District-wide school reform and student performance: Evidence from Montgomery County,Maryland

In the early 2000s, the Montgomery County (Maryland) Public School system implemented district-wide changes to funding, curriculum, staffing, and technology. Using data from 1995 to 2014, we employ a difference-in-differences strategy to show that the reforms significantly increased the percentage of students in Montgomery County who scored advanced on third- and fifth-grade math and reading tests. Using an event study strategy, we find that the positive impacts extended through the end of the panel. Our results contribute to the literature on school reform by finding positive impacts of school reform in a district that was high performing prior to reforms.     

An inspector calls: farm accommodation providers' attitudes to quality assurance schemes in the county of Devon

Estimates suggest that 10 000 farms in the UK offer bed and breakfast (B and B) serviced accommodation. A thorough review of the existing literature indicates over 50% of Devon and Cornwall's farmhouse B and B sector operate without participating in any form of quality assurance inspection scheme. This research executes a stratified postal survey to gain a comprehensive understanding of Devon's farmhouse B and B product, with particular interest in extracting providers' attitudes towards quality assurance inspection schemes. The very representative results suggest a divergence of attitudes towards the notion of quality inspections for all farmhouse B and B providers. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.