School Leader Update, January 2007

Monthly newsletter produced by Iowa Department of Education

School Leader Update, February 2007

Monthly newsletter produced by Iowa Department of Education

Audit report on Mid-Iowa School Improvement Consortium, Carlisle, Iowa for the year ended June 30, 2006

Audit report on Mid-Iowa School Improvement Consortium, Carlisle, Iowa for the year ended June 30, 2006

Effect of an ectoparasite on lay date, nest-site choice, desertion, and hatching success in the great tit (Parus major)

Ectoparasites are common in most bird species, but experimental evidence of their effects on life-history traits is scarce. We investigated experimentally the effects of the hematophagous hen flea (Ceratophyllus gallinae) on timing of reproduction, nest-site choice, nest desertion, clutch size, and hatching success in the great tit (Parus major). When great tits were offered a choice on their territory between an infested and a parasite-free nest-box, they chose the one without parasites. When there was no choice, the great tits in a territory containing an infested nest-box delayed laying the clutch by 11 days as compared with the birds that were offered a parasite-free nesting opportunity. The finding that there was no difference in phenotypic traits related to dominance between the birds nesting in infested boxes and birds nesting in parasite-free boxes suggests that the delay is not imposed by social dominance. Nest desertion between laying and shortly after hatching was significandy higher in infested nests. There was no difference between infested and parasite-free nests in clutch size, but hatching success and hence brood size at hatching were significantly smaller in infested nests. Nest-box studies of great tits have been seminal in the development of evolutionary, ecological, and behavioral theory, but recently a polemic has arisen in the literature about the validity of the conclusions drawn from nest-box studies where the naturally occurring, detrimental ectoparasites are eliminated by the routine removal of old nests between breeding seasons. Our study suggests that this criticism is valid and that the evaluation of the effects of ectoparasites may improve our understanding of behavioral traits, life-history traits, or population dynamics

Reaudit report on the Des Moines Independent Community School District for the period July 1, 2004 through June 30, 2005

Reaudit report on the Des Moines Independent Community School District for the period July 1, 2004 through June 30, 2005

Audit report on the Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School, Vinton, Iowa, for the year ended June 30, 2006

Audit report on the Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School, Vinton, Iowa, for the year ended June 30, 2006

Reaudit report on the Collins-Maxwell Community School District for the period July 1, 2005 through June 30, 2006

Reaudit report on the Collins-Maxwell Community School District for the period July 1, 2005 through June 30, 2006

Audit report on the Iowa School for the Deaf, Council Bluffs, Iowa for the year ended June 30, 2006

Audit report on the Iowa School for the Deaf, Council Bluffs, Iowa for the year ended June 30, 2006

Welfare of naive and sophisticated players in school choice

Two main school choice mechanisms have attracted the attention in the literature: Boston and deferred acceptance (DA). The question arises on the ex-ante welfareimplications when the game is played by participants that vary in terms of their strategicsophistication. Abdulkadiroglu, Che and Yasuda (2011) have shown that the chances ofnaive participants getting into a good school are higher under the Boston mechanism thanunder DA, and some naive participants are actually better off. In this note we show thatthese results can be extended to show that, under the veil of ignorance, i.e. students not yetknowing their utility values, all naive students may prefer to adopt the Boston mechanism.

The role of awareness, information gathering and processing in school choice

This paper studies the determinants of school choice, focusing on the role of information. Weconsider how parents' search efforts and their capacity to process information (i.e., tocorrectly assess schools) affect the quality of the schools they choose for their children. Usinga novel dataset, we are able to identify parents' awareness of schools in their neighborhoodand measure their capacity to rank the quality of the school with respect to the officialrankings. We find that parents education and wealth are important factors in determiningtheir level of school awareness and information gathering. Moreover, these search effortshave important consequences in terms of the quality of school choice.

Iowa Individual Income Tax School District, Tax Year 1997

Iowa School District Surtax Report 1997

Iowa Individual Income Tax School District, Tax Year 1998

Iowa School District Surtax Report 1998

Iowa Individual Income Tax School District Report, Tax Year 1999

Iowa School District Surtax Report 1999

Iowa Individual Income Tax School District Report, Tax Year 2000

Iowa School District Surtax Report 2000