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Full-Text Articles in Education

Improving Students' Scores On The Georgia End Of Course Assessment For Biology, Natasha Takia Simpson Dec 2021

Improving Students' Scores On The Georgia End Of Course Assessment For Biology, Natasha Takia Simpson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this applied study is to solve the problem of underperforming student test scores on the End of Course Biology assessment for high school students at an alternative school in Georgia, and to formulate a solution to address the problem. A multi-method design will be used consisting of both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The first approach will be structured interviews with the administration. The second approach will be focus groups with teachers. The third approach will analyze quantitative data from student surveys. The results may provide insight into an underlying problem in underperforming scores on the End of …


Direct Response To Usb64: Focus On Compliance Or Improved Student Learning, Patrick Edward Flanagan Sep 2021

Direct Response To Usb64: Focus On Compliance Or Improved Student Learning, Patrick Edward Flanagan

Theses and Dissertations

Using the professional literature surrounding change knowledge, this study assesses Utah public school districts' response to Utah Senate Bill 64 (USB64) that was passed in 2012. USB64 required school districts to ensure that principals were evaluating teacher performance through the use of a chosen evaluation tool. The chosen evaluation tool needed to include evaluation rubrics tied to the state teacher standards. USB64 was passed with the intent to improve classroom instruction and thereby improve student learning in Utah schools. Utah school districts complied with USB64 requirements and timelines. Districts successfully identified and adopted observation tools that principals could use to …


'Training' The Body Politic: Essays On The School Reform Orthodoxy, Jahan Naghshineh May 2021

'Training' The Body Politic: Essays On The School Reform Orthodoxy, Jahan Naghshineh

Education (PhD) Dissertations

These essays represent my attempt to grapple with fundamental questions about what I see as the upside-down nature of educational reforms in American society. Why is there a never-ending crisis in America’s public schools? What does it mean when the educational specter from different periods of history is discredited and yet the specter keeps being recycled decade after decade? For example, elites propagated crisis narratives to galvanize support for the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation at the turn of the century. Countless researchers then documented the adverse impacts of NCLB on America’s schools and yet that literature never led …


A Case Study In The Use Of Mentorships In Academic Instructional Coach Development., Matt Anderson May 2021

A Case Study In The Use Of Mentorships In Academic Instructional Coach Development., Matt Anderson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Academic instructional coaches have long been used to support teacher development and student learning. As a recent position in the education field, there is little information regarding the development of staff in this role. This study sought to better understand how academic instructional coaches are mentored and developed within challenging school contexts. The theoretical framework for this research is guided by the social constructivism epistemology. In alignment with this framework, a collective case study was utilized to better understand the relationship between the principal and the academic instructional coach. Exploring this relationship emphasized how principals support academic instructional coach growth. …


Investigating The Experiences Of Faculty Members And Administrators With Quality Assurance And Accountability In Higher Education In Ontario, Melanie Lawrence Mar 2021

Investigating The Experiences Of Faculty Members And Administrators With Quality Assurance And Accountability In Higher Education In Ontario, Melanie Lawrence

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The main objective of this qualitative case study was to explore the professional experience of six faculty members and three administrators in higher education during a time of increasing quality assurance and accountability policies so to gain a deeper understanding of how neoliberalism is changing their work experience as academics in Ontario, Canada. I have presented the research findings by employing policy sociology as both theory and methodology using the method of the qualitative case study. This form of qualitative inquiry provided an opportunity to explore how each interviewee navigated the current context of neoliberalism within their respective roles in …


California Elected City Council Women Of Color: Building A Collaborative Vision With Inclusive Voice, Beatriz T. Valencia Jan 2021

California Elected City Council Women Of Color: Building A Collaborative Vision With Inclusive Voice, Beatriz T. Valencia

Education (PhD) Dissertations

Following the U.S. presidential race of 2016, large numbers of women—particularly women of color—made the decision to run for political office for the first time at both the national and local levels. It is imperative that these women’s campaigns and victories are studied as a means to resist essentialism and honor the unique perspectives and histories of the voices of women of color in these political roles—roles highly underrepresented in literature and society at large. This dissertation focused on the victory speeches of 48, first-time, California city council, elected women of color (EWOC) with the aim of understanding their campaigns …


Regrounding School Accountability In Shared Responsibility: A Case Study Of Culturally Responsive District Leadership, Ericka Burns Jan 2021

Regrounding School Accountability In Shared Responsibility: A Case Study Of Culturally Responsive District Leadership, Ericka Burns

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

School accountability has been a part of public education conversations since the development of No Child Left Beyond (NCLB) in 2001. These accountability policies were developed with a core mission of holding schools, districts, and states accountable to the academic growth and achievement of all students and all student groups, and for the last twenty years, schools and districts have adjusted their priorities to align to the mandates of the state and federal accountability policies. These policies have stirred a great deal of criticism in their limited scales of defining student and school success as well as the authoritative leadership …


"The Lady From North Carolina": The Perils And Limitations Of External Expertise, Aprille J. Phillips, Edmund T. Hamann Jan 2021

"The Lady From North Carolina": The Perils And Limitations Of External Expertise, Aprille J. Phillips, Edmund T. Hamann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This paper examines a state department of education’s (SDE) decision to contract a consultant to “turnaround” schools, per a logic of outsourcing for external expertise. Our ethnographically informed case study explores whose knowledge had the most worth in diagnosing areas for improvement and identifies this case as part of a trend to rent competencies, under a neoliberal guise of efficiency, but at the expense of system capacity or learning.