Education Commons^™

Disparity Of Principal Accountability, Mary Kathryn Taylor

Theses and Dissertations

This study begins with a review of court cases that have helped shape public education in America. Following the review is an analysis of federal reform in education from 1965 to the present, paired with educational leadership literature to highlight a disparity in what federal mandates and state policies have in place for accountability measures. The study ends with a state analysis of Illinois and Iowa to find the strengths and weaknesses of state policy in the area of principal accountability.

As policymakers have worked to increase accountability in K-12 education, efforts have focused on a variety of measures to …

The Impact Of School Board Governance On Academic Achievement In Diverse States, Michael Ford

Theses and Dissertations

The overwhelming majority of students receiving a publicly funded education in the United States attend a public school in a district overseen by a democratically elected school board. Despite the dominant market share of democratically elected school boards, academic scholarship is increasingly focused on alternative governance structures such as mayoral control, charter schools, and school vouchers. Much research on traditional school boards is in fact skeptical of the capacity for such boards to positively impact academic performance. This dissertation shifts focus back to the almost 14,000 elected school boards in the United States, using original survey data from six strategically …