Wineries in the mid-Atlantic region should consider recycling and encouraging their customers to bring bottles to their tasting rooms for refilling to distinguish their businesses from so many others, according to a team of wine-marketing researchers who surveyed consumers. With competition to attract visitors stiff and still growing among the hundreds of wineries in the...
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School Spending Cuts Triggered by Great Recession Linked to Sizable Learning Losses for Students in Hardest Hit Areas
Substantial school spending cuts triggered by the Great Recession were associated with sizable losses in academic achievement for students living in counties most affected by the economic downturn, according to a new study published today in AERA Open, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association. The estimated declines in student math and English language arts achievement...
Student Body Diversity Goals & Giving Parents a Say in Where Their Child Goes to School
A new algorithm achieves school diversity goals while allowing parents to still have a say in where their child attends. The only caveat with the model is there is no way to control the size of a school, so diversity changes may have more of an impact on smaller schools. In order to reach goals,...
Research Finds a New Way to Reduce Food Waste
Pity the poor blemished banana. In a society that equates beauty with quality, the perception that blemished produce is less desirable than its perfect peers contributes to 1.3 billion tons of wasted food a year globally. That, in turn, raises the cost and environmental impact of feeding the world’s population. Researchers are suggesting a potential...
School District Secessions in the South Have Deepened Racial Segregation Between School Systems
Since 2000, school district secessions in the South have increasingly sorted white and black students, and white and Hispanic students, into separate school systems, weakening the potential to improve school integration, according to a new study published today in AERA Open, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association. The study, conducted by Kendra Taylor (Sanametrix), Erica...
Police Less Proactive After Negative Public Scrutiny
Public safety officers know that their profession could draw them into the line of fire at any moment, as it did recently for six officers wounded in a shooting standoff in Philadelphia. Yet, in an age when cellphone videos of police misconduct can go viral, the new social phenomenon of “cop shaming” is causing performance...
Comparing Your House to Your Neighbors’ Can Lead to Dissatisfaction
Satisfaction with your home can depend on its size compared to your neighbors’ homes, according to new Iowa State University research. Daniel Kuhlmann, assistant professor of community and regional planning, found that people are more likely to be dissatisfied with their house if it is smaller than their neighbors’. His study was published last week...
Novel School Improvement Program Can Raise Teaching Quality While Reducing Inequality
A multi-national European study, looking at over 5,500 students, has found that a novel school intervention program can not only improve the mathematics scores of primary school children from disadvantaged areas, but can also lessen the achievement gap caused by socioeconomic status. Known as the Dynamic Approach to School Improvement (DASI), the program is based...
Black Students Receive Fewer Warnings from Teachers About Misbehavior
A new study of racial and ethnic disparities in school discipline found that black middle school students were significantly less likely than their white peers to receive verbal or written warnings from their teachers about behavioral infractions. “While at first glance, disparities in teacher warnings seem less concerning than being expelled or sent to the...
Larger Ethnic Communities Help New Refugees Find Work, Stanford Research Shows
Ethnic enclaves are often viewed as a negative for the integration of immigrants with natives in their new country. But it turns out that ethnic communities can help newly arrived refugees find work, according to a new Stanford study that analyzed a cohort of asylum seekers in Switzerland. Researchers at the Stanford Immigration Policy Lab...