Registration is Still Open for the DC Regional Student Conference
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The DC Regional Student Conference will be held on April 6
th – 7
th, 2018, at
American University in Washington, DC.
Participating students will present their research on panels of peers and through a poster session – be sure to explore the
preliminary program. There will also be several opportunities to network and make connections with a diverse group of academics, researchers, practitioners and students. Registration closes on March 30
th.
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#2018APPAM:
Share Your Expertise at the Premiere Public Policy Conference
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Proposals are now being accepted in
15 policy areas. We encourage submissions that discuss how to generate and capitalize on evidence to improve outcomes and inform decision making. We challenge applicants to consider questions like:
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- How can we leverage innovative technologies and techniques, such as rapid cycle evaluation, program dashboards, and data analytics, to improve programs?
- What challenges do local organizations face while building and making use of evidence?
- What does effective evidence-based policy look like at different levels of government?
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- How can researchers, policy makers, and program leaders better engage with each other?
- What factors lead to impacts and how can these elements be extracted, shared, and applied?
- What tools effectively assist decision making at the ground level and what are we missing?
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All submissions are due by Wednesday, April 11, 2018 at 11:59 pm EDT.
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Equity and Inclusion Fellowship
The Equity and Inclusion Fellowship application will open in mid-April. This fellowship supports the travel and participation of students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds at the
2018 APPAM Fall Research Conference. The fellows will receive a complimentary registration, travel and lodging for the conference, as well as a stipend to cover some expenses at the conference. Stay tuned for the application!
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Regional Student Conference:
We Had a Great Conference in California - Thank You to All Who Participated!
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The conference featured 20 panel sessions, a poster session, networking reception and a lunch workshop:
Tips for Translating Your Policy Degree into Academia, Public Service, and Other Scholarly Practices. Master’s and PhD students from across the country attended this event to present their research, receive feedback from policy academics, researchers, and practitioners, and network with other students.
The lunch workshop coached students on how to best prepare for a career inside, or outside, academia. Career development experts were on hand to explore writing methods, general interviewing tips, and the skills and strategies needed to translate into a successful policy role post-graduation.
Read the full blog and view photos
here, and check out
#APPAM18CA on Twitter.
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Institutional Member Forum:
State and Research University Partnerships in the Opioid Crisis
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Opioid misuse is a major epidemic across the nation. Local and state officials bear the burden of responses to the epidemic and need assistance coordinating research and resources.
Mark your calendars for May 1st
at the Duke University Penn Pavilion.
Registration will open April 3rd.
This Institutional Forum, held at Duke University, will connect the worlds of research and policy across this escalating public health epidemic, and will be a valuable opportunity for academics, researchers, and policy officials to exchange best practices for research and policy support in the face of this crisis.
Find additional information
here.
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APPAM Leadership Blog:
There is No Place Like Home... and Dorothy's Ruby Slippers
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Spring is upon us and that means many things: melting snow, spring training baseball, emerging tulips, and, most importantly, preparing submissions for the APPAM Fall Research Conference! I attended my first APPAM conference in 1985 and it was truly a life-changing event. It connected me to scholars and policy makers who were engaged in work that matters, and it convinced me to continue my education in pursuit of a career in policy research.
Never has rigorous policy evidence been more important. We need to continue to attract and support young professionals to grow and improve our field. The
40 for 40 Fellowship is one small way to support their work and connect them to the learning network that APPAM provides.
Having spent my childhood in Kansas, I’m all about Dorothy’s ruby slippers. There is in fact no place like home, and I’m proud to call APPAM my professional home for the past three plus decades. Let’s make sure our ruby conference continues to build our membership and puts APPAM at the forefront of connecting research and policy.
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Why the gem?
Ruby is the traditional stone to commemorate a 40th anniversary. Known for its vivid red color, rubies can also exhibit secondary shades like orange, purple and pink. They are a desirable stone due to the bold color, hardness, durability, and rarity. You'll notice both the gem graphic and ruby-inspired colors for this 40th anniversary conference.
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JPAM Featured Article:
The Internal and External Validity of the Regression Discontinuity Design: A Meta-Analysis of 15 Within-Study-Comparisons
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Regression discontinuity (RD)is generally acknowledged as the most rigorous non-experimental method for obtaining internally valid impact estimates. The study tests the efficacy of RD by comparing RD causal estimates at the treatment cutoff to those from Randomized Control Trials that are also estimated at this same cutoff. The study identifies 15 previously completed within-study-comparisons that explicitly examined this issue by assuming the RCT results are unbiased and then comparing them to RD results.
Excerpt from the interview:
"Our results suggest that researchers should be particularly careful to avoid two common pitfalls—giving too much weight to individual RD impact estimates that are based on models that use parametric assumptions about the relationship between the running variable and the outcome and relatively small sample sizes (i.e. less than 1,100 observations).
That said, our evidence does suggest that there is little bias associated with using either of these on average so that it would be ok to use such evidence in combination with results from other studies."
Authors:
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Spotlight:
APPAM Members in the News
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Congratulations to
APPAM student member
Paul Bruno on winning the
Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP)
New Scholars
award! The award supports promising research by master’s and doctoral students whose research addresses education finance and policy. Bruno was
recognized
at the AEFP Annual Conference.
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Urban Institute researchers
Matthew Chingos (APPAM professional member) and
Kristin Blagg (
APPAM student member) analyzed travel times between the homes and schools of nearly 190,000 students across five large US cities that offer a significant amount of educational choice: Denver, Detroit, New Orleans, New York City, and Washington, DC. Read the
full report here, or read the feature article below.
"In DC, all students can enter a lottery to go to the public school of their choice, regardless of whether it’s their neighborhood school. DC also has a robust charter school system, along with a means-tested private-school voucher program for low-income families.
But new choices can also mean trade-offs for families, and the school that best meets a family's needs might be on the other side of town."
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APPAM members
Rachel Baker, University of California, Irvine,
Thomas Dee, Stanford University,
Brent Evans, Vanderbilt University, and
June John (
APPAM student member), Stanford University, examined bias in online classes in their recent paper:
"We test for the presence of race and gender biases among postsecondary students and instructors in online classes by measuring student and instructor responses to discussion comments we posted in the discussion forums of 124 different online courses. Each comment was randomly assigned a student name connoting a specific race and gender. We find that instructors are 94% more likely to respond to forum posts by White male students."
- Read the twitter thread from Thomas Dee digging into this paper a bit more.
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Upcoming:
Mark Your Calendars for These Important Dates
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APPAM Webinars and Podcasts
Interested in hosting a new webinar or podcast? We are always open to ideas and presenters. Guidelines can be found
here, or email Meghan Grenda,
[email protected].
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