Education Commons^™

Efficiency Of Fiscal Allocations In Site-Based Empowered Schools, Jerome Jay Meyer

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study implemented a two phase concurrent mixed-methods design to generate a greater understanding of how elementary schools with increased autonomy in fiscal decision making allocated their money, how their site-based decisions affected allocative efficiency, and how increased autonomy affected site-based decision making when compared with a set of matched control schools within a large urban district.

Phase I compared school site expenditure patterns of site-based empowered schools to demographically matched control schools and to all elementary schools within a large urban district over four years, 2004-05, 2005-06, 2006-07, and 2007-08. Expenditure data were collected from the In$ite data base …

An Analysis Of The Equity Of Utah’S Public School Funding System, Garrick Peterson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

There has not been an equity study of the public school funding allocation system, in the state of Utah, since 1990. The purpose of the study was to conduct an analysis of the equity of the Utah state funding allocation system for K-12 education including a trend analysis for the decade 2000-2009. The conceptual framework for the analysis applies four broad concepts of equity framed by Kern Alexander; (1) communitative equity, (2) distributive equity, (3) restitutive equity, and (4) positivism. The analysis of the Utah State funding system used Berne and Stiefel's methodology and included commonly used statistical measures of …

Principal Stress: Working In Conflicting Paradigms From Newtonian To New Science, Shelley Kresyman

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Shortages of qualified principal candidates and retention of motivated principals, combined with the evidence that the principal is a vital part of effective school improvement, has ominous implications for the future quality of education. A body of research exists describing school administrators' stress over the last 25 years; yet, limited research reflects the impact the changing role of the principal in the accountability era of No Child Left Behind has had on principal stress and the possible connections to the shifting paradigms in organizational leadership.

If principals perceive themselves to be overstressed and unprepared to meet the current expectations and …

A Change Management Effort In One Large Public Organization: An Exploration Of The Perception Of Needed Skills For Managing Change, Brian Paul Knudsen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Public managers are a key component of a bureaucracy. The reliance on a public manager by an elected official is high as is the expectations that these managers have the necessary skills to manage a public organization. The goal of this study was to explore what elected officials perceive are skills needed by managers to lessen the impact on the human resource, financial, and political challenges when faced with significant change efforts in order to meet their expectations and that of the citizens to whom the organization is responsible.

Findings indicate that managing upward and managing the political impacts are …

The Impact Of Individual Decision Making On Campus Sustainability Initiatives, Aurali Ella Dade

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) have increasingly committed to become more sustainable in recent years. Despite this commitment, academic publications in the sustainability field assert that progress has been slower at IHEs than expected and that most IHEs have found sustainability initiatives difficult to implement. Comprehensive sustainability initiatives require cooperation from a broad set of constituents with diverse and sometimes conflicting goals. Creating a sustainable IHE also requires changes in both physical infrastructure and individual behavior. Any number of institutional factors can advance or limit progress towards these objectives.

Previous investigations have assessed individual case studies, compared IHEs in a …

An Analysis Of First Amendment Jurisprudence On The Supreme Court Case Of Locke V. Davey, Alexander John Herzog

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Scholarship programs authored by state legislatures may conflict with a state's constitution. In the case of Locke v. Davey 540 U.S. 807 (2003), Joshua Davey challenged the State of Washington's withdrawal of his Promise Scholarship claiming violation of his First Amendment rights under the United States Constitution.

This study is a historical case study analyzing the Supreme Court jurisprudence regarding legal issues concerning the issuance of state funded scholarships for the purpose of religious studies. A complete legal study was conducted that included a review of all relevant court cases, court filings, legal journals and legal briefs.

A micro legal …