In Defense Of Public Schools: A Toolkit From The Midwest, Ferial Pearson, Ann Hunter-Pirtle

Journal of Curriculum, Teaching, Learning and Leadership in Education

One of the defining features of public schools is that they operate at the will of the people, with public oversight from elected school boards. In addition to being free and open to all, free from religious affiliation, and promoting civic understanding and participation, much of what makes public schools public happens through the democratic process. We have noticed that many teachers are so overworked and overwhelmed - rightly focused on their own classrooms and their own students’ day to day struggles - that it’s not easy for them to engage and advocate for themselves and their students in the …

Partners In Education, Health, And Safety: Development And Implementation Of Concussion Policy In Ontario School Boards, Amy E. Robinson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In March 2014, the Ontario Ministry of Education was the first ministry in Canada to institute a formal concussion policy. The ministry stipulates that student long-term health and safety are essential preconditions for learning, and that concussions can negatively impact cognitive, physical, emotional, and social development. Policy/Program Memorandum (PPM) No. 158 requires all school boards and school authorities to establish a policy on concussions. Each school board in Ontario developed a concussion policy within their local context to address concussion awareness, prevention, identification, management, and training. School boards, administrators, teachers, staff, students, parents/guardians, volunteers, and community-based organizations were encouraged to …

Higher Education Social Responsibility: An Empirical Analysis And Assessment Of A Hispanic-Serving Institution's Commitment To Community-Engaged Scholarship, Student Integration And Sense Of Belonging, Juan Salinas Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

Current efforts in higher education institutions to increase persistence and success among Hispanic students continue to be ineffective and thus new conceptual frameworks need to be explored. Data from the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities asserts that increasing the number of Hispanics that graduate is vital for our country’s future. In turn, Hispanic-Serving Institutions need to nourish and nurture their students to ensure that they graduate and institutional frameworks would benefit from cultural and epistemological congruence with Hispanic students, their families, and their communities.

Educational leaders have urged educators to take on the responsibility and commitment to students’ success …

Employee Engagement Through The Instructional Leadership Team, Stephen Juracka

Dissertations

ABSTRACT

The Instructional Leadership Team (ILT) is an organizational structure designed to improve employee engagement, which for this project is defined as employee collaboration, autonomy, ownership and shared purpose, in the curriculum development process (Farris-Berg, 2013). This program evaluation, grounded in organizational theory, self-determination theory, and social exchange theory; it is aimed at validating the importance of creating an organizational structure designed to shape a cultural environment that supports employee ownership and autonomy while creating a social exchange economy that supports employee motivation. The Instructional Leadership Team created and initiated the ILT Engagement Survey to K-5 grade level teachers in …

A Case Study Of A Technical College's Faculty Perceptions Regarding The Value Of Professional Development Activities, Kermelle D. Hensley

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative research study was to investigate technical college faculty members' perceptions of the professional development. Most of the literature was focused on four-year higher educational institutions. For the purposes of this qualitative case study, the researcher addressed the limited amount in the literature about professional development in two-year technical colleges. The researcher investigated faculty perceptions concerning the usefulness of professional development in a two-year higher education institution through survey research design with 8 participants. The main themes were 1) technical college faculty desired professional development; 2) technical college faculty needed for follow up from the professional …

Graduation As A Function Of Mobility, Attendance, Discipline, Math, English Language Arts/Reading, And Parental Educational Attainment Of The Cohort Group 2015 In One South Texas Urban School District In The Rio Grande Valley, Nancy Lopez Castillo

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the trends and patterns across time over the cohort 2015 on dependent variable, graduation. Aggregated longitudinal data for independent variables, mobility, attendance, discipline, math achievement, reading achievement, and parental educational attainment was collected for 98 students from 2010 to 2018. The independent variables of mobility, attendance, discipline, math achievement, reading achievement, and parental educational attainment were examined to determine whether or not high school completion is dependent on these measures.

The freshmen cohort 2015 in one south Texas urban school district in the Rio Grande Valley was the focus of the study. Exploratory and confirmatory analysis statistical/data …

Modern-Day Slavery: Equipping The Next Generation For Social Change, Margaret Tienhaara

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

Margaret Tienhaara is a freshman at Purdue University in the College of Liberal Arts majoring in global studies and political science. Her dream is to promote education for impoverished children in underdeveloped nations. In this article, she describes her process of organizing a presentation about modern-day slavery for 100 eighth grade students from Tecumseh Junior High School. The goal was to challenge the students to consider a major such as Purdue’s Global Studies and learn about creating social change.

I Am Complicated, And So Is My Blackness: A Trifecta Exploration Of Educational Spaces And Identity Development, Kala Burrell-Craft

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Myriads of research studies have been written over the past 20 years highlighting the racial gap and disparities in educational opportunities and outcomes between Black and White students, but as revealed in a review of the literature, more studies need to be conducted that examine the intersection of race, space/place, and racial identity development. Using critical race theory as a framework, this study comprised of three separate, but related essays that explore the function of educational spaces in which Black Americans navigate, grow, and develop as it intersects with race, space/place, and identity development. Essay one is a critical narrative …

The Impact Of Male Gender Dissonance On Women’S Potential Eligibility For Advancement To The Position Of High School Principal, Kristen Lee Harris

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative, replication study was to discover what behaviors female administrators exhibit that may prompt male administrators with whom they work in California public education to demonstrate behaviors associated with gender dissonance and also to determine what impact these dissonant behaviors may have on women’s potential eligibility for advancement to the position of high school principal.

Methodology: This qualitative phenomenological study examined the experience of six male and six female high school principals in Riverside County, California. Purposive criterion sampling method was applied to identify participants based on delimiting criteria. The researcher collected and coded data …

Law School News Tim Baxter '83 Elected Chair Of Rwu Board Of Trustees 10/29/2018, Edward Fitzpartick

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

09. Group Dynamics, Illinois Mathematics And Science Academy

CORE

The Group Dynamics module focuses on informing students about inter/intra group interactions, while also demonstrating the role of an individual within a group. As individuals become a part of a group, they lose a certain distinction between their personal identity and their group personality, or prototype. Individuals become part of a social categorization and comparison, and require the skills of empathy and relations to successfully communicate with not only their ingroup, but also their outgroup. An absence of awareness of the feelings around them can develop the negative effects of groupthink, as individual ideas are unheard. As fitting into the …

The Role Of Leadership In School Innovation: A Case Study, Savannah Adkins Denning

Dissertations

Expansive research on leadership, particularly school leadership, has suggested leaders have an indirect impact on student outcomes, as leaders build a school’s academic capacity, which elevates teaching and learning (Hallinger, 2010). Though there is significant empirical research regarding school leadership, there is a lack of research investigating the intersection of leadership and innovation. In terms of innovation, “personalized learning,” has become an emerging topic among education researchers, as scholars seek to understand the potential impact personalized learning strategies have on student outcomes.

The purpose of this study was to explore how leadership interacts with innovation. This study specifically explored the …

Children's Physical Fitness And Academic Performance: A Challenge For Leaders In Title I Schools In The Rio Grande Valley, Maricela Valdez

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the relationship between physical fitness, body mass index and academic performance in Hispanic children enrolled in grade 5 from a district in the Rio Grande Valley. A total of 547 participants were selected from 11 elementary schools from a school district in the Rio Grande Valley. The dependent variable, academic performance, was measured by children’s gain score on the STAAR Progress Measure for Reading and Math assessments. The independent variables of physical fitness were measured by scores on cardiovascular fitness and body mass index from the FITNESSGRAM assessment.

The literature review …

Revealing Luz: Illuminating Our Identities Through Duoethnography, Carrie Diaz Eaton, Luz Marizza Bailey

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Hispanic Americans make up 15% of the current US workforce, but they only account for 7% of the STEM Education workforce [8]. One effective way to reach this population, particularly Latinas, is by providing stories and ethnographic biographies of successful Latinas they can relate to. It is important to note that Latinas have been earning PhDs in STEM disciplines outside of the US much longer than US-born Latinas have been earning them inside. Thus we offer the story of a mathematics educator, from Peru, Dr. Luz Antonia Mendizábal Gálvez de Rodriguez, a girl who was given a chance to be …

Teacher Retention: Advice From Missouri's Top Districts, Joshua Flores

Educational Specialist Scholarly Papers

Teacher attrition, particularly within the first five years of teaching, is a persistent problem that negatively impacts schools, school districts, and communities across the globe. Missouri, in particular, is one state that reports higher rates of teacher attrition than the national average. This beginning exploratory analysis of a few of Missouri’s top teacher retaining districts looks to offer suggestions, recommendations, and strategies aside from raising salaries or increasing benefits packages that schools, their leaders, and districts can implement to bolster teacher retention.

The Pedagogical Impacts Of The Common Core State Standards On Elementary Mathematics Teachers Of The Deaf And Hard-Of-Hearing, Nathan E. Harrison

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

This study explored the intersection of the Common Core State Standards and the field of Deaf Education, specifically the impact of the Common Core on the pedagogy of elementary mathematics teachers of the deaf. Pedagogy was defined as the union of the philosophy and methodology of teaching a teacher uses.

This study made use of an explanatory sequential mixed methods research design, which included a phase of quantitative data collection through a survey of elementary mathematics teachers in Deaf Schools in Common Core states and a phase of qualitative data collection through interviews with a sub-sample of participants from the …

A Father's Dream: "Mi Hija Va Ser Maestra" An Autoethnographic Study Of The Cultural, Familial And Community Experiences That Informed An Instructional Leader, Eva T. Torres

Theses and Dissertations

This study is an autoethnography which will identify major ethnographic influences that I, as a female Mexican American educational leader, feel have been significant in the course of my career in education. The study will focus on culture, family and community as factors which developed and engendered characteristics, behaviors and experiences that contributed to my development as an educator. These will be relayed through narratives, memoirs, organic artifacts and documents, lived experiences, pláticas, and other forms of text presented here as story, an acceptable autoethnographic method of data collection. I place myself in the center of these narratives in autoethnographic …

Teacher Perceptions Of Mandated Collaboration Through Professional Learning Communities, Carmen Cranford Horton

Theses and Dissertations

Georgia Rule 505-2-.36, implemented in July of 2017, revised teacher recertification policy to include administrative evaluations of professional growth resulting from teachers’ engagement in professional learning communities (PLCs). The rule represented the convergence of two possibly conflicting ideals: mandated change and PLCs. Districts were permitted autonomy over how to implement and develop rubrics for the evaluation of professional growth resulting from PLCs. The purpose of this bounded case study was to capture the perceptions of teachers concerning the structure, purpose and dynamics of required PLC meetings during the initial year of implementation. The goal was to give voice to the …

Universal Design For Learning: Is Training Making A Difference In Teacher Pedagogy, Michelle D. Sizemore

Theses and Dissertations

David H. Rose and his colleagues at the Center for Applied Specialized Technology (CAST), a non-profit organization specializing in educational research and development, worked for over one quarter of a century to improve learning opportunities for all individuals (Rose, 2012). In the late 1990s this work led to a set of principles known as Universal Design for Learning (UDL), a research-based instructional framework grounded in neuroscience and educational research that allowed teachers to proactively identify barriers that might exist between students and learning and account for those barriers during lesson development and implementation (CAST, 2015). One school district in southwest …

An Examination Of Teacher Perceptions Of Credit Recovery In Three South Georgia School Districts, Brooks Robinson

Theses and Dissertations

The present study was an exploration of the credit recovery program in three school districts in Georgia. The researcher explored the implementation of the credit recovery program used as a tool for improving graduation rates and college and career readiness of students in three purposefully selected school districts in Georgia. Three research questions were used focusing on the implementation process, the reason why the credit recovery program was implemented, and the outcome of the credit recovery program after implementation. The methodology was a qualitative comparative research design, which included data from three school districts in Georgia. Data were collected via …

Enacting Self-Regulation Expectations In Kindergarten Programs Using A Distributed Leadership Framework, Lisa Cranston

The Dissertation in Practice at Western University

On June 30, 2016, the Ontario Ministry of Education released The Kindergarten Program, a document which outlined the expectations to be taught and the pedagogical approaches to be used in all publicly funded Ontario kindergarten classrooms with a mandatory implementation date of September 2016. This document included a focus on self-regulation, since research has shown that self-regulation skills are essential for not only early learning but for social and emotional success throughout life. This Organization Improvement Plan (OIP) investigates several possible strategies for ensuring that all kindergarten teachers and Early Childhood Educators in School Board X can articulate what self-regulation …

Chinese Higher Educator Perceptions Toward Leadership Effectiveness In Regard To Gender, Kanglei Meng, John Baker

International Journal of Leadership and Change

This article discusses Chinese educator perceptions of effective leadership behaviors in order to determine how these teachers define effectiveness and whether a correlation exists between their perception and leaders’ gender. Factors include conscious and unconscious gender bias, Chinese culture, historical background, and identity. As a male-dominated country, China has been deeply influenced by Confucianism; hence, limited attention has been on female leadership. The article identifies and reviews three Women’s Revolutions in China and their effects in the past century in order to predict the status of female leadership. The researcher used the Chinese version of the LPI survey and conducted …

Public Relations And The School Superintendent: From Theory To Practice, Terry L. Hapney Jr.

Terry L. Hapney Jr., Ph.D.

A Freshman Bridge Program: Transition To Success, Amy Hale

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of a Freshman Bridge Program on student attitude, student achievement in Algebra I, and overall student academic achievement beginning in the spring of the eighth grade year through the first semester of the ninth grade year. The Freshman Bridge Program began with a three-week summer program in July focused on hands-on math activities, career counseling, and study skills. Throughout the first semester of their ninth grade year, participants were a part of a continuum of interventions that included bi-quarterly case management meetings with the researcher and school counselor, data monitoring, …

African American Women Baccalaureate Success: A Reflective Look At Pre-Collegiate Years Influencing Transition, Persistence, And Degree Attainment, Leilah K. Kirkendoll

Dissertations

African American women are graduating from college at rates higher than their Asian/Pacific Islander, Latino, Native American and even their African American male peers. This level of college persistence and success is occurring amid the challenges they face and share with their peers of the same schools, neighborhoods and society. Similar to many of their peers, these young women experience under-resourced schools and limited college preparation. In addition, they have unique school challenges including experiences with negative stereotypes and harsh discipline policies. African American women also face societal challenges through experiences with trauma, foster care and disproportionate early parenting, to …

An Autoethnographic Exploration Of The Professional And The Person: A Life's Journey Of A Hispanic Superintendent In South Texas, Gonzalo Salazar

Theses and Dissertations

Leadership effectiveness is often defined in terms of, a leader’s ability to motivate followers towards a collective goal, mission or vision (Knippenberg, Knippenberg, Cremer & Hogg, 2004). However, a leaders’ understanding of their own identity; how education, culture, upbringing, values and morals helped shape the self (Leary, & Tangney, 2002; Anzaldua, 2015; and Guajardo & Guajardo, 2017) and how the leader functions as a contributing member of the organization (Knippenberg & Hogg, 2003) is critically important.

Demographers have long held that by the year 2050, our nation will be increasingly more diverse and that there will be no racial or …

The Effect Of Teacher Race On Student Perceptions In Low-Income Schools, Benton M. Brown

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the wake of the Brown v. Board of Education (1954) decision, thousands of teachers of color lost their jobs as black students were integrated into mostly white schools. The number of black teachers in schools across the United States has never recovered resulting in a teaching workforce that is less diverse than the student population that they teach. Many studies have examined the possible impact of this discrepancy including the possibility that this has contributed to the black-white achievement gap that exists in the United States. Other studies have examined the non-academic impacts of a less diverse workforce including …

Hispanic Male Self-Efficacy And Its Effect On Persistence, Jennifer Mendoza Culbertson

Theses and Dissertations

The Hispanic male population has experienced a decline in four-year college enrollment rates and bachelor degree completion within the past ten years. To address this issue, this study focused on Hispanic male college freshman students, self-efficacy, and persistence in a South Texas four-year higher education institution. The study utilized an explanatory sequential mixed-methods approach. For the quantitative analysis, an efficacy survey, College Self-Efficacy Inventory, of Hispanic male students enrolled in mandatory freshman courses was analyzed. A logistic regression analysis was conducted to determine what amount of the total variance in persistence may be accounted for by self-efficacy. Qualitative data was …

Renewed Commitment To Democratic Schools. A Book Review Of These Schools Belong To You And Me: Why We Can’T Afford To Abandon Our Public Schools, Pamela Fisher

Democracy and Education

In These Schools Belong to You and Me, renowned educator Deborah Meier partners with a younger former colleague, Emily Gasoi, to offer both a multigenerational perspective of their successful work in small, autonomous, democratic schools and a rich commentary on the evolution of the small schools movement in light of the recent press for high-stakes accountability. Writing in alternating chapters and reflecting on their decades of experience, MacArthur award winner Meier and Gasoi present a compelling argument for renewed support for democracy and equity in all our public schools.

The Unsung Heroes And Silent Partners Of The Educational World, Gillian Schneider

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this mixed method study was to identify and describe what paraeducators perceive as factors that lead to effective and sustainable engagement in special education special day classes, and identify what strategies are effective for encouraging discretionary effort as perceived by paraeducators.

Methodology: The participants in the study were 69 paraeducators employed by a Southern California County Office of Education. Participants partook in two research instruments: (a) a 37-question survey and (b) a semi-structured interview.

Findings: Data based on the mixed method analysis revealed that paraeducators are highly committed employees who want to know that they are …