One element of the struggle for economic equity in Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) communities is the intentional denial of support networks that provide funding, customers, connections or other resources for businesses and...
Tom Ivacko, associate director of the Center for Local, State and Urban Policy (CLOSUP), housed at the Ford School, talks about Michigan’s relationship to the opioid crisis with Michigan Radio’s Paulette Parker. Published May 13, 2019 online, with...
Many local governments in Michigan feel they have a shortage of housing in their counties and cities, according to a survey from University of Michigan researchers.
About 40 percent of local officials say they have too little single family housing...
ANN ARBOR—Statewide, 70 percent of Michigan's local government officials believe the state government is taking too much decision-making authority away from local governments, according to a new survey by University of Michigan researchers.The data...
An op-ed by CLOSUP program manager, Tom Ivacko (MPP '93), was published by the Detroit Free Press on March 11. In "Fixing EM law should be legislators' top priority," Ivacko makes the case that Michigan's laws regarding the appointment of emergency...
An independent panel convened by Gov. Rick Snyder in the wake of the Flint water crisis concluded that government disregard for low-income residents and people of color contributed to the delay in action, according to a recent New York Times...
On Friday March 11, 23 Ford School master’s students traveled to the University of Toronto’s School of Public Policy and Governance for "Ford + SPPG," our annual student-led policy conference and case competition. Each year, the event brings...
On Monday, February 22, the Ford School hosted “21st Century Policing: Lessons from Cincinnati,” as part of the University of Michigan's 2016 Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium. The event brought together a roundtable of community leaders to talk...
While local leaders say police forces across Michigan have good overall relations with their communities, those in larger cities worry about the possibility of civil unrest after well-publicized incidents in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore.In...
According to “How Poor Single Moms Survive,” an article by Alana Semuels for The Atlantic, the number of single-parent households in the US has soared since 1960, just as the amount of government assistance available to these largely female-headed...
“We are in the middle of the most important social movement for police reform in a half century,” writes David Thacher in “Don’t End Broken Windows Policing, Fix It” published on The Marshall Project criminal justice news blog. “The focus and moral...
Women and Gender in Public Policy (WGPP – pronounced “whip”), a student organization at the Ford School, recently hosted five of Michigan’s leading female policymakers for a discussion on women in elected office. The April 2nd event was covered by...
The Ford School’s Michigan Politics and Policy class (PubPol 475/750) will be joined by Chase Cantrell, Executive Director and Founder of Building Community Value for a discussion about the future of Detroit on Weds Oct 31, 2:30pm.
We have moved this class session to the larger Ford School Annenberg Auditorium (1120) so this lecture can be open to the public -- we hope to see you there!
The U.S. is in the midst of an energy transition. This path toward decarbonization of the energy sector promises many societal benefits such as reduced greenhouse gas emissions, technological innovation, and reduced air pollution. The costs of this transition such as price spikes or job displacement, however, are not evenly spread across the population, since some individuals and communities are more vulnerable to the adverse impacts than others. In this presentation, I will introduce a framework for conceptualizing vulnerability and then provide an illustration of its potential application using the case of the renewable portfolio standard. I will also present findings from interviews and focus groups with individuals that reside or work within more vulnerable populations. These findings provide insights about the manner in which communities perceive of the energy transition, and how they cope with changes introduced by the transition.
In a new book, Marijuana: A Short History, the Brookings Institution’s John Hudak profiles how policy has evolved; how factors like economics, racism, politics, and public opinion have shaped policy, and what the future of marijuana policy may hold.
Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
3rd Floor Seminar Room
CIERS: Causal inference in Education research seminar CIERS Mission: The objective of the Causal Inference in Education Research Seminar (CIERS) is to engage students and faculty from across the university in conversations around education research using various research methodies. This seminar provides a space for doctoral students and faculty from the School of Education, Ford School of Public Policy, and the Departments of Economics, Sociology, Statistics, and Political Science to discuss current research and receive feedback on works-in-progress.
For-profit colleges are under fire. Critics point to students' low earnings and high debt loads as evidence that these schools do not provide a quality education. Defenders of the sector note that the schools serve a population of low-skilled, low-income students that traditional colleges ignore. Congress is now considering legislation that would bar from the federal aid programs any schools whose graduates' earnings fall below a minimum threshold.
Abstract: This paper shows that the mortgage credit boom has significantly affected urban and school racial segregation from 1995 to 2007. We develop a model of urban segregation with credit constraints that shows that easier credit can either increase or decrease segregation, depending on the race of the marginal consumer who benefits from the expansion of credit. We then use school demographics from 1995 to 2007, matched to a national comprehensive dataset of mortgage originations, to document the link between credit supply and schools' racial demographics.
David Deming will present his study of the implementation of an open enrollment public school choice plan in Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district (CMS) in 2002. Students were guaranteed admission to their home school but could apply to as many as 3 other public schools in the district. Where demand for slots exceeded supply, assignment was determined by randomized lottery. Deming finds significant benefits of school choice for students who come from neighborhoods that are assigned to very low performing schools.
Abstract The case for a national effort to create core standards grows stronger by the day. Currently, 50 states have 50 standards, and most states are setting the bar as low as possible in order to comply with the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) requirements of NCLB. Half the states have set fourth-grade reading benchmarks so low that they fall beneath even the most basic level on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
