The impact of school resources on women's earnings and educational attainment: Findings from the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women

This research measures the impact of high school resources on women's educational attainment and earnings. No link emerges between education and school resources, whether measured by the pupil-teacher ratio, spending per pupil, teachers' starting salaries, or books per student. For white women, no significant connection between school resources and wages is found. But school inputs are in several cases significantly and positively related to black women's wages. Wage elasticities with respect to school inputs are uniformly larger for black women. Finally, the impact of school resources on earnings remains constant or in some cases depreciates as workers grow older.

Predicting Success, Preventing Failure: An Investigation of the California High School Exit Exam

Examines early indicators that identify fourth-grade students in San Diego who are at risk of failing the California High School Exit Exam, discusses implications for when and how to intervene to address those factors, and makes policy recommendations

Advanced superalloy protection systems evaluation Final report

Metalliding parameters developed for sequential deposition of manganese, aluminum, and tantalum alloys as protective coatings for superalloy

The two-legged stool: the neglected role of educational standards in improving America's public schools

The author notes that raising the school-leaving age and increasing the amount of spending per pupil have been extremely important public school reforms. However, he says, sizable improvements in school quality will only be evident when these two reforms are complemented by higher standards--and when students' abilities to meet these standards are tested.Education

The Impact of Grading Standards on Student Achievement, Educational Attainment, and Entry-Level Earnings

Despite recent theoretical work and proposals from educational reformers, there is little empirical work on the effects of higher grading standards. In this paper we use data from the High School and Beyond survey to estimate the effects of grading standards on student achievement, educational attainment, and entry level earnings. We consider not only how grading standards affect average outcomes but also how they affect the distribution of educational gains by skill level and race/ethnicity. We find that higher standards raise test scores throughout the distribution of achievement, but that the increase is greatest toward the top of the test score distribution. Higher standards have no positive effect on educational attainment, however, and indeed have negative effects on high school graduation among blacks and Hispanics. We suggest a relative performance hypothesis to explain how higher standards may reduce educational attainment even as they increase educational achievement.

Lessons in Reading Reform: Finding What Works

Evaluates elements of reforms designed to improve reading scores among students identified as lagging behind, including extended-length English classes and school years. Considers the role of teachers' experience, lessons learned, and policy implications

The Dawn of Fully Automated Contract Drafting: Machine Learning Breathes New Life Into a Decades-Old Promise

Technological advances within contract drafting software have seemingly plateaued. Despite the decades-long hopes and promises of many commentators, critics doubt this technology will ever fully automate the drafting process. But, while there has been a lack of innovation in contract drafting software, technological advances have continued to improve contract review and analysis programs. “Machine learning,” the leading innovative force in these areas, has proven incredibly efficient, performing in mere minutes tasks that would otherwise take a team of lawyers tens of hours. Some contract drafting programs have already experimented with machine learning capabilities, and this technology may pave the way for the full automation of contract drafting. Although intellectual property, data access, and ethical obstacles may delay complete integration of machine learning into contract drafting, full automation is likely still viable

Triggering on hard probes in heavy ion collisions with CMS

We present a study of the CMS trigger system in heavy-ion collisions. Concentrating on two physics channels, dimuons from decays of quarkonia and single jets, we evaluate a possible trigger strategy for Pb+Pb running that relies on event selection solely in the High-Level Trigger (HLT). The study is based on measurements of the timing performance of the offline algorithms and event-size distributions using full simulations. Using a trigger simulation chain, we compare the physics reach for the jet and dimuon channels using online selection in the HLT to minimum bias running. The results demonstrate the crucial role the HLT will play for CMS heavy-ion physics.Comment: 4 pages, 4 fugures, contribution to QM'06 conferenc