This paper estimates quantile earnings functions with data from the 2004 Tanzanian Household Worker Survey to determine if ethnicity and gender--being female--matters per se and across the distribution of earnings. We find that in the Tanzanian manufacturing sector gender intersects with ethnicity to condition earnings and the return to schooling across the distribution of earnings. This suggests that in Sub-Saharan Africa--at least in Tanzania--labor market policies aimed at eradicating gender earnings inequality may not be effective if not accompanied by policies that also aim to eradicate ethnic inequality.

Discrimination in education funding for African Americans can be seen as a vicious circle that ultimately keeps needed funds from those who might need it the most. The historical period of slavery in this country marks the beginning of the cycle because it was during this period that African Americans were denied the right to education. It could be argued there is an unconscious thread that continues to perpetrate/penetrate people's belief system, such that as a society, policies are made that deny/prevent equal education and funding for black students (Berry and Blassingame, 1982). Today, the evidence of discrimination can be seen in the contrast of run-down, rodent and insect infested school buildings provided for poor black inner city students to the clean, modern buildings provided for white suburban students. It can be found in the contrast of tenure of teachers for each group, or even the amount of money a district provides to the school for books, playgrounds, and/or academic programs. Beyond these points, however, there remains a myriad of political, social, and economic reasons that maintain education discrimination in our society.School finance reforms and/or state-based funding formulas have not provided sufficient funds for many children who are systematically kept in the lower echelons of labor and schooling. Much of the literature on school finance reform simply examines the lack and/or the acquisition of funding education. This essay considers the need to end discrimination by not only presenting an analysis of current and past scholars' rhetoric on discrimination for African Americans, but also by showing how the policy arena has failed to do what the laws were intending to do. Thereby, we can capture an understanding of how a populace within a nation that considers education as its number one priority (Broder, 2002), continues to suffer from discrimination in its funding and program administration of education. Utilizing the framework of political economy, we can understand how discrimination in school finance becomes a test of this society to resolve the racism and the class bias that exists, and why the capture of appropriate funds to those who deserve them is essential. As an initial step towards repairing the damage of slavery on the education patterns 03_Loubert_7133_Trans 12/7

Understanding employment for African American women through the lens of neoclassical economics may not be best to help understand their plight. Their pay and the available employment has not been equal to that of men and even more so, African American women have lower paying jobs compared to their white counterparts, despite their achievement of higher levels of education. This paper looks at unemployment rates across the nation and then centers the discussion on black women in the context of the disparities over the past three decades. It combines the types of employment and wages that they have endured in context to white women during the same period of time. It uses Geographical Information Systems to underscore the concentration of income and race and the types of employment in those areas. It then provides some policy recommendations for the future.

Academic performance, Education finance,

It is commonly assumed that urban school districts hire teachers late due to issues related to district size and/or restrictions in collectively bargained teacher contracts affecting teacher hiring and transfers between schools. Our investigation of late teacher hiring and collective bargaining is based on a survey of 40 school districts that captured information about teacher transfer and hiring timelines. Findings indicate no differences between collective bargaining districts and non-bargaining districts in late teacher hiring. The findings confirm big differences in late hiring between suburbs and cities even when controlling for collective bargaining status and other contextual variables. Late school district budget action was also associated with late hiring. REVIEW OF THE LITERATUREAlthough out-of-school factors are the major determinants of achievement gaps, recent research using value-added models has focused much attention on the role that teachers play as the most important school resource contributing to student achievement growth. 1 Teacher selection, hiring, training, evaluation, and labor union contracts are of increasing importance, potentially resulting in long-term gains in student outcomes. It will take a multifaceted effort to recruit and keep well-qualified teachers in urban schools, including improving school and neighborhood safety, establishing and maintaining orderly schools, and