Education Commons^™

The Influences Of The Public Health Care System And Education System On The Economic Growth Of Swaziland, Grace Greer

International and Global Studies Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Kingdom of Eswatini, also known as Swaziland, has one of the youngest populations in the world with over 70% of citizens being under the age of 18 years old. This creates a substantial opportunity for economic, social, and educational growth in a country previously plagued with diseases such as HIV/AIDS, poor health care infrastructure cutting off thousands from basic care, and an educational system with a very low attendance rate and an even lower graduation rate. By evaluating the root causes of such issues dating back to the colonial era there is an opportunity to reprioritize health care and …

Marginalized Communities Are Facing The Brunt Of Student Homelessness, Alicia Gajraj S. Gajraj

Capstones

Headline: Marginalized communities are facing the brunt of student homelessness.

My capstone is a news article focusing on the rising number of students who are homeless in New York City. It explores how advocacy groups and active community members are working to help those in marginalized communities experiencing homelessness at higher rates.

Data: Data collection on the number of students unhoused in the past 11 years was done on Datawrapper. The numbers were found on NYSTEACHS.ORG.

Keywords: Student homelessness, Shelter system, Unhoused, Advocates for Children, Mckinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, Schools, Education

Here is the link to my capstone: https://gajrajalicia57.wixsite.com/website/general-8

Children And Technology: Why Technology Is Important For Our Children, Jill Mactiernan

Student Theses

Many people get scared when they hear about how much technology runs the world today. They tend to get frightened when they go to a store and have to use a selfcheckout instead of a cashier. Parents are scared of the dangers of the internet and how it will affect their children, so they tend to try to prevent/limit their children’s usage of the internet and other technologies. However, that may not always be the right move. Technology can not be avoided; it is a part of our everyday lives. With proper guidance and teachings, children can learn how to …

Financial Literacy: A Case Study On Current Practices, Briana Lee Hammontree

Masters Theses

In the last few years, the concern for financial illiteracy among teenagers has only grown as the economy has shifted. Many teenagers feel unprepared and unsecured moving forward with their finances as adults. This issue is intensified further among low-income and marginalized youths who deal with additional hardship in their lives. Accessibility is a huge issue among teenagers and the role of financial literacy of their lives in education is often predetermined by government officials and policies they can only really advocate for change for but cannot vote on. In this research I explore the concept of utilizing social innovation …

A Predictive Model Of Completion At Mississippi’S Community Colleges, Richard Baker

Dissertations

In the 2020 American presidential election and throughout the time since, the discussion of free community college continues to raise its head in the present political landscape in the United States. As the recognition of the contribution of community colleges to the overall educational level of the country grows, increased focus is going to be placed on how efficient and effective these two-year institutions are.

This research expands the body of knowledge by combining Resource Dependency Theory (RDT) and Astin’s Input-Environment-Output (IEO) model into an educational production function as defined by Bowles (1970). Neither RDT nor IEO is complete on …

Jr. And Sr. High At-Risk Students Within Poverty: Formation Of The Mentor-Mentee Program In Addressing Their Needs, John J. Noggle

Doctor of Ministry Projects and Theses

In the Spring of 2015, I was driving toward Southwest Arkansas to my new appointment at Stamps First United Methodist Church. As I was driving further south on Highway 71, I began to notice how poverty-stricken South Arkansas was. Towns that were once the commercial service centers to their communities contained empty store buildings and little economic life. It was then that I knew that the majority of children in South Arkansas were At-Risk children in poverty. I felt a call in my Spirit to help those in need by developing a plan of action to help them in meeting …

Disparities In Education Resources Within The State Of Arkansas, Hunter Simmons

Mathematical Sciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

Throughout the state of Arkansas, there are grave disparities in education resources apparent in specific school districts and at a state level. The Arkansas Department of Education, formerly titled the State Department of Education, was established in 1931 by Act 169 in the Arkansas General Assembly. Since then, the department has gone under multiple reforms and expansions. From desegregation to the Clinton administration’s improvements in early childhood education, Arkansas has had a tumultuous past in terms of public education and has consistently been ranked in the bottom twentieth percentile of the nation’s school systems. The purpose of this paper is …

Peer Effects And Social Networks In An Mba Program, Zinaida Foltin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this dissertation, I explore peer effects and social networks among MBA students in a Canadian business school. The unique feature of the data collected for this research is that the students are administratively assigned to small groups, providing plausibly exogenous variation that allows me to identify causal peer effects. Chapter 1, “Peer Effects in an MBA class”, establishes the existence and magnitude of the effects of peer characteristics on academic outcomes of MBA students. It shows that peer effects are heterogeneous across courses and student characteristics. Chapter 2, “Testing team allocation rules”, uses these results to find the allocations …

Differences In Education In Urban And Rural Areas, Jacob Shreve

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This research project examines the educational differences and disparities of urban and rural schools in Ohio. The focus school districts are Switzerland of Ohio Local and Akron Public Schools. Demographic information from each of the focus school districts is examined and compared to the outcomes of the schools to determine if factors such as poverty inhibit student learning. Data and statistics, published research, and personal experience will be used to make connections between the school districts, their students, their environment, and their learning. Differences in educational quality, opportunities, and funding will also be discussed.

A Language Barrier To Human Capital Development: The Case Of Guatemalan Students, Fidel Pérez Macal

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Not being proficient in a school’s predominant language of instruction can represent a language barrier for students’ human capital development. In Guatemala, 24 languages are spoken apart from Spanish, which is the language of instruction in the majority of schools, and about 40 percent of the total population has a non-Spanish language as a mother tongue. National standardized tests show that non-Spanish mother tongue (non-SMT) students are outperformed by SMT students in elementary and secondary schools.

My thesis analyzes whether non-SMT students face a language barrier and traces its source. Two main findings emerge. First, non-SMT students are not yet …

The Relationship Among Children Born With A Congenital Heart Defect, Effects Of General Anesthesia, And Special Academic Needs, Lorilynn Bowie

Dissertations

Abstract

I initiated this study due to experience in the public education system in one state in the United States. I noted a lack of understanding among educators on how to meet the educational needs of children born with a congenital heart defect (CHD) who had undergone general anesthesia related to their CHD. A lack of communication between the medical sector and the educational world led to extensive delays in children receiving the educational support they needed to be successful academically. There were two primary exploratory questions that drove my study: 1.) Is there a relationship between children born with …

Property, Wealth, Race, And Power: An Introduction To Critical Resource Theory, Andrew Whitfield

Educational Foundations & Leadership Theses & Dissertations

School funding inequality is an issue that has plagued America and the Commonwealth of Virginia for years (Owings & Kaplan, 2020). Understanding the role that funding plays in education is one that is of extreme importance today This study explored the relationship between income inequality and how education is funded. This study follows a quantitative study approach using correlational methods. This study takes multiple facets from Critcal Theory, Critical Race Theory, and Resource Dependency Theory to introduce a new theory, Critical Resource Theory The results indicated there is a practically significant relationship between income inequality and education funding. These findings …

Economics Of Higher Education Productivity, Uchenna K. Oparah

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

How does spending affect academic outcomes in higher education institutions? Postsecondary schools incur costs to provide services to its student body. In this study, I introduce multiple outcome variables, a two-stage production function, and current-year expenditures on core services to evaluate how school spending affects academic outcomes.

The empirical analysis includes 28 group sample parameter estimates from four outcome variables, the pooled sample, and group samples for each of six sectors. The fixed effects/instrumental variable (FE-IV) instructional expenditure parameter estimates were positive for 20 of the 28 group samples. The sign and size of the estimated academic output effects varied …

Addressing Urban Income Inequality Through Education: A Case Study In Atlanta, Garrett Bronn

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

For decades, the income inequality gap between the rich and poor has continued to expand dramatically, with criticism of existing education systems often at the heart of the issue. Large urban cities are commonly at the forefront of the issue, given the plethora of teacher strikes in recent years. Events such as the 11-day Chicago teacher’s strike in October of 2019 that idled academics and college prep for 350,000 students, have highlighted many current education issues (Hauck, 2019). With underfunded and poorly equipped middle and high schools, students in poor and minority neighborhoods in cities are less prepared academically, ill …

The Association Of The National Assessment Of Educational Progress Scores And Variance In State Education Requirements, Patrick M. Doyle

Educational Foundations & Leadership Theses & Dissertations

Since the 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution, states have the function to set policy that varies drastically from state to state. This study examines the relationship of state fiscal effort and per pupil expenditure and graduation rates over a 10-year period. Furthermore, this study will look at the relationship between NAEP scores, compulsory attendance, graduation rates, course credit requirements, and hours of instruction. Research is necessary to show a relationship between the varying policies set forth by each state. This research will help policy makers, school leaders, and school localities to assess their own states’ policies and outcomes …

The Experience Of The Local Control Accountability Plan, Angela Carter Pascual

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

In 2013 the California Legislation passed a new K-12 School accountability mandate.

The Local Control Accountability Plan was sought to increase the educational equity for targeted student groups in addition to allowing school districts to mine a diverse set of local school data to develop goals in the 8 priority areas that speak to the needs of their local students. A requirement of the LCAP was that school districts include a diverse set of stakeholders to work in a collaborative manner to develop, critique, and refine local goals. Stakeholder groups are required to consist of district-level administrators, teachers, staff, students, …

Pension Effect On Out-Of-State Teacher Turnover In North Carolina, Daniella Henry

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper examines the impact on pension generosity on teacher turnover in North Carolina Public School teachers. It specifically focuses on the impacts of vesting, employer contribution, and pension generosity for out-of-state teachers in their first five years of teaching. High rates of teacher turnovers, especially teachers in their early career, have been shown to negatively impact North Carolina students. As states search for solutions to decrease turnover and recruit more qualified teachers, the effects of pension programs on teacher turnover has yet to be thoroughly examined. This paper found that there was a slight negative correlation between teacher turnover …

Impacts Of Globalization: Educational Reforms Shifts The Public Into A Recurrent Devalued Socioeconomic Era For Minorities, Jacqulyn Washington

Master's Theses

This article delves into the breakdown of the impact globalization have on the success of minorities in urban centers. While expanding on the many factors that contribute to the success of minorities, it informs the reader how education, being a huge indicator of success, has been underserved to the poor and minorities. Lacking many resources, this blockage has been further strained through the local government, multinational corporations, educational reforms, and Translocal politics.

On Human Capital Development In Bangladesh, Sijia Xu

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This dissertation consists of three chapters on human capital development in Bangladesh. The first chapter provides microeconometric evidence that access to electricity has a positive impact on the nutritional status of children under five in rural Bangladesh.

The Impacts Of Natural Disasters On Educational Attainment: Cross-Country Evidence From Macro Data, Lois Onigbinde

Master's Theses

Do natural disasters impact educational attainment? Education as a paramount factor of economic development suffers from the uncontrollable effects of these increasing events from storms to floods, earthquakes to wildfires. Globally, educational resources are destroyed, directly and indirectly, students and teachers are displaced or killed, parents’ income is affected because of natural disasters. Investments in human capital for rich- and low-income countries are exposed to the uneven impact of natural disasters that adjusts household and country-level decisions, leaving them to short and long-run losses. Exploring the influence of natural disasters on secondary school attainment across a sample of 85 countries …

Effects Of Spending On New York Counties Six Year Graduation Rate, Maxwell B. Costello

Applied Economics Theses

This study set out to find out more about the costs and benefits of educational spending. This was goal was then split into the steps of: reviewing previous literature, developing a model, and testing the model. The main difficulties associated with this were in finding appropriate substitutes for the theoretical variables. Due to the limited availability of data, this study focused on the six-year high school graduation rate of New York State Counties, class size, income, and spending per student as variables. These variables represented educational level, a portion of the efficiency of spending, the parent’s ability to help educate …

Effective Resource Utilization In Arkansas Public Schools, Ryan Sanders

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Teacher pay in Arkansas public schools varies widely from district to district across the state. This pay discrepancy is driven by both the funds available to a district and by how these funds are allocated. There is a standard per student budget given to districts across the state, but this budget can be supplemented by additional property taxes collected on property within a district. This leaves districts with more highly valued property at an advantage. Districts are free to allocate their budget for teacher pay as they see fit, with constraints on number of students per teacher and minimum teacher …

Literacy Rates Analysis: An International Comparison, Macarena Arce

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper attempts to provide a more complete reckoning of the economics of literacy rates around the world. It consists on a literature review about the economic benefits and costs of literacy rates and then it shows two econometrics models that attempt to predict literacy rates based on GDP, government expenditure, and several other independent variables.

Reducing The Constraints To School Access And Progress: Assessing The Effects Of A School Scholarship Program In Malawi, Stephen Hunsaker

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The study utilizes a causal-comparative research design to compare the educational experiences and outcomes of two student groups – those who did and those who did not receive a needs-based scholarship to attend secondary or tertiary school. We administered surveys to 89 scholarship recipients and 57 non-recipients in the Dowa, Kasungu and Lilongwe Districts of Malawi. Surveys included items to determine group differences across a range of short and medium-term outcomes, including: career aspirations, attendance rate, withdrawal rate, graduation rate, employment status, time unemployed since graduation, and employment quality (using the Tanzanian Standard Classification of Occupations). This study included students …

The Impact Of Gap Years On Academic Outcomes For Women: A Case Study From The Missionary Age Change, Margaret Marchant

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Young adults throughout the United States and other countries participate in “gap years,” or time away from school, often for travel, work, or volunteering. This practice is promoted as a way to mature and refocus. However, some worry that it lowers the likelihood of college completion. Previous literature has investigated the academic, social, and personal benefits of gap years with mixed results; however selection into gap years confounds the true impact with unobservable personal characteristics. To overcome selection issues, I exploit an exogenous policy change that lowered age requirements for missionary service, a unique type of gap year, resulting in …

The Predictive Power Of Out-Of-School Community And Family Level Demographic Factors On District Level Student Performance On The New Jersey Parcc In Algebra 1 And Grade 10 English Language Arts/Literacy, Jamil Maroun

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The purpose of this study was to determine the predictive accuracy of community and family demographic variables, which are found through the use of the 2010 U.S. Census data, on the percentage of students at a district level who are Meeting or Exceeding Expectations on the 2016 New Jersey PARCC in Algebra 1 and Grade 10 English Language Arts/Literacy. The results of this study support the past research and existing literature that has found out-of-school community and family demographics affect and predict how students will perform on state standardized assessments. Based on this study, we can conclude that out certain …

The Arts In The United States: Can The Arts Become A Public Good?, Alexander Van Der Veen

Senior Projects Fall 2018

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

A Lesson In Learning: Improving Learning Outcomes In India Via Pedagogical Innovation, Rhea Handa

Scripps Senior Theses

When delivered well, education is key to addressing a host of individual and societal ills, from poverty and disease to crime and poor voter engagement. India has demonstrated considerable progress in improving various aspects of its primary education system, including infrastructure and buildings, teacher-student ratios, and school enrollment. However, student learning outcomes remain consistently low across the country. A review of the literature surrounding learning outcomes has highlighted gaps in school instruction and has shown the dire need for innovations in pedagogy and curriculum to improve student learning. This paper assesses the long-term impact of one such pedagogy, called Teaching …

Goal Effectiveness In Achieving Educational Outcomes: Experimental Evidence From 9th Graders In Medellin, Colombia, Daniel Salicath, Alessandra Cassar

Master's Theses

Does goal setting among low-income ninth graders leads to higher average goal achievements of educational outcomes? This question is explored by a field experiment motivated by the acknowledged California-based Family Independence Initiative (FII), to analyze the effectiveness of individual goal setting, incentives and self-help groups on the achievement of educational goals. By randomizing treatments and control with the cooperation of the Secretary of Education in Medellin, different classrooms were assigned to five different experimental groups that met systematically for five months. The results show that goal setting is a cost-effective method to help low-income students achieve educational outcomes. Setting a …

Unemployment, Does It Really Hurt?, Claudia Vargas

Theses and Dissertations

This paper analyzes the consequences of changes in the unemployment rate in Colombia on the level of education attained for adolescents. Increases in the unemployment rate are associated with an increase in the average number of years of education. No significant effect was found for men of the same age.