The impact of daycare attendance on math test scores for a cohort of 4th graders in Brazil

We estimate the impact of having attended center-based daycare institutions during early childhood on Math test scores at the 4th grade of elementary school. Because enrollment in daycare centers may depend on unobservable character-istics of the family and the child, we build and estimate a structural model of endogeneous choice of school to deal with the selectivity problem. We nd that attendance to daycare institutions is associated with a gain of approximately 0,04 standard deviation in Math test scores. This result is important to the extent our OLS results as well as most of the studies for Brazil nd no e¤ect associated to daycare attendance, suggesting selectivity may play a role on this finding.

Affirmative action in college admission and the proficiency of high school students

Economic theory suggests that a¢ rmative action can either reduce or enhance incentives to invest in human capital. Empirical evidence on this matter, however, is still lacking. Using di¤erence in di¤er- ence estimates, this paper evaluates the e¤ects of the quota system in the admission to Brazilian public universities on the pro ciency of high school students. Our ndings show that favored groups attained lower scores, suggesting a negative link between a¢ rmative action and incentives for e¤ort and skill acquisition.

Brachiaria decumbens supresses the initial growth of Coffea arabica

Brachiaria decumbens vem se tornando uma das plantas daninhas mais freqüentes na infestação de cafezais em formação, pois além de sua elevada agressividade e dificuldade de controle, está ocorrendo expansão das áreas cafeeiras para locais anteriormente ocupados por pastagens. Objetivou-se neste trabalho avaliar os efeitos desta planta daninha, em densidades crescentes, sobre o desenvolvimento inicial de mudas de café (Coffea arabica L. cv. Catuaí Amarelo). O experimento foi conduzido em condições semi-controladas, sem limitação de água. Uma muda de café foi transplantada em caixa de amianto com capacidade para 70 L, preenchida com terra coletada da camada arável de um Latossolo Vermelho. Os tratamentos constaram de diferentes densidades de transplante de capim-braquiária, a saber: 0, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 36, 48 e 60 plantas m-2. O ensaio foi conduzido por um período experimental de 120 dias após o plantio (DAP). Todas as características analisadas foram afetadas negativamente pela interferência da planta daninha, mas as que se mostraram mais sensíveis a essa interferência foram à área foliar e a biomassa seca das folhas. Houve redução de 41,8% na área foliar do cafeeiro quando conviveu com o capim-braquiária a partir da densidade de 8 plantas m-2, chegando a 68,7% na densidade de 60 plantas m-2. Também a partir da densidade de 8 plantas m-2, a redução na biomassa seca das folhas em relação à testemunha foi de 41,4% e na densidade de 60 plantas m-2 chegou a 72,8%. Brachiaria decumbens, a partir da densidade de 8 plantas m-2, interfere negativamente sobre as mudas de café até os 120 DAP.

Weed control strip influences the initial growth of Eucalyptus grandis

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Alfabetizar crianças na escola pública: fazeres docentes em discussão

The most recent data of the Brazilian Test (BRAZIL, 2005) and of the SAEB (BRAZIL, 2007) have reaffirmed the serious situation of the Brazilian public school, where great part of the students, after to conclude 4º year of basic education, does not present minimum knowledge of reading and writing. In this picture, the situation of the state of Rio Grande do Norte, whose students had presented, in the last evaluation is particularly difficult, the worse performances of the country, in this area. The data also discloses that the failure pertaining to school, closely tied with the failure in the literacy, not only remains, as takes other aspects. In consequence of this picture, the literacy, even so widely argued in the last few decades, still instigates inquiries, as it is the case of this work. Our study got shaped due to reflections, as much to the theorizations to which we had access, as of the emergent questions of ours pedagogical practice. Through the past three decades, the studies in the area of literacy with the purpose to understand the constituent nature of the process, its aspects and its determinative ones has been intensified. The produced knowledge has contributed for the overcoming of the reductionist form as if it thought/thinks, in some contexts - this process. Such statements impel them to reflect concerning what is happening in the school, limiting or making possible the pertaining to school success. With these concerns, we delimit, as focus of study, the teaching action, having the following stunning question: What to make professors, in the context of the public school, to propitiate or hinder the process of literacy of the children? In this direction, our object of study is to make them professors who can propitiate or hinder the process of literacy of the children, in the context of the public school. The objective work to investigate, from practical of professors the teachers, that to make professors related to the literacy process - they can propitiate or hinder the learning of the written language, for the pupils of the public school, at the beginning of the school process. The work if inscribes in the qualitative boarding of research and if it configures as a case study, with characteristics of Research-Action, inspired by the following principles: authenticity and commitment and systematic restitution. For the retraction of the data, they had been used: half-structuralized interview; participant comment; meeting of studies and reflection; register in daily of field. We define as locus of study, a school of public net and, more specifically, a group of the initial years of school process that integrates the cycle of literacy . Of the five invited teachers, only one demonstrated interest in participating of the work. Its group of first year of the First Cycle of basic education is composed for 34 children, with ages between six the nine years. The data constructed by means of the described procedures, as well as its analysis, make possible to identify, between the many aspects and to make that they compose the pedagogical dynamics in the context of classroom, the following categories to make articulated with the literacy process: 1. To make of practical the relative ones to the planning, understood as To make relative: 1,1 distribution of the time-space/routine; 1.2 to the didactic activities and/or sequences and teaching interventions; 1.3 to the organization/election of the contents; 1.4 to the materials/didactic resources and 1.5 to the evaluation. 2. To make relative to the interaction professor-pupil, systemize in: 2.1 attention to the diversity; 2.2 to the affectivity. These to make, in the form as if materialized in the practical one observed, had been reflected, jointly with the teacher, as constituting parts of obstacles to a perspective of literacy. By means of the sharing of the reflections, anchored in theoretical conceptions concerning the practical one of teach-learning and, more specifically, of literacy, we register indications of new meanings of these to make on the part of the teacher in conducting them as providers of learning of its pupils, first purpose of its teaching performance. This finishing, possible synthesis at this moment is, therefore, point of fond and departure for new studies