Education Economics Commons^™

International Perspectives On Education, Religion And Law, Charles J. Russo

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

From publisher: This volume examines the legal status of religion in education, both public and non-public, in the United States and seven other nations. It will stimulate further interest, research, and debate on comparative analyses on the role of religion in schools at a time when the place of religion is of vital interest in most parts of the world. This interdisciplinary volume includes chapters by leading academicians and is designed to serve as a resource for researchers and educational practitioners, providing readers with an enhanced awareness of strategies for addressing the role of religion in rapidly diversifying educational settings. …

The School District Superintendent In The United States Of America, Lars G. Björk, Theodore J. Kowalski, Tricia Browne-Ferrigno

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Public education is one of the main forces that make a healthy and democratic society. It strives to educate and to provide the younger generation knowledge and skills that allow children to become contributing citizens in their society. Public education is considered highly significant in consolidating the society and establishing its cultural and economic strength. For those reasons, governments choose to invest a significant portion of the state’s national resources in public schooling.

Taking into account the costs and political significance attributed to public education, it is not surprising that governments establish some formal mechanism responsible for the monitoring of …

Higher Education, Higher Costs: An Income-Contingent Approach, Catherine Hensly

Undergraduate Research Awards

An examination of different methods of paying for higher education with an emphasis on an income-contingent approach. The paper applies this method to a real-world institution, Radford University in Virginia. The limitations of this method and gender disparities in higher education are also considered. The author's entry essay for the 2014 Undergraduate Research Awards is included.

An Analysis Of Two-Year College Fundraising Practices, Luke Joel Howard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Abstract: this study sought to discover information about the types of fundraising methods being used in community college resource development, determine what methods are most effective for successful development practices, and inform community college development officers of these methods. Specifically, this study addressed the following question: are there statistically significant relationships between two-year college size, fundraising method(s), and the amount of funds raised? Descriptive statistics were obtained, and two-way chi-square analysis was used to illustrate the comparisons between the categorical variables in all hypotheses. Only one hypothesis was rejected based on a computed chi-square (χ2 = 22.507), which exceeded the …

The Fifth Function Of University: “Neutrosophic E-Function” Of Communication-Collaboration-Integration Of University In The Information Age, Florentin Smarandache, Stefan Vladutescu

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

The study is based on the following hypothesis with practical foundation: - Premise 1 - if two members of university on two continents meet on the Internet and initiate interdisciplinary scientific communication; - Premise 2 - subsequently, if within the curricular interests they develop an academic scientific collaboration; - Premise 3 - if the so-called collaboration integrates the interests of other members of the university; - Premise 4 - finally, if the university allows, accepts, validates and promotes such an approach; - Conclusion: then it means the university as a system (the global academic system) has, and it is, exerting …

Educational Poverty By Design: A Case Of Mismanagement Of National Resources, Nisar Ahmad

Business Review

The purpose of this paper is to review and evaluate the causes of educational poverty in less developed countries. The basic intent in carrying out such a study is to define and derive the role of governing agencies in deliberately creating educational poverty in the country to safeguard the private interest of the rich and powerful ruling class of the society. This study is of major interest because majority of people living in less developed countries are poor in spite of the fact that almost all these countries own ample human and material resources and they have accumulated huge amount …

Preferred Professional Development, Theodore J. Kowalski

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

As younger superintendents replace retirees, professional development needs have increased to meet new forms of accountability, teacher/ principal evaluation and rigorous curriculum reform. In a survey of New York state superintendents, more than half expressed a preference for local, high-quality professional development workshops so they did not have to travel from their districts. The superintendents also preferred professional development involving systemic change and best practices.

Do School District Bond Guarantee Programs Matter?, Michael Cirrotti

Economics Student Scholarship

The State of Washington enacted a school district bond credit enhancement program in 1999. Oregon did the same in 1998. I use data from the National Center for Education Statistics for a representative sample of states in order to examine whether or not these programs increased the likelihood that school districts in Washington and Oregon issued bonds. I isolate the programs’ impact in Washington and Oregon through difference-in-differences analysis to control for other variation in the data in ten other representative states during the same time period. The results suggest that state-level school district bond guarantee programs increase the likelihood …

Teacher Evaluations And Merit Pay: An Uneasy Mix, David Alan Dolph

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Teacher evaluations are undergoing significant changes in response to demands for school reform and higher accountability. States are now including value-added data in teacher evaluations, experimenting with merit pay based on evaluations, or both. Colorado, Florida, New Jersey, New York, and Texas are but a few states that have altered the way teachers are evaluated or that are incorporating value-added data.

Changes in evaluation practice will likely mean significant modifications in how building-level administrators evaluate teachers. Moreover, approaches to teacher salary systems are just as likely to be altered if merit pay is introduced. School business officials (SBOs) are typically …

Skills Needs Of The Ict Sector In Tanzania, Deirdre Lillis, Fredrick Mtenzi, Diana Mauricaite, Said Jafari, Peter Manifold

Reports

Information and Communication Technology will play a critical role in sustaining the high growth rates experienced by African economies in the last decade. Investment in the ICT sector enables the creation of high quality jobs and acts as an enabling technology for other key industries such as agriculture, mining, finance, health and education. ‘New Software Economy’ models mean international location and company scale are less relevant and enable small organisations to compete globally in niche markets. Unlike many traditional industries which have heavy infrastructure requirements, the key resource of the ICT Sector is its people and the knowledge, skills and …

Rehired After Retired, Theodore J. Kowalski

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Slightly more than one in 10 superintendents participating in the "2012 AASA Superintendents Salary and Benefits Study" indicated they have been rehired as a superintendent after retiring from one state or another. This contrasts with a finding in AASP

Cost Estimate Of A Promise Scholarship Program For The City Of Jacksonville, Illinois, George Erickcek

Reports

No abstract provided.

Publicizing Job Evaluations, Theodore J. Kowalski

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

More than 50 percent of superintendents in a nationwide survey indicate their performance evaluations are not made public, while slightly more than a third say their evaluation results are released publicly. The findings were contained in AASA’s 2012 salary and benefits study. State-specific public records laws govern the release of such information. These laws are evolving as state legislatures and courts decide if superintendents are public officials. AASA’s decennial study of the superintendency in 2010 pointed to increased frequency of formal evaluations along with expanded use of performance measures leading to merit awards. Link this with the call for greater …

Tax Credit Scholarship Programs And The Changing Ecology Of Public Education, Hillel Y. Levin

Scholarly Works

The traditional model of public education continues to be challenged by advocates of school choice. Typically associated with charter schools, magnet schools, and tuition voucher programs, these advocates have recently introduced a new school choice plan, namely tax credit scholarship programs. More than a dozen states have adopted such programs, and hundreds of millions of dollars are now diverted each year from public programs to private schools. These programs are poorly understood and under-studied by legal scholars. This Article assesses the place of these programs within the ecology of public education, considers the fundamentally different approaches states have taken to …

Hesitancy About The Job, Theodore J. Kowalski

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Potential candidates hesitate to apply for their first superintendency for several, reasons. Foremost among them are the job's broad scope and their own school-age children.

Advocate, September 2013, Vol. [25], No. [1], Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

From the Editor's Desk: CUNY in the Kelly Era (p. 3)

CUNY News in Brief (p. 5)

Political Analysis: ‘It’s Exactly The Opposite!’: Modern Money Theory versus ‘Reality,’ J. A. Myerson (p. 7)

Guest Columnist: Obama and Putin: Time for Diplomacy, Amy Goodman (p. 12)

Rank and File: What’s at Stake in Graduate Organizing?, Karen Gregory (p. 14)

Notes on My Summer of Uprising, Uğur Güney (p. 18)

Book Review: The Strange Career of Samuel Delany, Lavelle Porter (p. 25)

Art Review: Modernism Unmoored, Michael Busch (p. 31)

Art Review: Explosions in the Sky, Clay Matlin (p. …

The Adoption Of Open Educational Resources By One Community College Math Department, John Hilton Iii, Donna Gaudet, Phil Clark, Jared Robinson, David Wiley

Faculty Publications

The high cost of textbooks is of concern not only to college students but also to society as a whole. Open textbooks promise the same educational benefits as traditional textbooks; however, their efficacy remains largely untested. We report on one community college’s adoption of a collection of open resources across five different mathematics classes. During the 2012 fall semester, 2,043 students in five different courses used these open access resources. We present a comparison between the previous two years in terms of the number of students who withdrew from the courses and the number that completed the courses with a …

One College's Use Of An Open Psychology Textbook, John Hilton Iii

Faculty Publications

The high cost of textbooks is of concern not only to college students but also to society as a whole. Open textbooks promise the same educational benefits as traditional textbooks; however, their efficacy remains largely untested. We report on one community college's adoption of a free online psychology textbook. During the fall semester, 2011, 690 students used this book. Compared to students using a traditional text in the spring of 2011, students who used the free online textbook scored higher on departmental final exams, had higher GPAs in the class and higher retention rates.

Pay By Gender And District Size, Theodore J. Kowalski

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Superintendents nationwide experienced small growth in median salaries from 2011-12 to 2012-13, according to a new study by AASA. As expected, salaries for the top district leaders generally increased with district enrollment. In four of the five categories across the size of school districts, the median salaries paid to female superintendents slightly exceeded those paid to their male colleagues. In drawing conclusions from these data, one must consider the relatively small number of respondents in the smallest and largest groupings of student enrollment in the school districts.

Examining Variability In Superintendent Community Involvement, Theodore J. Kowalski, Ila Phillip Young, George J. Petersen

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

This study examined the extent to which four independent variables (age, gender, education level, and district type) accounted for variability in superintendent community involvement. Two covariates associated with levels of community involvement (disposition toward community involvement and district enrollment) were infused to assess the impact of the independent variables. Analysis revealed that the model accounted for 8% of the variance as indicated both by R2 and by adjusted R2. Given the number of respondents (1,867), this is considered a medium effect having practical implications in the applied setting. Among the four independent variables, only a single main effect (district type) …

Preschool Teaching At A Crossroads, Marcy Whitebook

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

A Second Look At Enrollment Changes After The Kalamazoo Promise, Brad J. Hershbein

Employment Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

District Diversity And Superintendents Of Color, Theodore J. Kowalski

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

While the number of superintendents of color increased from 5 percent to 6 percent during the past decade, their representation remains well below their numbers in the general population. Data from the most recent AASA superintendency study show that the greater the levels of minority students and minority residents, the greater the likelihood the district has a superintendent of color. However, an inverse association existed between the percentage of the district's minority employees and a superintendent of color.

Effects Of The Pre-K Program Of Kalamazoo County Ready 4s On Kindergarten Entry Test Scores: Estimates Based On Data From The Fall Of 2011 And The Fall Of 2012, Timothy J. Bartik

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper uses a regression discontinuity model to examine the effects on kindergarten entrance assessments of the Kalamazoo County Ready 4s (KC Ready 4s) program, a half-day pre-K program for four-year-olds in Kalamazoo County, Michigan. The results are based on test scores and other characteristics of up to 220 children participating in KC Ready 4s, with data coming from both 2011–2012 and 2012–2013 participants in the program. The estimates find consistently statistically significant effects of this pre-K program on improving entering kindergartners’ math test scores. Some estimates also suggest marginally statistically significant effects of KC Ready 4s on vocabulary test …

Advocate, May 2013, Vol. [24], No. [5], Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

From the Editor's Desk: Out with the Old, In with the...Same Old? (p. 3)

CUNY News in Brief (p. 5)

Political Analysis: Rent-Controlled, J. A. Myerson (p. 7)

Searching the CUNY Catalog not working for you? You’re not alone!, Reethee Antony (p. 9)

Guest Columnist: Terror in the West, Texas, Night, Amy Goodman (p. 10)

The Radical Greens: How Divestment, Direct Action, and Leftist Politics are Shaping the Environmental Movement, Mike Stivers (p. 13)

The Trouble with Professor Petraeus, Arun Gupta (p. 17)

Irregular Future: A Conversation with Matt Kennard, Michael Busch (p. 20)

Book Review: Recovering …

Superintendent Ratings Of Academic Preparation, Theodore J. Kowalski

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

Groups seeking to rescind or weaken state licensing requirements to be a superintendent have disparaged academic studies in administration as an inconsequential requirement. Their claim has rarely been supported by empirical evidence. Findings from the last three AASA-sponsored decennial studies (1992, 2000, and 2011) of the superintendency suggest policymakers and members of the profession should be cautious about radically altering licensing requirements. A high percentage (ranging from 74 percent in 1992 to 79 percent in 2011) rated their universitybased academic preparation as being excellent or good.

The Poverty Gap In School Spending Following The Introduction Of Title I, Elizabeth U. Cascio, Sarah Reber

Dartmouth Scholarship

Title I of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act explicitly directed more federal aid for K-12 education to poorer areas for the first time in US history, with a goal of promoting regional convergence in school spending. Using newly collected data, we find some evidence that Title I narrowed the gap in per-pupil school spending between richer and poorer states in the short- to medium-run. However, the program was small relative to then-existing poverty gaps in school spending; even in the absence of crowd-out by local or state governments, the program could have reduced the gap by only 15 …

An Analysis Of Intradistrict Funding Equity In Rural And Urban School Districts, James Lynn Woodworth

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

After a long process of judicial action, states have revised the education funding distribution systems to meet the legal requirement of providing both horizontal and vertical funding equity between districts (interdistrict) in the state. A major part of the judicially required reforms was a shift to weighted student funding or funding which provides differential amounts of education funding dependent on the estimated needs of students based on their individual characteristics. However, little research has been done to examine the equity of the funding distribution systems between schools within districts (intradistrict).

Intradistrict funding inequities are likely to persist in districts today …

Citizen Support For Northern Ohio Community College Funding Initiatives During An Economic Recession Recovery, Patricia Flores

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The current research, Citizen Support for Northern Ohio Community College Funding Initiatives during an Economic Recession Recovery, asks the question: Do the citizens of Northern Ohio support community college funding during difficult economic times? Based on the theory of Stakeholder Analysis, the purpose of this concurrent, mixed-methods study was to investigate stakeholder support of community college funding initiatives, particularly for levy-funded community colleges that rely on the voting public to voluntarily contribute property taxes to support their institutions.

A comparison of Ohio community college statements and survey responses regarding stakeholder needs and beliefs indicated a significantly higher instance of …

Estimation Of The Proposed Mckinney Scholarship Programs, George A. Erickcek

Reports

No abstract provided.