April 16, 2021
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Laws regarding driving under the influence of marijuana
vary from state to state, with a growing trend toward
“per se” laws that identify a level of
delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, one of the
psychoactive substances in marijuana) in biofluids as a
determinant of intoxication. However, there is little
evidence correlating specific THC levels with impaired
driving, making marijuana per se laws controversial and
difficult to prosecute. Researchers also examined how
cannabis dose and administration method (eaten or vaped)
affect THC levels in the body and how THC levels
correlate with performance on impairment tests.
Researchers concluded that THC levels in biofluids were
not reliable indicators of test performance or marijuana
intoxication.
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Source: Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of
Justice
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This study examines 67 disrupted attack plots against
K-12 schools and highlights the importance of proactive
reporting and intervention. Students who plotted school
attacks shared many similarities with students who
perpetrated school attacks. Both this report and the U.S.
Secret Service study Protecting America’s
Schools included students who had histories of
school discipline and contact with law enforcement;
experienced bullying or had mental health issues,
frequently involving depression and suicidality; intended
to commit suicide as part of the school attack; used
drugs or alcohol; and had been impacted by adverse
childhood experiences, including substance abuse in the
home, violence or abuse, parental incarceration, or
parental mental health issues. Key findings include that
targeted school violence is preventable when communities
identify warning signs and intervene. The authors also
found that students were more often motivated to plan a
school attack because of a grievance with classmates.
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Source: U.S. Secret Service
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Communities across the United States are reconsidering
the public safety benefits of prosecuting non-violent
misdemeanor offenses. So far, there has been little
empirical evidence to inform policy in this area. In this
paper, the authors report the first estimates of the
causal effects of misdemeanor prosecution on defendants'
subsequent criminal justice involvement. The authors
leverage the as-if random assignment of non-violent
misdemeanor cases to Assistant District Attorneys (ADAs)
who decide whether a case should move forward with
prosecution in the Suffolk County District Attorney's
Office in Massachusetts. These ADAs vary in the average
leniency of their prosecution decisions. They find that,
for the marginal defendant, non-prosecution of a
non-violent misdemeanor offense leads to large reductions
in the likelihood of a new criminal complaint over the
next two years. These local average treatment effects are
largest for first-time defendants, suggesting that
averting initial entry into the criminal justice system
has the greatest benefits. They also present evidence
that a recent policy change in Suffolk County imposing a
presumption of non-prosecution for a set of non-violent
misdemeanor offenses had similar beneficial effects: the
likelihood of future criminal justice involvement fell,
with no apparent increase in local crime rates.
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Source: National Bureau of Economic Research
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The Common Core of Data provides basic information on
public elementary and secondary schools, local education
agencies, and state education agencies for all fifty
states and the District of Columbia. Recently posted
data for academic year 2019-20 includes staff counts by
professional category and student membership
disaggregated by grade, race/ethnicity, and sex,
including school-level counts of student eligible for
free and reduced-price lunches. Geographic data and
directory information, operational status, and charter
status data for public schools has also been recently
posted.
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Source: National Center for Educational Statistics, U.S.
Department of Education
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Arkansas has faced a massive shortage of certified
teachers for decades. Statewide, 4% of public school
teachers are uncertified, with another 3% teaching out of
field. In many districts, the percentage of uncertified
is much higher: as high as 56% in the Helena-West Helena
School District, and 52% in the Forrest City School
District. In this report, the authors provide a roadmap
for how to take up this teacher shortage. First, the
report analyzes the geography and extent of Arkansas’
teacher shortage. Next, it provides potential
explanations for why it is so high in certain areas,
including an analysis of existing efforts to reduce the
shortage. Recommendations include 1) Design a supportive
pathway to standard licensure for paraprofessionals,
long-term substitutes, and classroom aides; 2) Raise the
average teacher salary statewide, and provide districts
whose average teacher salary falls below the target
average with additional funding to help narrow their
salary gap with nearby districts; and 3) Design a website
that clearly illustrates the state’s pathways to teaching
and related financial incentives.
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Source: TNTP
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This report provides an overview of arts education
policies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
It is updated annually, and new for 2021 is a metric on
arts and science, technology, engineering, arts, and
mathematics (STEAM) diploma seals. Florida was “yes” on 8
of the 15 arts metrics, including content standards for
art, licensure requirements for art teachers, and state
education grant programs or schools for arts.
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Source: Education Commission of the States
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New America recently published a report Harnessing
Micro-credentials for Teacher Growth that
champions ways that micro-credentials have been
used to allow teachers to move up the career ladder,
receive higher pay, or renew their licenses.
Micro-credentials are assessment tools that verify a
discrete skill or competency that a teacher has
demonstrated through the submission of evidence assessed
via a validated rubric. The report makes claims about the
problems with traditional professional development and
about how micro-credentials could address these
shortfalls. However, the evidence to support these
claims remains scarce. Without demonstrating that
micro-credentials can improve teaching or student
learning, the report offers guidance on how to implement
micro-credentials and integrate them into state human
resources systems. The implementation guide starts with
an idealistic assumption that states, districts, and
school leaders have the capacity to select, vet, and
ensure the high quality of micro-credentials
before they are offered to teachers. Furthermore,
as the primary role of micro-credentials is to
assess whether teachers have acquired a particular
skill, they require additional resources to provide
teachers with opportunities to develop that skill.
Since micro-credentials on their own cannot provide
opportunities for teacher growth and require the
existence of effective professional development systems
to work, the report’s title and guidelines are misleading.
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Source: National Education Policy Center
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This tool is one item in a suite of materials produced
for the Pre-Kindergarten to Postsecondary Community
Investment initiative, a three-year learning across five
communities (Buffalo, New York; Chattanooga, Tennessee;
Dallas, Texas; the Rio Grande Valley, Texas; and Tacoma,
Washington). The initiative seeks to understand and
support the development of coherent, high-functioning,
equity-centered, place-based systems that span all
education sectors from cradle to career. Funders,
practitioners, and other stakeholders interested in
place-based systems change can use this tool in their
work. A place-based system is a geographically specific
unit such as a neighborhood, city or town, or a state or
region. This assessment tool is designed to help
partnerships take a closer look at their areas of
strength and areas where they can go deeper to effect
place-based systems change. Though it draws from learning
in cradle-to-career education, the assessment has
application beyond that field. It can be used to examine
multi-sector partnerships and collective efforts in areas
such as health, transportation, and economic development.
It can support decisions around upcoming investments,
technical assistance needs, and site selection. It also
codifies a cohesive framework for measuring place-based
systems change efforts.
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Source: Mathematica
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Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, workers at the bottom
of the opportunity scale were struggling to support
themselves and their families – let alone build wealth.
Divisions in wealth between men and women, and between
white households and households of color, are
particularly striking consequences of structural
discrimination and occupational segregation. The pandemic
has exacerbated and heightened awareness of these
inequities, and there is a mounting sense of urgency to
find practical solutions. Broadening opportunities to
participate in business ownership can help address this
wealth divide and offer working people the opportunity to
meaningfully participate in the success of the economy.
In addition, employee share ownership can help strengthen
job quality and worker agency while contributing to
business performance, so that businesses and workers
succeed together. Drawing on recent research, this report
makes a case for why policymakers, funders, and investors
should support employee share ownership. Informed by a
roundtable discussion which brought together researchers,
philanthropic leaders, investors, policy experts, and
advocates, the report provides a set of concrete policy
and practice ideas to expand employee ownership and
advance equity and economic justice. Expanding employee
share ownership can help create an economy that is more
equitable and just, and that everyone has a stake in.
Making more workers owners can help strengthen job
quality and worker agency while contributing to business
performance, so that businesses and workers succeed
together. Increasing access to employee share ownership
is a strategy to build wealth among historically excluded
communities, and it is a structural shift that can help
more workers and business leaders align their interests
and build common purpose.
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Source: Aspen Institute
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Employers are allowed to pay less than minimum wage to
certain people with disabilities. Often, they work in
segregated settings where their co-workers also have
disabilities. Recent federal policy calls for maximizing
opportunities for people with disabilities to earn
competitive wages in non-segregated settings. The authors
interviewed state officials and disability employment
experts to identify 32 factors influencing whether and
how people can transition to competitive integrated
employment (CIE). Generally, CIE is employment that (1)
is paid at or above the applicable minimum wage; (2) is
performed in integrated settings, among people with and
without disabilities; and (3) offers opportunities for
advancement. The authors group the 32 factors into four
categories: (1) employee; (2) employer; (3) public
policy; and (4) local economy. For example, a factor in
the employee category is concern for maintaining
benefits. Individuals or families may fear that earning
higher wages in CIE would make individuals ineligible for
certain benefits, but several noted that benefits
counseling could mitigate these concerns. Sufficiency of
CIE resources was a factor in the employer grouping,
state resources for CIE were a factor in the public
policy grouping and available transportation was a factor
in the local economy grouping.
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Source: U.S. Government Accountability Office
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Medicare’s experience of paying for outpatient imaging
services, particularly expensive advanced imaging such as
MRIs, CAT scans, and nuclear scans, has been tumultuous
over the last 20 years. The period was characterized by
substantial increases in performance of advanced imaging
services, mainly in doctors’ offices, followed by a shift
to hospital outpatient departments and then a leveling
off of utilization. These trends were influenced by an
extraordinary number of legislative and regulatory policy
changes, most of which reduced payment amounts for
services paid under the Physician Fee Schedule in
doctors’ offices. This likely contributed to a movement
of services to hospital outpatient departments, with
payment based on the Outpatient Prospective Payment
System where rates have been less impacted by policy
changes. The authors termed this policy making process
dysfunctional because there is no evidence that the
results were anticipated or planned, despite the dramatic
effect they have had on where advanced imaging is
performed and at what cost. The report offers three
recommendations for improving Medicare’s treatment of
advanced imaging in ambulatory settings: 1) The Centers
for Medicare and Medicaid Services needs a more
systematic method of establishing payment levels for
services using expensive equipment involved in the
performance of advanced imaging studies; 2) The Centers
for Medicare and Medicaid Services should coordinate the
process for setting payments under the Physician Fee
Schedule and Outpatient Prospective Payment System; and
3) The practice of prior authorization, a system widely
used by private insurers to control spending for advanced
imaging and other expensive services, should be used to
manage advanced imaging services paid under the Physician
Fee Schedule and Outpatient Prospective Payment System.
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Source: Brookings Institution
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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
is a federal agency tasked with protecting public health
and safety. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
pandemic presented the CDC with a challenge that was
initially met with technical problems in the development
of testing kits, mixed messaging about the pandemic and
mitigation strategies, and extended public commentary and
interference by the Trump administration. As vaccine
dissemination campaigns ramp up, trust in the vaccines
themselves and in public health procedures more broadly
may pose a significant challenge to effectively combating
the pandemic—particularly among groups that have had
general medical mistrust stemming from historical
experience, such as among people of color. This report
examines changes in levels of trust in the CDC between
May and October 2020 in light of these concerns. Four
factors that determine whether an audience perceives the
messenger as trusted are transparency and honesty,
empathy and care, dedication and commitment, and
competence and expertise. The CDC and its messengers
should convey these factors to rebuild and maintain
trust, communicating in appealing and transparent ways to
counter the way that information is currently disseminated.
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Source: RAND Corporation
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Government Program Summaries (GPS) is a free resource for legislators and the public that provides descriptive information on over 200 state government programs. To provide fiscal data, GPS links to Transparency
Florida, the Legislature's website that includes continually updated information on the state's operating budget and daily expenditures by state agencies.
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A publication of the Florida Legislature's Office of Program Policy Analysis & Government Accountability
PolicyNotes, published every Friday, features reports, articles, and websites with timely information of interest to policymakers and researchers. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations
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