Pennsylvania public schools: The fiscal landscape. A descriptive analysis 2008-2013

Perrin, Jason C The Pennsylvania State University ProQuest Dissert 2016 해외박사(DDOD)

This research study examined public school district responses in Pennsylvania, through analysis of fiscal patterns, given decreased revenues and increased mandatory expenditures from 2008-2013. This descriptive quantitative study examined both revenues and expenditures for the aggregate group of Pennsylvania school districts and further explores fiscal patterns by average wealth through the use of deciles. The study was organized around the following four research questions: (1) How did school district revenues change? (2) How did school district expenditures change? (3) Did revenues and expenditure patterns vary by wealth? (4) What were the major legislative events in education and fiscal factors that occurred during this time period and how did they impact the fiscal pattern for revenues and expenditures?. The methodology used was primarily quantitative incorporating descriptive statistics specific to revenue and expenditure data from 2008-2013. Fiscal data was collected from the Pennsylvania Department of Education web site for all five hundred public school districts in the state. Secondary sources were also utilized to determine the impact of policy, legislative actions, and overall economic variables on fiscal elements specific to the public school finance landscape during the period of study. Analysis of key fiscal elements and secondary information was completed for all public school districts and further examined by average district wealth through decile information. This study found that between 2008-2013, fiscal responses and patterns changed due to revenue and expenditure variables for the aggregate group of Pennsylvania districts and differed for these districts based on average wealth. Key findings of this study included: (1) State policy decisions and legislative actions, specifically the reduction of state funding and lack of full restoration that coincided with the infusion and elimination of federal ARRA funding, had adverse effects on total school district revenues, especially 2011-12. (2) The recession of 2007-2009, along with limitations on local real estate tax increases imposed by Act 1 of 2006, restricted the ability for school districts to raise local revenue in order to counterbalance state revenue decreases, especially in 2011-12 when the Act 1 base index reached a five year low of 1.4%. (3) Increased benefit expenditures, due primarily to increased mandatory payments to PSERS, constrained the ability for school districts to meet overall obligations and forced challenging decisions, especially from 2011-13, when employer contribution rates increased from 5.54% to 12.36%. (4) State policy decisions and legislative actions, with regards to the interaction of state and federal revenues, adversely affected poorer districts to a greater degree than wealthy districts, counter to the intent of how those revenues were designed to be allocated. (5) The decrease of total revenue and increase of mandatory expenditures, specific to benefits, adversely affected poorer districts to a greater degree than wealthy districts, in the ability to meet rising costs associated with staff, more often forcing decisions fiscally necessary, but not educationally sound. (6) With mandatory expenditures projected to rise, as employer contribution rates to PSERS continues to rise, school districts will face further challenges in the future in an Act 1 environment, unless future policy and legislative actions provide relief in the form of increased state funding, equitable allocation and overall pension reform. Findings assert that long-range fiscal planning is paramount when addressing school district fiscal needs and that managing costs such as collective bargaining agreements and competing in a choice environment, given Charter School Costs, are important in managing the balance between revenues and expenditures. Future research aligned to further exploration of legislative impacts on school funding along with possible reform efforts specific to the state pension system and revenue generated through local real estate taxes will emerge in the coming years as key focus areas for understanding and practice.

The use of collaboration, community involvement and vocational programming for youth with disabilities placed in six state-operated facilities for delinquents in Pennsylvania

Morrison, Marybeth The Pennsylvania State University 2004 해외박사(DDOD)

Collaboration among stakeholders, community involvement, and access to vocational programming as part of education, are three components researchers indicate contribute to successful transition of adjudicated juveniles from placement to post-placement. The researcher analyzed these three components in six of thirteen state-operated juvenile placement facilities in Pennsylvania for youth with disabilities. This was a qualitative case study using, primarily, Yin's (1994) method of case study research. Interviews with key staff were conducted at five of the six sites and 296 student files were selected for review as part of the study. Students selected were: participating in career or vocational education, qualified for special education and had a transition component in their individualized education plan, released from the facility in 2000 or 2001. Five questions framed the data collection: (a) how and why do students with disabilities placed in state-operated facilities for delinquents in Pennsylvania participate in vocational or career education, (b) how and why do educators in state-operated facilities for delinquents in Pennsylvania collaborate with the staff from the students home school to deliver education or transition services, (c) how and why do members of community organizations such as religious institutions or civic organizations and members of community service providers such as the office of Vocational Rehabilitation or Mental Health and Mental Retardation collaborate with education personnel from state-operated facilities for delinquents in Pennsylvania on transition and educational programming, (d) how and why do personnel teaching in state-operated facilities for delinquents in Pennsylvania select the programming components they use in their facility for youth with disabilities who are in placement and, (e) how and why do parents, and their children who have disabilities and who are in placement, participate in the education and transition process in state-operated facilities for delinquents in Pennsylvania?. The researcher found that collaboration between stakeholders was problematic and community involvement was limited. However, vocational programming was extensive, was based on data from a variety of sources, and all students had access to participate. A systems approach using Bronfenbrenners ecological model (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) was used to analyze the results relating to collaboration, community involvement and vocational programming.

Evaluation of instructional use of the ANGEL course management system at the Pennsylvania State University

Lin, Hung-Chang The Pennsylvania State University 2005 해외박사(DDOD)

ANGEL (A New Global Environment for Learning) is a Web-based tool that enables faculty, instructors, and teaching assistants who have no knowledge of HTML to use the Web to enhance their courses. In fall 2001, ANGEL 2001 replaced CourseWeb, the previous course management system at the Pennsylvania State University (Penn State). Since then, the number of ANGEL users has increased significantly each semester. However, despite the many users involved in ANGEL, there have been few studies or evaluations of ANGEL's use in support of faculty members' teaching. To explore how Penn State faculty implement ANGEL in instruction, this study sought to ascertain whether there were relationships between the use of ANGEL features and each of the following three factors: (a) The rate of ANGEL course adoption in an academic unit, (b) the average number of ANGEL course sections implemented by a faculty member in an academic unit, and (c) the average ANGEL class size in an academic unit. The material in this thesis is derived mainly from the ANGEL course database, which is maintained by Information Technology Services (ITS) at Penn State. The database contains statistics from spring 2002 to spring 2004. As the purpose of the study was to examine the latest instructional use of ANGEL, the data from spring 2004 was chosen as the main analysis resource. Since certain instructional features, such as Syllabus, Calendar, Lessons, Quiz, Question, Folder, Drop box, Page, File, Message board, Message, Email, and Chat room provide the most insightful information on how faculty use ANGEL, this study's analytical focus was on the use of those features. The findings from the analysis of ANGEL feature use at Penn State indicate that the average university-wide ANGEL adoption rate in spring 2004 was 29%. The adoption rates for some campuses and colleges were lower than 10%; however, other campuses or colleges had an adoption rate higher than 40%. In terms of the rate of use of ANGEL features, the study results reveal that some features such as Syllabus, Lessons, Folder, and File had a use rate higher than 44%, while some features, such as Calendar, Message board, Message, Quiz, and Question, had a use rate lower than 15%. Also, Chat room was utilized at a lower rate by users. These results reveal that some important ANGEL features, such as Calendar, Quiz, Message board, and Chat room, were not often employed by users. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).

University autonomy in the Colombian public universities

Beltran, Yolima Ivonne The Pennsylvania State University 2003 해외박사(DDOD)

In 1991 university autonomy was introduced in the Colombian higher education as a constitutional principle, which affected higher education. The changes were mandated with the 1992 Law # 30, whose implementation has caused tensions between the concepts of university autonomy based on self-regulation verses the control and vigilance from the government, and the notion of free trade of private universities and the economic dependence of public universities, an enormous growth of the Colombian higher educational system; a lack of efficient quality control mechanisms, and the politicization of the election process of university authorities. Some of these effects may be attributed to confusion in the interpretations of the autonomy concept, which generated the interest for the study. It was done under Neave's and Van Vught's (1994) conceptualization and Berdahl's (1990) conceptualization to analyze the relationship between the government and the higher education institutions regarding autonomy; and Levy's (1980) areas of autonomy to identify the repercussions of exercising autonomy at organizational level. The methodological approach involved a historical analysis focusing on the history of Colombian higher education with the purpose of revealing the evolution of educational policies, and the origins of university autonomy; and a multiple case study of two public universities located in the Andean region. The case studies involved members of superior councils of the two institutions, as well as a dean, professor, rector, ex-rector, student, and an administrative employee of each university. The results revealed that throughout history, the concept of university autonomy in the country has been a rhetorical issue, since it has been so far from the notions of democracy, participation, and intra-university power distribution, which characterized the claims of the <italic>Movimiento de Córdoba</italic>. The concept has been linked to the political parties in power and the policies of international funding agencies who impose their agenda on Colombia, which in turn has impacted the organizational level of the universities. During the last decade the government has oscillated between two opposite extremes for mechanisms of coordination without success, being the market and the rigorous control over public universities. As a consequence, the public universities have limited academic, administrative, and, financial autonomy.

Photoelectron spectroscopic investigations of transition metal silicides and oxides

Gunaratne, K. Don Dasitha The Pennsylvania State University 2012 해외박사(DDOD)

This dissertation presents the experimental progress in the use of photoelectron imaging spectroscopy to probe the electronic structure of negatively charged transition metal silicides and oxides. By measuring the electronic transitions that occur due to the use of an appropriate photon energy, the electron affinity of the neutral species can be measured and the ground and excited electronic states of the anion and neutral can be deduced. The introductory chapter explains the basics of photoelectron spectroscopy and how it is coupled with recently developed imaging techniques to simultaneously obtain energy and angular distribution of the photodetached electrons. The beta parameter, which is instrumental in quantifying the angular distribution, is discussed in detail. The motivation for pursuing the transition metal silicide and oxide studies and their increasing importance in technology is also emphasized. Photoelectron imaging spectroscopy employed in our laboratory involves custom-built ultra high-vacuum instrumentation which couples a time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectrometer with an electron imaging apparatus. Chapter 2 discloses the details of the experimental setup required to conduct these studies; from the laser ablation techniques that form the species of interest, to the mass selection of the negatively charged clusters and the subsequent photodetachment of electrons from the highest occupied molecular orbitals of the anion. The modifications made to the safety features of the instrument, in addition to the improvements to the high-vacuum configuration, are described in detail. The first known photoelectron spectroscopic investigation of the ZrSi - diatomic species has been conducted as part of this dissertation. Chapter 3 discusses the results of the 532 nm and 355 nm wavelength experiments on ZrSi-. Conflicts between the two previous theoretical studies which proposed the ground state of the neutral has been noted while new electronic state assignments have been assigned based on experimental evidence. This study supports the 2Sigma+: (1&sgr;) 2 (1pi)4 (1delta)0 (2&sgr;) 2 (3&sgr;)1 anion ground electronic state (and valence orbital electron configuration) which is in agreement with theoretical results. The assigned ground state of the neutral, however, differs from that based on current theoretical results. The ground state of ZrSi was assigned as the 3Sigma+: (1&sgr;)2 (1pi) 4 (1delta)0 (2&sgr;)1 (3&sgr;) 1 based on the angular distribution and the relative intensities of the photoelectron signal. A low-lying excited state of the neutral was assigned as 3pii with valence orbital configuration, (1&sgr;) 2 (1pi)3 (1delta)0 (2&sgr;) 2 (3&sgr;)1. The electron affinity of ZrSi is measured as 1.584 eV, while a low-lying excited state of the neutral is identified 0.238 eV above the ZrSi neutral ground state. Additionally, Franck-Condon simulations were performed to compare with the experimental photoelectron spectrum and estimate the vibrational temperature of the anions created in our cluster source. Extending the transition metal silicide studies to other metals, Chapter 4 presents results of NbSi, MoSi, PdSi and WSi diatomic anions which were photodetached by photons with a wavelength of 532 nm. Similar to ZrSi, two major transitions originating from the anion were observed and the transition energies are reported. A significant finding of this study is the change of photoelectron angular distribution among the 4d-row transition metal-silicon diatomics. The main feature (X) changes from having an anisotropic distribution for ZrSi- and NbSi- to an isotropic distribution for MoSi- and PdSi-. The basis of this observed change is explored further and connections are made to the increasing stability of the transition metal d-orbitals when moving from Zr to Pd. Correlated with the metal d-orbital stability is the increased donation of silicon 3p-electrons to the highest occupied molecular orbitals of the diatomic. The atomic electron negativity values also support these conclusions. To the best of our knowledge, this study represents the first use of anion photoelectron imaging spectroscopy to examine the evolution of bonding trends in transition metal silicides. Investigations regarding transition metal oxides are presented from Chapter 5 onward. The photoelectron spectroscopic features of ZnOH- are discussed in a combined experimental and theoretical study. The vertical detachment energy of ZnOH- was measured to be 1.78 eV, while that of ZnO- is 0.3 eV higher. The curious broadening of the photoelectron spectra of ZnOH- when compared with ZnO - is investigated. The effects of the vibrational states and even rotational states on the photoelectron spectrum is considered in order to explain the experimental photoelectron signal. The vibrational spectrum could explain the broadening if the source temperature is much higher than the range we estimated in Chapter 3 (150-300 K). Also, as expected, the rotational states were not significantly effecting the broadening of the photoelectron spectrum. Due to the importance of ZnO-based material for dilute-magnetic semiconductors, ZnO-cluster formation, growth and stability has been investigated in Chapter 6. Large ZnO-based clusters have been observed with stoichiometries, Zn nOn, ZnnOn+1 and ZnnO n+2 (n=3-6). The ZnnOn+1 unit was concluded to be the relatively stable species and it has been proposed as a suitable building block for doping with magnetic atoms. The electron affinity of Zn3O 3 (1.14 eV) is lower than Zn3O4 (2.02 eV), supporting the argument that the Zn3O4 unit is more stable. Chapter 7 provides a summary of the research presented in this dissertation while sharing insights regarding possible avenues of extending this research.

The hidden hand of state government: Government oversight and educational accountability (Illinois)

Lane, Jason Eric The Pennsylvania State University 2003 해외박사(DDOD)

Utilizing a comparative case study, this thesis analyzed how the extent of state control impacts the type and interaction of direct and indirect oversight of public postsecondary institutions. The research was grounded on the work of Moe (1984), who demonstrated that political relationships operate under the premises of a principal-agent relationship. In the relationship under study in this thesis, the principal (legislature) established an agent (college or university) to provide service and educational opportunities to the citizens of the state. These agents are established because the principal had neither the time nor the knowledge to provide such services itself. To ensure that the agent pursues the goals of the principal rather than its own, the principal typically creates a number of oversight mechanisms to monitor the agent's activities. To understand how the level of control a state wields over an institution affects the type of oversight employed, two public, land-grant, research extensive institutions were identified. The University of Illinois was selected because of the high degree of state control over a variety of institutional operations, while The Pennsylvania State University was selected because the institution has a great deal of freedom from such external control. Using elite interviews, print media analysis, video footage from appropriation hearings, and legal documentation, two salient findings about oversight were identified. First, oversight operates as a collective system. While there may be several individual mechanisms within the system, analyzing their impact on higher education independently of the other mechanisms may distort the overall impact of oversight. Second, as one moves from institutions with low autonomy to high autonomy it appears that the number of direct oversight mechanisms decrease and the number of indirect mechanisms increase. In this case, the institution with little freedom from state control was constrained by a highly constrictive web of oversight that monitored almost all institutional activities. On the other hand, there were very few direct forms of oversight monitoring the institution with a high degree of freedom from state control. Interestingly, in this case, the local and national non-governmental groups became more active in providing institutional oversight.

Multipartite states and Luttinger liquids of composite fermions

Ganesh Jaya, Sreejith The Pennsylvania State University 2012 해외박사(DDOD)

Materials exhibiting exotic quantum phenomena at a macroscopic level are of great interest because of its intrinsic value to Physics, and also because of its potential applications in technology. Strongly correlated electronic systems form interesting examples of these. Exploring them calls for a good understanding of its physics, and development of new tools that are applicable to their analysis. Robustness of the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) makes it an ideal stage to study strongly correlated electron systems. The complexity of the FQHE problem stems directly from the strong interactions between the constituent particles and not from the specific nature of the material it is implemented in. This work attempts to gain a theoretical description of some of the less understood aspects of FQHE. FQHE in the lowest Landau level is well understood using the theory of weakly interacting emergent particles called composite fermions. Composite fermions formed in the second Landau level however appear to be strongly interacting. Of particular interest is the FQHE at 2 + ½ filling fraction, where the many body ground state is believed to be described by a paired state of composite fermions, represented by the Pfaffian wavefunction. Based on predicted properties of its excitations, there has been proposals for implementing topological quantum computations in this system. However a good understanding of the nature of these excitations is still lacking. This thesis introduces a class of many body wavefunctions called "bipartite composite fermion states" that provide a unified description of all excitations of the paired state at 5/2. In the bipartite composite fermion (BCF) picture, constituent composite fermions split into two partitions which are correlated to each other. Within each partition, they fill the lowest composite fermion Landau level of its partition. Properties of the BCF state can now be related to the properties of the individual partitions, which are well understood in terms of the composite fermion theory. In particular, we show that the excitations of BCF states are obtained by creating excitations in the individual partitions. The paired state with odd number of composite fermions should have an unpaired composite fermion. The BCF model predicts that this unpaired composite fermion behaves as an exciton in the quasiparticle and quasihole are in separate partitions. We confirm this prediction numerically in finite size systems. Generalizations of bipartite composite fermion functions to other filling fractions especially 2 + 4/7 and 2 + ⅗ are also studied. Idea of bipartite composite fermions can be generalized to the case of more partitions. Specifically, we look at tripartite composite fermion states which are similar to the bipartite states, except that these have three correlated partitions instead of two. Tripartite states have a filling fraction of ν = ⅗, and its particle hole conjugate is a candidate wavefunction for describing the ν = 2 + ⅖ FQHE. Numerical comparisons of these "multipartite" composite fermion states with exact spectrum of finite systems show that these states give a very good description of the low energy spectra of the corresponding systems. Another interesting aspect of the FQH system is the realization of a chiral Luttinger liquid at the edge of an incompressible state. Effective field theory description of the system makes a non-trivial prediction that tunnelling exponents, which can be experimentally measured, are quantized. Starting from the composite fermion theory, we develop a microscopic model for the edge of the ν = ⅖ filling fraction. The ⅖ edge has composite fermions occupying lowest two composite fermion Landau levels each of which contributes to the edge excitations. The existence of two modes causes the edge spectrum to split into quasi-degenerate sectors of states with each sector representing a specific distribution of the composite fermions in the two levels. Calculations show that in the low energy limit, an electron tunnelling into the edge of the system enters as a composite fermion in one of the two composite fermion Landau levels, without moving any composite fermions between the two levels. This microscopic model is compared with an effective field theory description of the edge. With the assumption of a simplified edge dispersion relation, it is shown that the microscopic model is equivalent to the effective two boson model in the thermodynamic limit.

Perturbation of Rapid Eye Movement (REM) Sleep for Seizure Control in Rodent Model of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

Parkar, Anjum The Pennsylvania State University ProQuest Dissert 2015 해외박사(DDOD)

Seizures are detrimental to the quality of life. Approximately, 1-2% of the US population suffers from epileptic disorders characterized by spontaneous recurrent seizures. Of these, 25% are uncontrolled by pharmacological treatments. For such patients, alternative therapeutic approaches rely on using stimulation of certain brain regions that can assist in seizure control. Currently used open loop stimulation techniques, such as vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) and deep brain stimulation (DBS) have been tested in rodents and humans with some success. Continuous stimulation at regular intervals, such as VNS and DBS can lead to cognitive impairment, brain tissue damage as well as seizure induced epileptogenesis. Hence predicting and preventing seizures seems to be a more favorable approach. Decades of studies have shown that sleep or state of vigilance (SOV) can have an effect on seizures. It has been demonstrated that there is a strong correlation between rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and seizure occurrence. It's also been shown that besides REM state, theta (4-8Hz) associated withWake state is also epileptic. We use the chronic tetanus toxin (TeTx) rodent model of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE) to investigate if REM state can be perturbed through sensory stimulation of the Trigeminal Ganglion to control seizures. Our results indicate that REM state can be perturbed to control seizures. Fraction of seizures emerging out of stimulated REM state are far lower than REMs that were not stimulated. Since REM state was perturbed and not interrupted, we led to the conclusion that some other dynamic that co-occurs with REM state, makes REM state seizure permissive. Our results also indicated that upon stimulation of the animal during Wake state, when high theta is present, the fraction of seizures emerging from stimulated wake state are also lower compared to unstimulated Wake state. Hence, stimulation of Wake state during high theta, can also assist in seizure control. Taking these findings together, from a clinical standpoint, this novel approach of closed-loop stimulation based on SOV detection, can be used to design neuro-modulatory systems to help design better treatment approaches for patients refractory to AEDs for seizure control.

A policy analysis of the first six years of Pennsylvania's Keystone Opportunity Zone program, 1998 to 2004: Enlightened economic development or corporate welfare?

Argall, David G The Pennsylvania State University 2006 해외박사(DDOD)

In the last decade four states have adopted a new economic development strategy: the creation of geographic zones where employers can operate for up to 15 years while paying practically no taxes to either the state or the local governments. Pennsylvania has placed the largest number of acres into such tax-free zones and credits its Keystone Opportunity Zones (KOZs) with 20,136 retained jobs, 23,418 new jobs, and more than $5.2 billion in capital investment between 1999 and 2004. The study focuses upon the overall effectiveness of Pennsylvania's KOZ program. Its purpose is to provide a better understanding of the historical, political and economic contexts of this policy option by reviewing this question: Why is this program fatally flawed as charged by its critics or worthy of the accolades awarded by its political and business proponents? The study is based upon a two-phase explanatory multiple case study research design; the first phase includes 75 interviews focused on the statewide results of the program and the second reviews three local KOZs. The findings suggest this typology: Some of the tax-free zones were very successful, immediately attracting much-desired new jobs; many of the zones were successful in creating new jobs in the latter years of the program's six-year implementation; some of the zones remain vacant but prospective employers may locate there in the final years of the program; and the remaining zones are likely to remain barren of any jobs despite the program's incentives. To utilize the term which several of those interviewed first volunteered, the program's 193 subzones portray a "mixed bag" of results, similar to programs of this nature in other states. The findings also suggested several possible amendments to the program.

Race/ethnicity imbalance in Pennsylvania's prisons: Comparisons across case-processing stages and White-Black-Hispanic subgroups

Motivans, Mark Alan The Pennsylvania State University 2001 해외박사(DDOD)

The over-representation of Blacks and Hispanics in jails and prisons in the United States presents an important theoretical and substantive issue in sociology and criminology. Recent theorizing on the determinants of persistent race and ethnic differences in imprisonment have looked to broader principles of social control and stratification in society. Specifically, Steffensmeier and colleagues (1998) have advanced the “focal concerns” theory of sentencing. In this framework, decisions in the justice process are influenced mainly by the defendant's offense conduct yet are also shaped by the decisionmaker's perceptions of the “character” of the defendant which are in turn defined largely by the defendant's position in the social structure. According to this view, prison imbalance by race and ethnicity is attributed to the complex interaction between the “focal concerns,” inequality, and crime in society. In this study, the “focal concerns” theory of sentencing is used to guide an inquiry into the fundamental, yet unresolved, questions of, first, whether involvement in arrest or discrimination by the justice process is responsible for the racial and ethnic disproportionality in the use of prisons, and, if the latter, for whom such discrimination is greater (Blacks or Hispanics), at what stage in the justice process, and for which offenses. Using arrest, conviction, and imprisonment data from the state of Pennsylvania for 1992–1994, this dissertation builds upon Blumstein's (1982) pioneering study of racial disproportionality in imprisonment. This study employs greater analytical rigor in measuring racial disproportionality, attained by specifically addressing shortcomings in the prior research. Contributions include the separate estimation of Black and Hispanic disparity, an analysis of an intermediary processing stage between arrest and imprisonment (conviction), and a focus on disparity differences across offense-types, especially drug offenses. It was hypothesized that racial disparity not explained by arrest would be present but less sizable in magnitude compared to the presence of ethnic disparity. It was further hypothesized that disparity would be greater for drug offenses, less serious types of offenses, and that disparity would be more evident between arrest and conviction than between conviction and imprisonment. The results show that (1) a moderately-sized portion of racial imbalance in imprisonment in Pennsylvania was not explained by arrest; (2) Hispanics were subject to the highest levels of disparity in imprisonment not explained by arrest; (3) drug sales offenses (specifically, the sales of narcotics/cocaine) accounted for the largest share of Hispanic and Black disparity in prison not explained by arrest; (4) racial and ethnic disparity was marginally smaller in magnitude between conviction and imprisonment than between arrest and imprisonment; and (5) urban locality was associated with larger amounts of disparity explained by arrest than rural localities. This study's findings highlight the varying importance of offense conduct as a primary factor in determining the racial and ethnic prison composition in one state. Importantly, the results of this analysis are consistent with recent research which shows that Hispanics are subject to greater levels of disparity than Blacks and confirms that drug offenses remain an important source of disparity for both groups.