Education Economics Commons^™

The Cost And Quality Of Open Textbooks: Perceptions Of Community College Faculty And Students, Tj Bliss, John Hilton Iii, David Wiley, Kim Thanos

Faculty Publications

Proponents of open educational resources (OER) claim that significant cost savings are possible when open textbooks displace traditional textbooks in the college classroom. We investigated student and faculty perceptions of OER used in a community college context. Over 125 students and 11 faculty from seven colleges responded to an online questionnaire about the cost and quality of the open textbooks used in their classrooms. Results showed that the majority of students and faculty had a positive experience using the open textbooks, appreciated the lower costs, and perceived the texts as being of high quality. The potential implications for OER initiatives …

Cultivating Democracy At One High School Intervention Program For Latinos At Risk Of Dropping Out, Margaret Sauceda Curwen, Keith Howard

Education Faculty Articles and Research

In California, where this study takes place, it is estimated that 85,000 students drop out of high school annually. Consequences are often linked to economic and social issues including long term economic costs to the state and the likelihood of lesser participation in voting and civic engagement (Rumberger, 2012). This account documents one high school’s alternative intervention program that includes online academic credit recovery and socio-emotional guidance leading to graduation for Latino students who are at risk of dropping out. Findings highlight the program’s support for these students in gaining confidence in self, envisioning themselves in the community and, for …

Age Entering The Field, Theodore J. Kowalski

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Over time, the typical career span of superintendents (in that position only) has been about 15 to 20 years. In large measure, this relatively short period is explained by the fact most superintendents enter the position in mid-career. Data collected and analyzed by AASA in 2010 revealed nearly two-thirds of superintendents (62 percent) first entered the position when they were 41 to 55 years old. Outside this age range, novices were twice as likely to be younger than 41 than older than 55. Only 8 percent of superintendents first entered the position after age 55.

Random Assignment Of Schools To Groups In The Drug Resistance Strategies Rural Project: Some New Methodological Twists, John W. Graham, Jonathan Pettigrew, Michelle Miller-Day, Janice L. Krieger, Jiangxiu Zhou, Michael L. Hecht

Communication Faculty Articles and Research

Random assignment to groups is the foundation for scientifically rigorous clinical trials. But assignment is challenging in group randomized trials when only a few units (schools) are assigned to each condition. In the DRSR project, we assigned 39 rural Pennsylvania and Ohio schools to three conditions (rural, classic, control). But even with 13 schools per condition, achieving pretest equivalence on important variables is not guaranteed. We collected data on six important school-level variables: rurality, number of grades in the school, enrollment per grade, percent white, percent receiving free/assisted lunch, and test scores. Key to our procedure was the inclusion of …

The School Superintendent: Theory, Practice, And Cases, Theodore J. Kowalski

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

The School Superintendent: Theory, Practice, and Cases is the essential guide to succeeding as a superintendent or as an administrator in another district-level position. Comprehensive in both theory and practice, this textbook and reference guide examines the role and responsibilities of school district administration in professional, social, philosophical, and political frames, while balancing perspectives of rewards and challenges commonly expressed by school superintendents. Important topics covered include the emerging role of superintendent as communicator, the changing conditions in districts and schools, inadequate funding for public schools, and the treatment of policy administration, leadership roles, and community involvement.

Content Validity Of National Examinations In Assessing The Curriculum Objectives In Tanzania, Kitila Mkumbo

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

Several factors have been attributed to poor performance of students in the national form four examinations in the past five years. These factors include lack of teachers’ qualifications and poor commitment to teach; lack of teaching and learning facilities such as books, laboratory equipment and libraries; and poor teachers’ working conditions. Nevertheless, there has been no attempt to systematically examine the content of examinations as related to the implemented curriculum, with a view to assessing the validity of these examinations. This paper examines the content validity of the Form IV national examinations in assessing the curriculum objectives. The key question …

The Short-Term Effects Of The Kalamazoo Promise Scholarship On Student Outcomes, Timothy J. Bartik, Marta Lachowska

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

In order to study whether college scholarships can be an effective tool in raising students’ performance in secondary school, we use one aspect of the Kalamazoo Promise that resembles a quasi-experiment. The surprise announcement of the scholarship created a large change in expected college tuition costs that varied across different groups of students based on past enrollment decisions. This variation is arguably exogenous to unobserved student characteristics. We estimate the effects of this change by a set of “difference-in-differences” regressions where we compare the change in student outcomes in secondary school across time for different student “length of enrollment” groups. …

Building Research Collaborations, Athletics, And Research: Kickoff Conversation, August 23, 2012, University Of Nebraska–Lincoln

Office of Research and Economic Development: Publications

Just as Nebraska Athletics has long been regarded as a pioneer in the field of collegiate strength and conditioning programs, was among the first to emphasize the link between health and nutrition and athletic performance and stood in the vanguard in life skills training for student-athletes, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL) now is taking the lead by integrating athletics and research and using cutting-edge imaging technology to better elucidate the biological underpinnings of behavior and performance. No other university in the nation is conducting research in this way.

This emerging collaboration between athletics and research at UNL led to allocation …

Cracks In The Melting Pot: Immigration, School Choice, And Segregation, Elizabeth U U. Cascio, Ethan G. Lewis

Dartmouth Scholarship

We examine whether low-skilled immigration to the United States has contributed to immigrants' residential isolation by reducing native demand for public schools. We address endogeneity in school demographics using established Mexican settlement patterns in California and use a comparison group to account for immigration's broader effects. We estimate that between 1970 and 2000, the average California school district lost more than 14 non-Hispanic households with children to other districts in its metropolitan area for every 10 additional households enrolling low-English Hispanics in its public schools. By disproportionately isolating children, the native reaction to immigration may have longer-run consequences than previously …

Budget Fy 2013-2014, Swosu Administration

SWOSU Fiscal Year Budgets

The Southwestern Oklahoma State University Budget FY 2014.

Submitted June 12, 2012.

Budget Fy 2012-2013, Swosu Administration

SWOSU Fiscal Year Budgets

The Southwestern Oklahoma State University Budget FY 2013. Submitted June 6, 2012.

A Preliminary Examination Of The Cost Savings And Learning Impacts Of Using Open Textbooks In Middle And High School Science Classes, John Hilton Iii, David Wiley, Shelley Ellington, Tiffany Hall

Faculty Publications

Proponents of open educational resources claim that significant cost savings are possible when open textbooks displace traditional textbooks in the classroom. Over a period of two years, we worked with 20 middle and high school science teachers (collectively teaching approximately 3,900 students) who adopted open textbooks to understand the process and determine the overall cost of such an adoption. The teachers deployed open textbooks in multiple ways. Some of these methods cost more than traditional textbooks; however, we did identify and implement a successful model of open textbook adoption that reduces costs by over 50% compared to the cost of …

Negotiating In School Districts When Times Are Tough, David Alan Dolph

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

When the economy is depressed, resources are limited, mandates are overwhelming, and the organizational climate in the district is souring, education leaders and teachers union officials often brace themselves for contentious negotiations. Poor economic conditions affect the district’s ability to offer raises, maintain current benefit levels, and provide adequate instructional programs, supplies, and equipment. Some districts are forced to cut staff positions to balance their budgets.

Amidst this turmoil in education and an already- heightened public awareness and concern about accountability and transparency, recent legislative attempts have attacked the rights of public workers to bargain collectively.

Merit Pay In Arkansas: An Evaluation Of The Cobra Pride Incentive Program In The Fountain Lake School District, Nathan Charles Jensen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Starting in the 2010-11, administrators at the Fountain Lake School District implemented the Cobra Pride Incentive Program (CPIP), a merit pay program designed to financially reward all school employees with year-end bonuses primarily for significant improvements in student achievement. At the conclusion of the 2010-11 school year, over $800,000 in bonuses were distributed to school personnel. Because of the substantial investment in this program, it was important to determine how the CPIP impacted the school counselors, teachers, and students of Fountain Lake, to see if any of the potential benefits of a merit pay program were realized.

The results from …

The Effect Of Teachers’ Expectations And Perceptions On Student Achievement In Reading For Third And Fifth Grade Students, Alfreda Ragland Williams

Dissertations

All too often, a student’s lack of success is blamed on his or her background, and/or the parent or the parent’s educational level. Many factors such as socioeconomic conditions, student behaviors, attendance, and teacher demographics can directly or indirectly affect class environment, classroom management, interaction with students, and equal treatment of students. In addition, a teacher’s perception of students plays a vital role in the teacher’s expectations, interactions, and relationships with his or her students. The purpose of the study was twofold. First, this study investigated the relationship between teachers’ expectations of equal treatment of students, class environment, interaction with …

Ten-Year Cost Estimation Of A Proposed Lansing Promise Scholarship, George A. Erickcek

Reports

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of State Fiscal Effort On Student Achievement Measured By Math Scores From The National Assessment Of Education Progress (Naep), Lorena Leeann Kelly

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

The current financial state of our nation, in combination with the pressure to meet state accountability testing and a global call for better prepared twenty first century learners, has produced a situation where all levels of government have to make difficult decisions regarding expenditures. In order to ensure that education receives appropriate funding, research is necessary to show a relationship between spending and student achievement. This study examines the effects of sustained increases and decreases in state fiscal effort on student achievement measured by scores from 4th and 8th grade math NAEP scores over an eighteen year period. A quantitative …

The Relationship Between State Fiscal Effort And State Graduation Rates: A Longitudinal Study, Melissa Christine Morris

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

In recent decades, the United States has been criticized for failing to produce citizens who can compete in a global society. Legislation, such as the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001, has been implemented with the intention of improving the U.S. education system. Under the guidelines of NCLB, states are tasked with meeting Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) objectives in order to receive federal monies. In addition to testing requirements, one AYP indicator used to measure academic proficiency for high school students is graduation rates. The fiscal and societal impact of students not graduating from high school can be …

Examining The Reuse Of Open Textbooks, John Hilton Iii, David A. Wiley, Neil Lutz

Faculty Publications

An important element of open educational resources (OER) is the permission to use the materials in new ways, including revising and remixing them. Prior research has shown that the revision and remix rates for OER are relatively low. In this study we examined the extent to which the openly licensed Flat World Knowledge textbooks were being revised and remixed. We found that the levels of revision and remix were similar to those of other OER collections. We discuss the possible significance and implication of these findings.

Job Satisfaction Of Female And Male Superintendents: The Influence Of Job Facets And Contextual Variables As Potential Predictors, Ila Phillip Young, Theodore J. Kowalski, Robert S. Mccord, George J. Petersen

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

A descriptive multiple regression approach was used to assess the job satisfaction of female and male public school superintendents taking part in a decennial survey conducted by AASA. Self-reported job satisfaction of public school superintendents was regressed on their affective reactions to specific job facets (supervision, co-workers, and compensation) and to contextual variables (type of school district, legislative mandates, and funding sources) purported to influence their job satisfaction. Results indicate that female and male superintendents were found to be similarly satisfied with their current job assignment but for different reasons as revealed by interaction terms addressed in the regression analyses.