What would happen if a supermarket charged different customers different prices for the same item? What if the differences became steadily larger? And usually favored better-off customers? Undoubtedly there would be objections or maybe even lawsuits. The chances of getting away with such...

This is the Introduction to RESILIENCE a book in which thirteen professors recount their experiences growing up in poverty or working class households and the different paths that led them to become academics. The authors range in age from retirees to people still early in their careers. Some...

This paper introduces a journal symposium. Five Public Administration professors raised in poverty or working class circumstances by parents who never attended college recount their journeys from humble origins to their current positions as university faculty, including many social, financial,...

The American Society for Public Administration's (ASPA) Code of Ethics commits it to “representativeness,” “fairness,” “equality,” and “affirmative action.” Notwithstanding these goals, mainstream public administration teaching, texts, and journals mostly ignore the role of...

In 1981, Springfield, Illinois, implemented a tax increment financing (TIF) plan to stem the decline of the downtown business area. Local officials claim this TIF district has been extremely successful, based on an increase of $11.8 million in aggregated assessed values from 1981 through 1987....

Illinois relies on property taxes for much of the money needed to support its elementary and secondary schools. Wide variations in property values lead to considerable differences in what each school district spends per student. On several occasions reformers have unsuccessfully tried to change...

Illinois courts and the state's Department of Revenue (DOR) use assessment/sales ratio studies (ASRS) to determine whether government assessors are treating property owners equally; is everybody paying their fair share of real estate taxes based on the market value of the properties they own....

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum (ALPLM) in Springfield, Illinois is a monument to the American Dream, the idea that thorough hard work along with courage and determination anyone can achieve dramatic upward social mobility. In recognition of the numerous published findings...

Students who are the first in their family to enter higher education join a rarified and often mystifying culture of rules, rites, and rituals. A first-generation working-class college student who became a faculty member offers his insights and recommendations after forty years in the academy