Education Economics Commons^™

An Investigation Of The Common Characteristics Of High Poverty, High Performing Rural K-8 Schools, Beth Ann Pennington

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Female Superintendents By Locale, Theodore J. Kowalski

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

The most recent AASA decennial study of the superintendency reveals the growing presence of female superintendents (24.1 percent nationwide) has not been affected by either district enrollment or the level of a school district's racial or ethnic diversity. Across four district enrollment categories, the range of female representation was 20.4 percent (in the largest districts) to 29.8 percent (in the smallest districts). By comparison, females accounted for 17.7 percent of very small-district superintendents and just 5.4 percent of the largest-district superintendents a decade earlier. Across five district diversity categories, the range of representation was 21.4 percent (in low-diversity districts) to …

An Oer Coup: College Teacher And Student Perceptions Of Open Educational Resources, John Hilton Iii, Tj Bliss, T. Jared Robinson, David A. Wiley

Faculty Publications

Despite increased development and dissemination, there has been very little empirical research on Open Educational Resources (OER). Teachers and students involved in a large-scale OER initiative at eight community colleges across the United States were given a detailed questionnaire aimed at uncovering their perceptions of the cost, outcomes, uses and perceptions of quality of the OER used in their courses. Teachers and students alike reported significant cost savings and various pedagogical and learning impacts due to the implementation of OER in the classroom. In addition, most students and teachers perceived their OER to be at least equal in quality to …

The Relationship Between Local Wealth And Dual Enrollment Participation In Virginia's Community Colleges: Rural, Urban, And Suburban Patterns And Subsequent Postsecondary Enrollment Status, Ellen Richardson Davenport

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

In Virginia, the availability of dual enrollment classes for high school students has varied, depending on the interest of the local school division and the community college's president in whose service region the school division is located. HB 1184, which passed in the 2012 session of the Virginia General Assembly, stipulates that the opportunity must be available for all high school students throughout the Commonwealth to be able to participate in dual enrollment and either receive a Uniform Certificate of General Instruction or an associate degree. Utilizing data from 2006 dual enrollment students, this study's purpose was to determine if …

“Opening” A New Kind Of School: The Story Of The Open High School Of Utah, Delaina Tonks, Sarah Weston, David Wiley, Michael K. Barbour

Entrepreneurship Faculty Research

The use of online learning at the primary and secondary school level is growing exponentially in the United States. Much of this growth is with full-time online schools, most of which are operated by for-profit companies that use proprietary online course content. In this article we trace the development of, and philosophy behind, a full-time online school that uses open access software and open educational resources for course content. As more nations begin to put in place plans for primary and secondary education in the event of natural disasters (e.g., the Christchurch earthquakes) or pandemics (e.g., avian flu or H1N1), …

Is The School Board Evaluated Formally?, Theodore J. Kowalski

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Little progress has been made with respect to evaluating the performance of local boards of education, according to the most recent decennial, nationwide study of superintendents. Seven in 10 boards do not receive any form of formal evaluation, and among the 30 percent that do, almost all engage only in self-evaluation.

Family Income, Student Achievement, And Educational Costs, Timothy J. Bartik

Presentations

No abstract provided.

Job Evaluation, Theodore J. Kowalski

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Knowing the factors used in the annual performance evaluation of superintendents is foundational to building a more effective process. The accompanying graph, based on AAS~s decennial survey of the field, shows how superintendents rank seven response options about the conduct of their own assessments by school boards. Critics claim current evaluation practices are plagued by ambiguous purposes, unrealistic expectations, uneven and subjective processes, and invalid outcomes. The overall quality of superintendent evaluations suffers from the variation in the bases of assessments and the number and competence of the evaluators. The limited application of national standards (such as those published by …

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 …

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.

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 …

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 …