Suchergebnisse

AbstractTen years ago, Eric Hobsbawm presented his Deutscher Lecture on 'Can We Write the History of the Russian Revolution?' This essay argues that Hobsbawm articulated a perspective on the Russian Revolution that was shared by a much wider audience on the Left after the fall of the Soviet Union and that many of these arguments continue to resonate today. Placing the contours of the historiographical discussion of the Russian Revolution within a broader political context, I argue that Hobsbawm has underestimated the extent to which the standard academic accounts intentionally have marginalised Marxist interpretations. Hobsbawm's own ambivalence toward the October Revolution and his lack of clarity on the origins of Stalinism are not supported by the latest empirical research and concede much ground to strident anti-Marxists. Rather than refuting the Marxist classics, new evidence from the archives of the former Soviet Union actually offers substantial support. The renewed academic attacks on the Russian Revolution, including the deliberate omission of evidence that support the Marxist interpretation, should be challenged rather than embraced by socialists.

ObjectiveWe compare academic achievement in charter schools versus two types of traditional public school in the State of Michigan over a 10‐year period. Charter schools serve as a reform measure for failing public schools, so the natural research question is: Do charter schools generate higher achievement levels than observationally comparable public schools?MethodsWe have assembled a longitudinal data set spanning academic years 2002/2003–2011/2012 containing proficiency rates on standardized math and reading tests for Grades 4, 7, and 11. Our set of control variables includes demographic measures, free lunch eligibility, school characteristics, funding per student, and locational measures. We model unobserved heterogeneity using random effects estimation.ResultsWe find that Michigan charter schools significantly underperform traditional public schools in both subjects and in all three grade levels early in the study period. These gaps narrow considerably, and in some cases disappear, by the end of the period.ConclusionMichigan is noteworthy among states with charter schools for its deregulated and competitive charter environment. Our results suggest that Michigan charters nevertheless were doing about as well on the state's academic achievement tests as observationally comparable public schools by the end of the period.