Racial capitalism and STEM education in Chicago Public Schools

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes the role of STEM initiatives designed by city and corporate elites in a large urban district and outlines an alternative, grassroots vision for (STEM) education and city schools. Within a neoliberal context of gentrification, displacement, disinvestment, and privatization, STEM schools have become strategic components of Chicago’s ‘portfolio district’ that serve the interests of racial capitalism in three ways. First, STEM schools provide a claim to fairness in the midst of racist school closures. Second, STEM high schools are a corporate strategy for racially stratified labor force preparation that restricts curriculum and reifies tracking. Third, curriculum restriction prioritizes corporate interests over students’ capacity to shape their communities and the world. The authors draw on the wisdom of Chicago communities who have led resistance against corporate education reform to critique Chicago STEM policy and point to critical mathematics and science education as part of a model for sustainable community schools.     

Identification Properties of Recent Production Function Estimators

This paper examines some of the recent literature on the estimation of production functions. We focus on techniques suggested in two recent papers, Olley and Pakes (1996) and Levinsohn and Petrin (2003). While there are some solid and intuitive identification ideas in these papers, we argue that the techniques can suffer from functional dependence problems. We suggest an alternative approach that is based on the ideas in these papers, but does not suffer from the functional dependence problems and produces consistent estimates under alternative data generating processes for which the original procedures do not.     

Robust Bayesian model selection for variable clustering with the Gaussian graphical model

Statistics and Computing - Variable clustering is important for explanatory analysis. However, only few dedicated methods for variable clustering with the Gaussian graphical model have been...     

Linear Increments with Non‐monotone Missing Data and Measurement Error

Linear increments (LI) are used to analyse repeated outcome data with missing values. Previously, two LI methods have been proposed, one allowing non‐monotone missingness but not independent measurement error and one allowing independent measurement error but only monotone missingness. In both, it was suggested that the expected increment could depend on current outcome. We show that LI can allow non‐monotone missingness and either independent measurement error of unknown variance or dependence of expected increment on current outcome but not both. A popular alternative to LI is a multivariate normal model ignoring the missingness pattern. This gives consistent estimation when data are normally distributed and missing at random (MAR). We clarify the relation between MAR and the assumptions of LI and show that for continuous outcomes multivariate normal estimators are also consistent under (non‐MAR and non‐normal) assumptions not much stronger than those of LI. Moreover, when missingness is non‐monotone, they are typically more efficient.     

Semiparametric Estimation of a Change-point for Recurrent Events Data

One particular recurrent events data scenario involves patients experiencing events according to a common intensity rate, and then a treatment may be applied. The treatment might be effective for a limited amount of time, so that the intensity rate would be expected to change abruptly when the effect of the treatment wears out. In particular, we allow models for the intensity rate, post-treatment, to be at first decreasing and then change to increasing (and vice versa). Two estimators of the location of this change are proposed.     

Stymied ambition: does a lack of economic freedom lead to migration?

We investigate the relationship between economic freedom and international migration for the 1980–2010 period using a dataset on migration from 91 emerging countries to the 20 most attractive OECD destination countries. We find that more economic freedom at home discourages high-skilled migration, but not low-skilled migration. The negative association between economic freedom and high-skilled emigration also holds when we estimate (dynamic) panel models that allow for endogeneity in the economic freedom-migration nexus. In sum, our findings suggest that high-skilled migration is especially responsive to the economic incentives resulting from economic freedom.     

Fathers’ Imprisonment and Mothers’ Multiple-Partner Fertility

We consider the intersection between two striking U.S. trends: dramatic increases in the imprisonment of fathers and increases in the proportion of mothers who have children with more than one partner (multiple-partner fertility, or MPF). Using matched longitudinal administrative data that provide unusually comprehensive and accurate information about the occurrence and timing of imprisonment, fertility, and MPF for the population of the state of Wisconsin, we consider the relationship between paternal imprisonment and MPF among unwed mothers. Employing discrete-time event history analysis with multinomial logistic regression, we model the occurrence and timing of the mother’s second birth, distinguishing between a birth with the same father and a birth with a different father, and distinguishing between current imprisonment and a history of imprisonment. We find that current imprisonment is associated with an increased likelihood of MPF and a decreased likelihood of fertility with the same father (compared with no additional birth) and that a history of imprisonment is associated with increased MPF in some models but not in our preferred model. To control for unobserved heterogeneity among mothers and assess the evidence of a causal effect of fathers’ imprisonment, we also employ the case-time-control method, a fixed-effects method for the analysis of nonrepeated events. Results suggest that fathers’ current imprisonment may increase mothers’ MPF. Policy implications are discussed.