Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Efforts to improve low academic achievement among racial and ethnic minorities and children from low-income families, including the No Child Left Behind legislation, will have limited success unless and until they take into account an important feature of contemporary American public education—white children continue to receive educational opportunities in gifted and talented programs that are not available to others. Using the work of Cheryl Harris, we examine the extent to which these advantages function as white property sanctioned by law.

To find the basis for these educational advantages we examine several identification procedures used to select kindergarten students for a gifted and talented program. Our analysis is a case study in one urban Midwestern school district where, for over ten years, repeated yet unsuccessful efforts have been made to identify and admit children from under-represented groups so that they might attend a “magnet” school for the gifted and talented created to achieve voluntary school desegregation.

With the demise of affirmative action, the current racial resegregation has been shown to have a negative influence on educational achievement (Orfield, 2001). The systematic educational advantages afforded to white students under the banner of gifted and talented education maintain and strengthen de facto segregation.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Efforts to improve low academic achievement among racial and ethnic minorities and children from low-income families, including the No Child Left Behind legislation, will meet with limited success unless and until they take into account an important feature of contemporary American public education—white children continue to receive the educational opportunities not available to others in gifted and talented schools and programs. To find the basis for these educational advantages we examine several identification procedures used to select kindergarten students for a gifted and talented program.
Our analysis is a case study in one urban Midwestern school district where, for over ten years, repeated efforts have been made to identify and admit children from under-represented groups so that they might attend a “magnet” school for gifted and talented children created to achieve voluntary school desegregation. Our sources are interviews with seven parents, as well as district and state documents.
With the demise of affirmative action, the current racial resegregation has been shown to have a negative influence on educational achievement (Orfield, 2001). The systematic educational advantages afforded to white students under the banner of gifted and talented education that maintain and strengthen defacto segregation must be addressed.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper argues that gifts, whose status is presented as unproblematic in Hegel's Philosophy of Right, are potentially problematic on his own terms because they, unlike other forms of contract, continue to reflect the will of the giver.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: I examine financial reports and vote returns from multiple elections in four states, and engage the question of whether partial funding, full funding, or both are sufficiently powerful to overcome business, labor, and issue advocacy group influence in state legislative elections. I find strong evidence that while PACs remain key players in partially-funded states, full funding such as that in the so-called Clean Elections programs of Arizona and Maine attenuates the effect of PAC money on candidates’ general election vote share.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: When tying a ribbon around a wrapped box (or other polyhedral gift), it is preferable that the ribbon bend neatly around the edges of the box without twisting or buckling. A ribbon with this property represents a family of parallel geodesics on the surface of the object being wrapped. In this talk we will discuss how the dynamic geometry software Geogebra can be used to visualize and study polyhedral geodesics. We will present some results towards a characterization of dodecahedral geodesics.