Recent cjtc items

Breathless: Schools, Air Toxics, and Environmental Justice in California

Tue, 8 Feb 2005 00:00:00 +0000

Recent legislation on both federal and state levels has placed the intersection between children’s health and environmental justice on the forefront of public policy debate. This study looks at the intersection of air quality, children’s health, and school performance in the context of environmental equity in California. Information from the U.S. EPA’s National Air Toxics Assessment (NATA) is used to calculate a respiratory hazard ratio for each of California’s census tracts. These ratios are then associated with a geo-coded database of the state's public schools, including school-level information on student demographics and the school's academic performance. We find that students of color are disproportionately located in schools with higher respiratory hazard ratios and also find a link between respiratory hazards and school performance, even after controlling for other factors that affect student performance. We conclude by recommending that state and community actors...

Welfare Recipients' College Attendance and Consequences for Time-Limited Aid

Thu, 10 Jun 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Welfare recipients’ abilities to attend college while receiving aid has been severely curtailed by the TANF program, due in part to concerns about long-term education in a time-limited program. Yet, prior research indicates that college enrollment, and particularly graduation, are strong indicators of positive future outcomes. Findings from the NLSY indicate that during the pre-TANF period, 17 percent of welfare spells had some overlap with college enrollment. Among women who enroll, however, just 36 percent graduate at any point in the 20-year NLSY panel and receipt of financial aid loans is a strong predictor of graduation. Attending college while on aid is associated with up to an additional one and a half years of aid receipt. Graduation may help to ameliorate this, although women who are already enrolled in college when they begin to receive welfare are more likely to graduate than those who start college as welfare recipients.

Thinking About Racial Paradigms: Consequenses for Analyzing the Race Relations between African-Americans and Latinos

Thu, 10 Jun 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Thinking About Racial Paradigms: Consequenses for Analyzing the Race Relations between African-Americans and Latinos

Community Building, Community Bridging: Linking Neighborhood Improvement Initiatives and the New Regionalism in the San Franciscio Bay Area

Thu, 10 Jun 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Community Building, Community Bridging: Linking Neighborhood Improvement Initiatives and the New Regionalism in the San Franciscio Bay Area

The Role of Postsecondary Education in Welfare Recipients' Paths to Self-Sufficiency

Thu, 10 Jun 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Today's welfare system does not encourage postsecondary education, focusing instead on services aimed at immediate employment. The loss of postsecondary education as a route out of poverty for welfare recipients may be detrimental to some women. College graduation is associated with lower rates of return to aid and post-welfare poverty than attendance without graduation or no attendance. However, graduation rates for welfare recipients are well below national graduation rates.