Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Recent research claims to show a serious overstatement of levels and trends in high school graduation and dropout. According to the research, government reports of stable or upward trends in graduation should be recast as decline.
This paper carefully examines the recent work that has taken place using a variety of data sources. Three major findings (tentatively) emerge. First, most critiques of the current statistical system have not accounted for the increase in immigrant population, which has more strongly impacted graduation and dropout rates than most other factors. Immigration turns out to be the deciding factor in whether graduation rates are rising or falling. Second, racial differences in graduation rates are significantly affected by population coverage issues. The high rate of incarceration of young blacks has spuriously increased their measured graduation rate. Third, GED completion has remained fairly stable for decades, and has not changed graduation rates in the way suggested by most previous research. Overall, what appear to be negative trends in graduation turn out to be mostly favorable trends for each of the subjects we would like to monitor ? schools, students and immigrants.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Privatization has been characterized as the restructuring of public sector organizations to become more like private businesses. This paper analyzes the discourses surrounding the “high-tuition, high-aid” policy movement in U.S. higher education; it examines how policymakers in five U.S. states (Minnesota, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, and California) interprets tuition increases and debates about a high-tuition, high-aid policy as well as the actual socioeconomic contexts in those states. Our case study finds that a policy movement that could be seen as “privatization” movement in many ways is actually not promoted by an explicit discourse advocating the decreased governmental support for public institutions, the decreased governmental support for low-income students and families, or the proliferated ideology of individual responsibility. Instead, the discourses forwarding the privatization movement operates on the arguments promoting a more efficient use of public funding to help the poor, increased role of private sectors to serve the public good (i.e., greater choices), and a better way to promote equality for all--even though the actual policy contexts may not favor their arguments. Overall, this paper shows that market ideology in privatization movements can be extremely latent in the public policy discourse, rendering the picture of privatization indiscernible in the process of cultural, technical, and strategic argumentation.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Migrant communities embedded in global diaspora networks have long been disregarded by policy actors or merely seen as policy problems, as their emergence ran counter to the assimilationist efforts and either-or citizenship constructions in their host countries. Following that logic, recent public debates focus on the dark side of transnationalism, globally operating networks of terrorists. A quite different trend started in classical immigration countries like Canada and has recently spread to non-classical immigration countries like Germany: Policy actors in various fields have discovered the bright side of diaspora networks, their high potential for their host country's engagement in international development on the one hand and international trade relations on the other. This paper argues that both aspects of policy discourse show a paradigm shift in the construction of diaspora networks - even in non-classical immigration countries: They are taken for granted, treated as collectivities and seen as side-effects of blurred national boundaries. Focussing on the "high potential" discourse in Germany, the paper also shows that growing political activity and public influence of diaspora networks is a crucial factor for the convergence of national policy discourses - thereby transforming a field that has traditionally been shaped by domestic voices and concerns.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper explores the impact of Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (JROTC) programs on High School Graduation Rates. The 1990’s witnessed a rapid increase in JROTC programs in US high schools as a method to combat gang violence, drug use, dropout rates and to increase graduation rates. Little prior evidence has been presented on the effectiveness of JROTC programs to meet these goals. Using National Center for Education Statistics data combined with JROTC program data and US Census Data this paper profiles current JROTC programs and test the impact of program participation on graduation rates. Using a sample of schools districts with one high school we find that schools with JROTC programs have lower graduation rates than non participants. To control of possible selection bias, we consider a subsample of only single high school districts with JROTC programs and find that length of program participation does not increase graduation rates. While the results cannot be generalized to all high schools, it does draw into question the effectiveness of JROTC programs to increase graduation rates.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Rather than categorize organizations as high reliability or not, we focus on the communicative enactment of high reliability practices. Highly reliable organizing processes can be enacted intermittently, in a portion of an organization, or in other processes. We synthesize different criteria for high reliability and propose a more streamlined model for analyzing high reliability based on communication principles and apply it to two non-HRO disaster organizations that enact high reliability in divergent ways.