Morrison Institute for Public Policy Publications Archives

This brief, the third issue in the "Criminal Justice Issues for Arizona" series, reveals that Pinal County's specialized court for domestic-violence cases offers some promising results for dealing with this common and complex offense. This report contains an analysis of data collected in the Pinal County Domestic Violence Database, which as of April 2008 contained 666 case records of domestic-violence offenders who were processed by one of the three courts. The database also contained information on a comparison group of offenders; however, these offenders are not included in this analysis because of insufficient numbers. Court officials are currently developing a more appropriate comparison group for use in a subsequent analysis. Table 3 presents the frequency and percent of offenses by levels of education: 8th grade and below, some high school, high school diploma, some college, college graduate, post-graduate degree, and unknown. Key findings include: (1) Offenders showed a significant increase in their self-reported coping abilities and in their satisfaction with the criminal-justice system during their period of supervision; (2) Offenders showed a significant decrease in their self-reported propensity for abusiveness to an intimate partner during their period of supervision; and (3) Only 9% of offenders committed another offense while in the program.

Based on the premise that school reform efforts must consider the needs of at-risk children, this paper discusses parallel reform efforts that focus on community service. The first part discusses logical linkages between community service and "at-risk" education and describes how Arizona is attempting to formalize these linkages within the state context of school reform. The Serve-America program, which arose from passage of the National and Community Service Act of 1990, allocates funds to states for school-based community-service programs in grades K-12. Through formalized school-community agency and youth organization/community agency partnerships, Arizona's Serve-America project is designed to: (1) encourage school-age and out-of-school youth to volunteer their services for the benefit of others in their communities; (2) increase the number of adult volunteers in Arizona's schools; (3) provide productive, meaningful experiences for participants; and (4) emphasize coordination of community agencies to avoid duplication and maximize utilization of local resources. Together, Arizona's Serve-America programs have involved over 3,300 youth and adult volunteers who provided over 11,500 hours of community service in the ares of education, community improvement, human services, public safety, and conservation. Participants reported positive changes in their attitudes and behaviors as a result of their community service and service learning participation.

A grassroots dialogue-to-action program designed to inspire bottom-up collaboration on issues of domestic violence proved to be a success and several important lessons were learned to help full implementation. This briefing evaluates the pilot program of the Purple Ribbon Study Circles Project, which ran in six cities in Greater Phoenix from September through December 2008.

This follow-up to the 2001 landmark report, "Five Shoes Waiting to Drop on Arizona's Future," focuses on the projected future of the state if Arizona fails to address its Latino educational attainment gap. The publication is more of an economic impact statement than an education report, with indicators pointing out consequences and contributions, depending on action or inaction in closing the gap of Arizona's future workforce.

Students with AP credit are often able to skip general studies courses and take courses related to their majors earlier in their college careers than students without AP credits. Recent federal and state policies have been aimed at expanding students’ access to AP courses. In this brief, we examine students’ access, participation, and success in AP courses in Arizona’s public high schools.

The Arizona Republic reported on a Jan. 10 panel discussion regarding Arizona's vulnerable giant data system called the Student Accountability Information System, or SAIS: Arizona's superintendent of schools, John Huppenthal, says the state's K-12 data system is on the "verge of collapse" and is seeking $35 million in state funding over the next two years to fix and improve outdated systems. "We figure we have 200 people in the department who are essentially full-time data wranglers," Huppenthal said. "It's like monks in the medieval ages copying stuff on paper." The state's K-12 data system was the focus of a panel discussion sponsored by Arizona State University's Morrison Institute for Public Policy. The nonpartisan research group released a report the same day calling the data system "antiquated" and "patched together." The report said the lack of a fully functioning system hampers the state's efforts to improve academic performance.

Throughout Arizona and the Southwest, the odds are against high achievement in schools with a mostly Latino, mostly poor student enrollment. Some schools, however, "beat the odds" and achieve consistently high results or show steady gains. Why do these schools succeed where others fail? Using the methodology of business guru Jim Collins from his book "Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don't," the authors of this report found 12 elementary and middle schools in Arizona--schools whose students are mostly Latino and mostly poor--that are "beating the odds" on reading and math scores. The authors compared them with similar schools that are performing poorly. The comparisons yielded many insights that are contrary to conventional wisdom. One key result is the unearthing of six elements of success that can translate into broader messages for education policy and strategy. The report recommends the creation of leadership programs for principals and teachers and calls for the creation of a dissemination mechanism to bring "best practices" into every school in Arizona.