Digital Commons Network^™

Public University And College Enrollment In The Mountain West, 2019-2021, Dielle T. Telada, Katie M. Gilbertson, William E. Brown Jr.

Higher Education

On June 10, 2021, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center released the Spring 2021 Current Term Enrollment Estimates (CTTE) report. The report provides estimated postsecondary enrollment numbers based on the Clearinghouse universe of institutions. The impact of COVID-19 related disruptions has caused higher education enrollment to fall to what the National Student Clearinghouse suggests are “new lows.” This fact sheet explores trends in higher education enrollment at Mountain West colleges during the 2020 and 2021 Spring semesters.

Pandemic Schooling: Lessons In Equity, Advocacy, And Racial Justice, Donna Rivera

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

It was my fourth year of teaching at a Brooklyn elementary school when the COVID-19 pandemic forced school buildings, and the entire city, to enter a world of lockdown and quarantine. New York City was an early epicenter of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, and the virus quickly revealed severe racial and socioeconomic disparities across the city. A disproportionate number of cases, serious illnesses, and death has been experienced by low-income Black and Latinx communities. At the same time, 2020 also ushered in a national racial reckoning following the May murder of George Floyd.

In this thesis, I will provide a …

School Choice Options Amid Coronavirus Pandemic In The United States, Austin Armentrout

Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue

The Coronavirus has changed every aspect of life in the United States and around the world. Although the pandemic’s effects can easily be seen in the fields of healthcare and business, the lasting effects on the field of education are not as clearly visible. The Covid-19 pandemic restrictions have placed an enormous burden on both k-12 public and private educational establishments. The ability of the different types of schools to adapt to these restrictions has contributed to students transferring to private schools.

Equal Access To A Good High School Education Will Help Reduce Poverty In Haiti By Preparing More Students For College Work, Isabelle Joseph

English Language Institute

This research advocates for building more public high schools in Haiti to prepare more Haitians for higher education to transform their lives and their communities.

Mccleary V. State And The Washington State Supreme Court's Retention Of Jurisdiction—A Success Story For Washington Public Schools?, Jessica R. Burns

Seattle University Law Review SUpra

No abstract provided.

Educator Voice And Influence In Mississippi Education Policy, Sarah Jamie Sproles

Honors Theses

This thesis attempts to discover if there are barriers educators and government actors feel are in place that prevent educator advocacy and influence in the state of Mississippi, and consequently what importance their voices hold in the policymaking and implementation processes. The research questions that are addressed in this thesis include: a) Is there an absence of educators affecting policies and if so, why? b) What are the perceptions of educators’ advocacy and engagement in laws passed regarding education? c) What, if any, barriers prevent educators’ voices from influencing laws? Qualitative data from educators and those in the government sector …

Karmel Oration: On With The 21st Century! Preparing Australian Education For The 2020s And Beyond, Neil Selwyn

2009 - 2019 ACER Research Conferences

It is rare that the education community gets the chance to think seriously about the future. The 2019 Research Conference theme therefore gives us a welcome opportunity to be future-focused and forward-thinking. This presentation will preface the conference by reflecting on some pressing issues that Australian education is set to face over the next decade. In particular, we will explore a series of substantial challenges that are likely to come to the fore during the 2020s. These include: making a persuasive case for retaining traditional models of ‘school’ and ‘teacher’ in the face of compelling alternatives; developing broader notions of …

Hope For Struggling School Districts, Mary D. Travis

Master's Theses

Education improves the opportunities and life-chance outcomes of our children, and is a key factory in both economic and community development. Although high school graduation rates have shown improvement nationwide in recent years, public education is suffering from increasing inequality between different school districts and within the same school districts. Such inequalities widen academic outcome gaps and can result in entire school districts being branded as academic failures. However, there is also encouraging evidence of struggling schools and school districts moving toward improvement. Innovative leaders who are committed to inclusive and rigorous academics, shared leadership, and an in-depth understanding of …

The New Media, Globalization, And The Public Interest: A Conversation With Newton N. Minow (2003), Marcy Murninghan

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article provides a summary of a weekend-long convocation held in April 2002 that was sponsored by the Coudert Institute in West Palm Beach, Florida. The motto of the nonprofit group, which was founded by Dale Coudert in 2001, is, “Subjects That Matter, with People Who Make a Difference.” Each mid-winter through early-spring season, the nonpartisan and nonideological Coudert Institute organizes conversations and seminars on an eclectic array of topics featuring prominent academics, artists, musicians, and practitioners. The institute’s goal is to spark open and inclusive dialogue directed to critical reflection and enlightenment. This selection contains the fruits of a …

Massachusetts School Discipline Policy Change: Exclusion, Alternatives, And Inequality In Public District And Charter Schools, Aster Richardson

School of Public Policy Capstones

School discipline reform is of growing interest to policymakers as ongoing research reveals the negative effects of current school discipline policies. In the U.S., the most popular models of school discipline use exclusionary practice, which includes suspension and expulsion. Studies have shown that exclusionary discipline contributes to undesired social outcomes such as poor academic performance, school drop out, unemployment, and even incarceration. Additionally, exclusionary discipline and its negative consequences disproportionately affect racial minorities and other vulnerable groups of students. Reform of current state policy is a necessary first step toward implementing alternative discipline practice in schools. In 2012 Massachusetts legislature …

Opening The Gates To Ap Equity: A Case Study Of A Central Virginia High School’S Practices, Policies, And Characteristics Toward Proportional Black Student Representation In Advanced Placement Enrollment, Andrew R. Armstrong

Theses and Dissertations

Advanced Placement (AP) courses engage high school students with college curriculum taught by trained high school teachers, with an opportunity for students to earn college credit by passing the end-of-course AP exam. AP has evolved into an indicator of school quality, instructional rigor, and a consideration in the college admissions process. AP enrollment and exam performance outcomes for White students disproportionately surpass those for Black students. This study attempts to inform practice, policy, and programming toward more equitable enrollment outcomes for Black students through a single case study. The selected case school was the only high school among 38 in …

Charting Constellations Of Power: Texas Public Education Policy, Hollie Wright

MSU Graduate Theses

For decades, public education in Texas has been entrenched in neoliberalism-inspired policies that research shows largely fail to produce promised results and have a tendency to perpetuate the very problems advocates claim the policies will solve. This raises questions about the decision-makers and what is happening in the public education policy process. In line with Laura Nader’s directive for more anthropologists to make those in power the subject of their research, I used both ethnographic and social network analysis methods to ‘study up’ in Texas public education. This study describes some relationships of members of the Texas State Board of …

Some Things You Can Do To Support Public Education Now, Dave Powell

Education Faculty Publications

Yesterday a group of students here at Gettysburg College, where I teach, organized a Solidarity Rally. It consisted largely of teach-ins designed to start conversations, and hopefully it will the first of many events that bring people together to think more carefully about how we should respond to things going on outside of our college and town. [excerpt]

Comparative Analysis Of Privilege In Relation To The School District Of Philadelphia And The Tredyffrin-Easttown School District, Kathryn Battafarano

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Although public education is an option for all local residents, the variation in American public education is littered with inequalities. In particular, the School District of Philadelphia and the Tredyffrin-Easttown School District are representative of this variation. The School District of Philadelphia is located within the biggest Pennsylvanian city. The Tredyffrin-Easttown School District is a smaller school district operating in a suburban area in close proximity to Philadelphia. There are three focus areas, socio-economic levels, geographic region, and funding, which specifically constitute the differences in these school districts. The differences show how privileged educational circumstances arise. This analysis suggests that …

Guest Perspective: U.S. Secretary Of Education John B. King Jr., John King Jr.

Journal of College Access

No abstract provided.

Educational Revolution, Peter Taubman

Occasional Paper Series

Invites the reader to reclaim the conversation and turn back the on-going privatization and corporatization of public schools.

A Leap In The Right Direction For California Public Education: The Local Control And Accountability Plan And Its Effects On Latino English Learners, Sarah E. Owens

Scripps Senior Theses

The California State Legislature passed Assembly Bill 97 in June 2013 and Governor Brown signed it into law on July 1, 2013. The legislation created the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) and the Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP). The LCFF changed the way that school districts in California receive education funding from the state, shifting from a complex categorical program towards a per-pupil based formula. Furthermore, school districts receive “supplemental” and “concentration” funds based on the number of English learners, low-income students and foster youth in the district. The LCAP is a key component of this new funding system …

Poverty, Educational Achievement, And The Role Of The Courts, Michael A. Rebell

New England Journal of Public Policy

The large and growing proportion of U.S. students who come from poverty backgrounds explains this country’s relatively low performance on international achievement tests. These students need a broad range of comprehensive educational services if they are to have a meaningful opportunity to succeed in school. These opportunities include not only adequate resources for basic K–12 educational services but also parent engagement, health and other services, and additional early education, after-school, and summer programs. In most states, the schools attended by students with the greatest needs tend to receive the fewest resources because of the inequitable systems most states use for …

Getting To The Core And Evolving The Education Reform Movement To A System Of Continuous Improvement, Fernando M. Reimers, Eleonora Villegas-Reimers

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article places the most recent study of PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) in historical perspective, reviewing the role of international comparisons in efforts to build public education systems as key institutions of democratic societies. It discusses the findings for the United States, examining differences with other participating countries. It also looks at a paradox. Despite the high priority education has received in the United States in the past two decades, the country underperformed in a number of indicators in the PISA in comparison with many other countries participating in the study. The authors explain the findings as the …

Transforming Public Education: The Need For An Educational Justice Movement, Mark R. Warren

New England Journal of Public Policy

Nearly fifteen years after the passage of No Child Left Behind, the failures of our educational system with regard to low-income children of color remain profound. Traditional reform efforts have sought improvements solely within the confines of the school system, failing to realize how deeply educational failure is part of and linked to broader structures of poverty and racism. A social movement that creates political and cultural change is necessary to transform the racial inequities in public education itself and to connect this transformational effort to a larger movement to combat poverty and racism. The seeds of a new educational …

Educational Policy Decisions Effect Upon Same-Gender Public Education, Richard Gerard Catoire

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, with emphasis on greater choice and flexibility for parents and students in public education, to include the provision for same-gender public schools and classrooms, led to a resurgence in same-gender public education in the United States. With the results of the research on same-gender education presenting conflicting evidence and mixed-perspectives on the outcomes of same-gender education in improving academic achievement or attainment, there are still questions to be answered, not only to the effectiveness of same-gender education, but also to policy decisions to establish same-gender public education programs. While proponents of …

The Influence Of Hope Vi Public Housing On Public Schools, Donna A. Comrie

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the United States, public school enrollment is typically organized by neighborhood boundaries. This dissertation examines whether the federally funded HOPE VI program influenced performance in neighborhood public schools. In effect since 1992, HOPE VI has sought to revitalize distressed public housing using the New Urbanism model of mixed income communities. There are 165 such HOPE VI projects nationwide. Despite nearly two decades of the program’s implementation, the literature on its connection to public school performance is thin. My dissertation aims to narrow this research gap. There are three principal research questions:

(1) Following HOPE VI, was there a change …

From Toxic Tours To Growing The Grassroots: Tensions In Critical Pedagogy And Community Development, Celina Su, Isabelle Jagninski

Publications and Research

Structural inequalities in American public education are inextricably tied to deep-seated patterns of racial and economic segregation. Children in poor neighborhoods are less likely to have the household resources, neighborhood institutions, or school amenities necessary for a good, challenging education. In response, a growing number of organizations have launched initiatives to simultaneously revitalize neighborhoods and improve public education, emphasizing youth participation as an essential component in their efforts. We draw upon ethnographic data from two such organizations to examine their practice of place-based critical pedagogy in community development. We focus on how they engage marginalized, “hard-to-reach” youth via (1) experiential …

Examining Kentucky Public Schools: Gender Differences In An Index Measure Of Accountability For Academic Standards, Khin Thazin Myint

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The Kentucky public education system has made progress over the past 20 years after a number of reforms beginning in 1990. A stated goal of these reforms has been not only to improve the overall performance of students in a school, but to also ensure that no student groups be allowed to fall behind. To accomplish this, the state has adopted and implemented goals that are shared with those of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, including school accountability and a goal of proficiency for all students by the year 2014. However the most recent analysis of three statewide …

Effect Of High School Completion Of The Agricultural Education Program On The Rate Of Return On Investment For The Commonwealth Of Virginia, Phillip Scott Bevins

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

This research study sought to determine the effect high school completion of the agricultural career and technical education program has on the rate of return on investment by public schools in Virginia. The research questions guiding this study included: (1) Were students able to find employment related to the agricultural career and technical education program they completed, (2) What federal and state funding was allocated for students participating in the agricultural career and technical education programs in the state of Virginia, (3) Was there a significant level of tax revenues generated by incomes from those who participated in the agricultural …

Basic Education And Education For All In Nigeria: The Role Of Multinational Corporations, Mary Plangnan Haggai

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

In spite of the concerted efforts made by the Nigerian government at funding the Universal Basic Education (UBE) in the country, 11 million children of school age are still out of school. To augment the funding, the paper proposes the involvement of multinational corporations. Participation in UBE is seen as a tangible Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) project that will have direct impact on the host communities in such a way that will eliminate the hostilities of the host communities towards multinational corporations.

Institutes, Foundations, And Think Tanks: Conservative Influences On U.S. Public Schools, Deron R. Boyles

Educational Policy Studies Faculty Publications

While a complete analysis of the effects of conservative think tanks is beyond the scope of this article, we include the above passage as evidence of what, on a broad scale, the “idea brokers” have been working towards. While education is only one area where neoconservative think tanks seek to influence public policy, it has become the issue for many neoconservatives. In this article, we focus on four think tanks—The Manhattan Institute, The American Enterprise Institute, The Heritage Foundation, and The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation—and what they are doing to reshape public schools in ways more suitable to neoconservative and …

Cuny Trustees Vote To End Remedial Classes, Alisa Solomon

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

In a decision that threatens to slam closed the door on thousands of CUNY undergraduates, the University's Board of Trustees voted on May 26 to eliminate remedial courses at the system's eleven senior colleges. For people interested in CLAGS — which is not involved in remedial education and is based at the Graduate Center — the new policy may not seem momentous, relevant, or even objectionable. Nonetheless, it has far-reaching political, economic, and practical implications for CLAGS. What's more, as hundreds of CUNY faculty, students, and community groups testified at public hearings over the last several months, it's a pedagogically …

Local Autonomy, Educational Equity, And School Choice: Constitutional Criticism Of School Reform, James J. Hilton

New England Journal of Public Policy

Many critics of America's public education system hail parental or school choice, a program that allows public school systems to compete against one another and, under some proposals, against private educational institutions, for students and educational funding, as the answer to Americas educational crisis. Proponents argue that competition will force public schools to offer students a quality education or close. This article does not evaluate the claims of the parental-choice proposals; rather, it examines the difficulties inherent in funding such a system through traditional school finance mechanisms.

A Business Perspective On Education: Launching A Revolution Of Participation, James F. Orr Iii

Maine Policy Review

Business has been increasingly concerned about the reform of education in the U.S. in recent years, according to James F. Orr III, chief executive officer of UNUM. Although financial resources have been contributed to the reform efforts, Orr admits, business has not taken the larger step of actually participating in the process of education reform. Participation, he argues, is central to changing schools to respond to the realities of the 21st century. Business must retake ownership of American schools, along with other stakeholders and citizens in general. In this article, based on an address made earlier this year at a …