predicting Inmate Misconduct.” Prison Journal 78 (December): 406-422.
Main Topics
• In this article Fernandez and Neiman discuss the predictive value of the California Department of Corrections (CDC) inmate classification system.
• Most corrections institutions have some sort of process of assessing/assigning levels of risk of inmates and parolees.
• Due to increasing inmate population and expanding corrections budgets, inmate classification systems are being evaluated to ensure that state resources are being used effectively.
• There are two categories of prison classification:
o Concern with security and protecting the public from criminals – these systems use factors such as prior escape attempts, crime history and seriousness of the offense to classify prisoners.
o Concerns the safety of the prisoners and corrections staff – these systems rely on institutional infractions and misconduct to classify prisoners.
• California’s system uses both of these two categories to classify its prisoners.
• California’s classification system uses scores, which assign inmates to four levels (ranging from 1-4) Level 1 inmates are suitable for low security prisons while Level 4 inmates are most suitable for high security prison environments.
o This score is derived from 24 factors (i.e. age, marital status, educational level), but the most determining factor is length of sentence.
o It is argued that sentence length is a valid indicator of the severity of the crime and therefore a good predictor of a prisoner’s inclination toward violence while incarcerated.
Arguments
• The current system is based too heavily on an inmate’s sentence length and such an indicator provides little or no predictive value for inmate misconduct and is therefore not meeting the policy objectives assigned to classification and risk assessment.
• There is a greater need for more periodic evaluation
Findings
• According to the data, sentence length explains 73% of the variation in classification scores.
o However, there are other published studies that point to age being a far more reliable indicator than sentence length.
• Data used were incident reports from 1992, 1993 & 1994. These files included 34,000 inmates, but the researchers took a random sample that excluded females and those who were civil narcotics addicts. The sample used consisted of 13,161 observations.
• Younger & unemployed inmates were more likely to have high numbers of infractions.
o The greatest effect on infraction rate was a prisoner’s age.
• Infraction rates were highest at the beginning of the prisoner’s sentence and lowest at their end. Suggesting that prison experience tempers the behavior of inmates.
• There is a weak relationship between the assigned classification scores at reception and the inmate’s infraction rate.
o Suggests that there is a need for improving the predictive power of the current classification system.
• Inmate’s sentence length showed a stronger relationship with assault rate than with cumulative infraction rate measure (which includes all types of infractions).
Policy Recommendations
• Fernandez and Neiman point to a need for further research in this area before making hard conclusions regarding the validity of the classification instruments used.
• The CDC may benefit from putting more weight on factors such as age and whether an inmate graduated from high school, rather than sentence length, in their classification formula.
• In 1995, 31.6% of California’s state inmate population had a classification score of 1, but only 18.6% were actually placed in low security prisons. There is a need to reevaluate the classification system in order to maximize the predictive capabilities and place inmates in an appropriate facility.