Arizona State and Local Government Documents Collection

In fiscal year 2012, Clifton Unified School District’s student AIMS scores were lower than both its peer districts’ and state averages. The District’s instructional program needs improvement. For example, some students were not provided the statutorily required number of instructional hours, and one of its four teachers did not have a teaching certificate. The District’s operational efficiencies were mixed, with some costs higher and some costs lower than peer districts’. However, the District lacked proper oversight and adequate controls over nearly all of its operations. In particular, the District lacked basic administrative processes such as monitoring budgets and maintaining proper controls over expenditures resulting in it overspending its legal budget limits in fiscal years 2009, 2010, and 2011. The District also failed to meet several transportation safety requirements. For example, its primary driver was not certified to drive a school bus. Lastly, the District lacked proper supervision of inmate workers on its school campus.

The African-American community has played a historically significant role in the advancement of Arizona and our region. The future success of our state relies on our ability to strengthen our communities and empower them to meet and exceed their vast potential. This project between the community and the University was undertaken to help advance a better understanding of the changing dynamics of Arizona’s African-American population and the critical issues that require our collective attention in terms of education, health care, the economy, culture, and leadership.

The Decision Center for a Desert City at Arizona State University—funded by the National Science Foundation since 2004—conducts research relevant to water resources and urban climate dynamics under multiple uncertainties. This report summarizes and synthesizes research findings and achievements of DCDC after almost a decade of research and science-policy interactions. Water resource decision-making is complicated by climate change and variability, population growth and economic development, diverse stakeholder interests and fragmented governance. While these factors generate various uncertainties and complexities for decision-makers, DCDC pursues research to create a more sustainable future. The DCDC contributes to water management and urban sustainability by conducting basic science and collaborating with policymakers and stakeholders to solve real-world problems. As detailed herein, DCDC research, education, and community outreach have made substantial contributions to improving water-resource governance and climate adaptation.

The Decision Center for a Desert City at Arizona State University was established in 2004 with funding from the National Science Foundation to advance the scientific understanding of environmental decision making under uncertainty. With additional funding awarded by NSF in 2010, "DCDC II" has expanded its already extensive research agenda, engaged the policy-making community, and built stronger ties between scientific knowledge and decision making enterprises. New DCDC research has developed fundamental knowledge about decision making under uncertainty from three interdisciplinary perspectives: climate impacts, urban dynamics, and adaptation decisions. Simulation modeling and boundary organization studies cut across these themes and are a core component of DCDC activities.

DCDC is focused on developing, implementing, and studying an interdisciplinary decision-support process for environmental decision making based on principles derived from social science research. Through an integrated approach to research, education, and community and institutional outreach, DCDC is training a new generation of scientists who can work successfully at the boundaries of science and policy. Broader impacts are realized as research informs innovative solutions to society’s pressing environmental challenges. To accomplish these goals, DCDC has built a dynamic bridge between ASU and local, regional, and national policy communities to foster local to-global solutions for water sustainability and urban climate adaptation.

DCDC II is focused on developing, implementing, and studying an integrated decision-support process for environmental decision making based on social science principles. Through an integrated approach to research and education, DCDC will train a new generation of scientists who can work successfully at the boundaries of science and policy, and produce innovative solutions to society’s pressing environmental challenges. To accomplish these goals, DCDC II will build a dynamic bridge between ASU and local policy communities and seek global solutions for urban climate adaptation. This plan articulates DCDC’s vision and mission, describes key tasks and outlines a process of evaluation based on both standard and innovative metrics.

The purpose of this study was to conduct an evaluation of the Maryvale Weed and Seed Coalition. First, a process evaluation was conducted to examine the implementation of policies, goals, and planned activities by Maryvale Weed and Seed. Afterwards, an impact evaluation was conducted to assess the efficacy of Maryvale Weed and Seed in combating crime and disorder in the designated program area. The sections below outline both the characteristics of the affected site and the methodology used to conduct the process and impact evaluations.

The purpose of the present study was to conduct an evaluation of the Canyon Corridor Weed and Seed, using both qualitative and quantitative data to conduct process and impact evaluations. The process evaluation relied on official documents detailing site activities and interviews with key stakeholders. The impact evaluation relied on Uniform Crime Report (UCR) and call for service (CFS) data from the Phoenix Police Department (PPD) from 2002 through 2007, divided into two categories represented by a four-year “pre-test” and two-year “post-test”. The results of the process evaluation indicated that the Canyon Corridor Weed and Seed was actively engaged in activities pursuant of their original site goals, and adapting them as the site developed. The impact evaluation indicated that the crime rates in the Canyon Corridor Weed and Seed area experienced mixed declines and increases during the past two years of official programmatic activities when compared to the four years prior for crimes related to violent, property, drugs, and total crimes.

Prior to developing and approving new ordinances that would further regulate sex- offender distance restrictions and clustering, the Phoenix City Council approved a study to examine the nature and impact of sex-offender clustering. Their overall goal was to use the study to fill in some important knowledge gaps about the issue of sex-offender residential clustering in order to inform the development of effective policy. To examine this issue on behalf of the city council, we relied on a multi-methodological research design. We wanted to incorporate information from several different points of view, giving policy makers a more comprehensive perspective from which to inform their decision making. For this study, we relied on four resources: official police data, offender interview data, citizen survey data, and key stakeholder interview data.