BACKGROUND Following the April 20, 1999, massacre at Columbine High School, Littleton, Colo, school administrators, law enforcement officials, and the media reported a rash of successive bomb threats and threats of school violence that were attributed to imitation. OBJECTIVE To establish that the clustering of threats of school violence following the Columbine massacre was initiated by imitat...

Fine particulate air pollution (PM2.5) has been associated with many adverse health outcomes including school absences. Specifically, a previous study in the Utah Valley area, conducted during a time with relatively high air pollution exposure, found significant positive correlations between school absences and air pollution. We examined the hypothesis that ambient PM2.5 exposures are associate...

In a non-market environment, there is no pressure coming from competitors that leads firms toward efficiency. Public education system is the target of many critiques as being such an example of inefficiency. Some papers attempted to measure the level of inefficiency of schools or school districts using different methods. Unfortunately, those methods do not include an important aspect of the sch...

extended abstract 1. introduction considering the rapid growth of the world population, it is predicted that in the future the majority of this vast population will be concentrated in cities, particularly cities of developing countries. according to united nations’ prediction in 2000, the world population will surpass 2.06 billion by 2030. this population growth will be specifically more eviden...

Between 1992 and 1998 the Peruvian Social Fund (foncodes) spent about US$570 million funding microprojects throughout the country. Many of these projects involved constructing and renovating school facilities. This article uses data from foncodes, the 1993 population census in Peru, and a 1996 household survey conducted by the Peruvian Statistical Institute to analyze the targeting and impact o...