your site name
For Students, Professors and Political Junkies Everywhere:

An Interactive Visualization of Texas Voters and the 2004 Presidential Election

 

Can the 2004 presidential election results in Texas tell us anything about what may happen in the Lone Star state in November 2008? Political scientists use many variables when predicting election results -- high on the list of predictors are past voting patterns. To take a look back at the last presidential election, the Center for Public Policy has developed an innovative tool to analyze voting results with numerous demographic variables as determined by the U.S. Census. Online viewers can choose from various demographic variables and Texas counties and virtually see and compare results. Download the free software to start your analysis! 

 

 
Gain Experience During an Exciting Election Season

Recruitment Underway for the Fall Government Internship Program

The Spring 2008 CPP Government Interns with guest speaker State Representative Garnet Coleman.

The Center for Public Policy offers part-time internship opportunities to UH and UH-Downtown students with an interest in public service and politics. The 2008 fall semester will be an exciting time to gain professional experience in a political environment so click here to find out more!
 

 

Congratulations to Autumn Jodzio, Winner of the Spring 2008 Government Internship Award

Autumn Jodzio is the recipient of the Center for Public Policy's spring 2008 Government Internship Award. While tackling a full course load at UH-Downtown and maintaining a solid GPA, Autumn was a diligent worker in the office of Council Member Mike Sullivan.

Find out more about Autumn and the award—

 

 

The Center for Public Policy Looks at Texas Lottery Players...

and You Can Too!

The primary goal of the Center for Public Policy's (CPP) demographic study for the Texas Lottery Commission is to provide a snapshot of who is most likely to engage in the Texas Lottery games.  To capture the demographics of both players and non-players, the CPP surveyed 1,702 Texas citizens between mid-September and early October of 2007.

Read the report.

 

The CPP study incorporates an innovative interactive geographic feature that the online viewer can use to dig deeper into areas of individual interest. For example, if you interested in finding out how many females living in the San Antonio area play the Texas Lottery—or any other combination of demographic data and survey responses— you can do so by downloading the customized software and data.  Learn more by trying it out yourself!

 

 

 

Just How Do Those College Rankings Really Work?

Hobby and Granato Explain the Rankings by U.S. News & World Report

This year about 100,000 college-bound students will graduate from Texas high schools. They will visit campuses, take PSAT and SAT tests, consult the U. S. News and World Report (USN&WR) rankings, and fill out maybe 250,000 applications.  The students and their parents (300,000 people) will check their mailboxes and e-mail millions of times to get the results.

 

Getting into college takes up a lot of time in the last two years of high school.

 

USN&WR’s  “America’s Best Colleges” issue is their swimsuit issue—academic cheesecake.

 

Presidents and governing boards consider the rankings and hire consultants to improve them.

 

Bill Hobby and Jim Granato analyzed the various factors used in this widely read ranking system.

 

Learn how the rankings work by viewing the study.