Education Commons^™

The Impact Of Poverty Informed Faculty On Community College Student Success, Barbara J. Embacher

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Community college completion has been proven to be a ticket to a middle-class life. Moreover, we know that poverty causes educational barriers, including community college completion. Community colleges across the nation are identifying significant equity gaps between students from poor versus middle-class or affluent households. One solution to close equity gaps and increase student success rates for students experiencing poverty is to educate college faculty through professional development. This includes 1) information on the causes, myths, stereotypes, and other facts about poverty, 2) the impact poverty has on student achievement, and 3) instructional strategies that can help students experiencing poverty …

The Future Of Early College: An Interview With Dr. Leon Botstein, Dumaine Williams

Early College Folio

The first public, tuition-free Bard High School Early College (BHSEC) opened in Brooklyn in 2001. Today, an entire network of Bard Early Colleges operates in partnership with public school systems to offer students affordable access to higher education in a cohesive, engaging environment. Simultaneously, alternative takes on early college (Early College High Schools, dual enrollment, early entrance) have proliferated across the United States, providing even more opportunities for younger students to earn college credit.

In December 2022, the author, Dean of Bard Early College, sat down with Bard College President Leon Botstein to examine how the pandemic made new demands …

Equitable Funding For Trauma Informed Social Policy: A Critical Analysis Of The 2019-2020 Pennsylvania Department Of Education School Safety And Security Grant Program, Heather Bickley

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

This study is a critical analysis of the funding distribution of the 2019-2020 Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) School Safety and Security Grant (SSSG) to identify if there is evidence of inequity in the grant's funding distribution. It used a theoretical framework that includes a transformative paradigm with trauma informed social policy as a theoretical lens, with the conceptual lenses education debt and distributive justice, applied to a concurrent mixed methods design. The research followed a QuantCrit methodology, and the features of a critical policy analysis were used to present the findings.

The quantitative tests found several significant …

Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics (Stem) Project-Based Learning (Pbl) Education: A New Mexico Case Study For Equity And Inclusion, Kimberly A. Scheerer

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

This research addresses how student participation in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) project-based learning (PBL) education activities encourages underrepresented minority student achievement in STEM career field trajectories. Seven New Mexico high school counselors and 12 STEM organization personnel were interviewed during this study. Their responses represent the nuanced professional voices where New Mexico public education intersects with STEM student interest and cultural influence.

For students, STEM PBL can foster deep integration across educational disciplines and enhance STEM career trajectory interest and readiness. STEM education converged with PBL methodologies has the ability to leverage community support while broadening student networks. …

Connecting School Finance Policy With Practice: A Site-Based Expenditure Report Study, Julia Chapdelaine Pontarelli

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines the policy requirement of site-based expenditure reporting which is a requirement of the newest reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, the Every Student Succeeds Act. For the first time, the federal government has required school districts to report site-level expenditure data publicly. In Illinois, the tool used to meet this federal reporting requirement is Site-Based Expenditure Reporting. In this study, I focus on how school finance leaders understand, process, and implement the site-based expenditure reporting requirement while considering concepts of equity and adequacy. Sensemaking theory offers a helpful conceptual lens for understanding how …

A Velvet Rope Of Exclusion: The Delmar Divide, Madison Beirne

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Many reports have been published about the complex topic of segregation in the Greater St. Louis area. However, the effect of years of systemic segregation on education has not been adequately discussed in a modern context. This report studies the root causes of the Delmar Divide in an attempt to understand the impact it produced in the educational community. St. Louis is a classically divided city and the public-school system has suffered as a result of educational inequities. This work focuses on how the Delmar Divide created pockets that continue to marginalize residents, particularly students. The effect that purposeful segregation …

How Can Early Childhood Educators Promote Equitable Outcomes Through Trauma-Informed Practice?, Elizabeth Terry

Graduate Teacher Education

An abundance of research acknowledges the effects of trauma on children from an early age. Prolonged and severe trauma in early childhood can lead to adverse outcomes in important areas of development, such as one’s physical, mental, and social-emotional well-being (Morsy and Rothstein, 2019). Children present school systems and educators with the task of addressing this important, but infrequently considered issue. Trauma has lasting effects regardless of age, but the impacts of trauma during childhood are especially profound during such formative years. Children require safe spaces to learn and flourish as individuals, therefore it is important that early childhood educators …

Measuring Up: A Case Study Of School Finance Equity Among Five Middle Schools, Christen A. Cohoon

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between intra-district per-pupil expenditures in five middle schools in within the same school division using an equity audit. Broadly, the distribution of resources was examined. Specifically, how intra-district per-pupil expenditures influenced horizontal and vertical equity measures was explored. The questions central to this study were: (a) Does variation exist among schools? (b) What is the per-pupil expenditure by school? (c) When examining per-pupil expenditures, what differences exist? (d) To what extent does the district funding system meet the standards for horizontal and vertical equity? The history of educational funding was …

Analyzing Advanced Placement (Ap): Making The Nation's Most Prominent College Preparatory Program More Equitable, David Naff, Mitchell Parry, Tomika Ferguson, Virginia Palencia, Jenna Lenhardt, Elisa Tedona, Antionette Stroter, Theodore Stripling, Zoey Lu, Elizabeth Baber

MERC Publications

This report from the Metropolitan Educational Research Consortium (MERC) explores research related to Advanced Placement (AP) courses through an equity lens. It answers five questions: 1) What are AP classes? 2) Who enrolls and succeeds in AP classes? 3) Why do disparities in AP matter? 4) What factors contribute to disparities in AP participation and performance? 5) What policies and practices help to address disparities in AP access, enrollment, and performance? The report comes from the MERC Equitable Access and Support for Advanced Coursework study.

It Is Expensive To Be Poor: Equity In Financing Education In Turkey (2004–2012), Elene Murvanidze

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Turkish government, under the rule of Justice and Development Party (Turkish: Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP), (2002-2017) has conducted many educational reforms. Different researchers have evaluated effectiveness of those policies differently. Some claim that policies result in a more inclusive and diverse educational system, others argue that the reforms would rekindle child labor, increase child brides and condemn girls to illiteracy. In our research we measure the effects of educational reforms on equity in financing education (i.e., out-of-pocket expenditures).

After estimating Gini, Concentration and Kakwani indices, and graphing Lorenz and Concentration curves, we find out that education financing in …

An Examination Of High School Intra-District Funding In Two Virginia School Divisions, Claire R. Le Blanc

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Most states allocate education funds by grant or category at the district level, and most districts distribute funds at the school level. 1 Differences between allocations from the states to the districts and distribution methods from the districts to the schools can lead to unintended consequences in funding equity. This may undermine the purpose of the funding policies developed by state legislatures. Most states use a formula that provides a foundation funding amount to the district for each student. In addition, most states typically provide supplementary categorical funding to the district based on demographic characteristics of students (such as free …

Imperatives In Schools Funding: Equity, Sustainability And Achievement, Lyndsay Connors, Jim Mcmorrow

Australian Education Review

AER 60 takes the 2011 Gonski Review of Funding for Schooling as a vantage point, from which to consider the national funding of schools in Australia, past and future.

Section 1 outlines the educational values and perspectives that have underpinned school funding policies and programs and describes major themes in the evolution of schools funding – quality, equity and choice – providing a general guide for subsequent analyses. Section 2 provides a policy history of schools funding 1964 – 2011, during which time the Commonwealth government emerged as a significant funding partner. It analyses the political forces and recurring themes, …

Cross-Boundary Leaders For Education & Equity Symposium: Preparing Leaders For Public Education, José M. Torres

José M. Torres

Public education has become an increasingly polarizing topic. Yet, experience and research tell us that solutions to our most pressing educational issues are likely to emerge when leaders work together across boundaries—be they ideological, geographical, or institutional. For 50 years the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) has championed the need for leaders at all levels to shake off their in- stitutional constraints and jointly respond to the needs of young people and their families. IEL’s Cross-Boundary Leaders for Education and Equity Symposium offers an objective, open-mind- ed, nonpartisan space where leaders can come together and discuss complex issues facing public …

Methods For Encouraging Economic Diversity In Academically Rigorous Courses, Karen Patricia Kraabel

All Graduate Projects

In International Baccalaureate (IB) classes at Thomas Jefferson High School, the economic status of students in honors classes does not reflect that of the school as a whole. The author sought ways to bring more students from impoverished backgrounds into rigorous courses. In this school, there is a strong coincidence between etlmic minority status and socioeconomic status. The author believed that in addressing the economic issue the ethnicity issue would also be addressed. This is a practical issue as well as a pedagogical one, because the school's scores on state-wide standardized tests are lower for economically disadvantaged students than for …