Education Policy Commons^™

From Preschool To Prison: How School Resource Officers Produce Criminality, Brenda Vargas Tapia

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

Police officers were introduced in the American school system to provide White communities with a sense of safety. However, these police officers are not well trained to provide students with support and instead are trained to deal with situations with force. The implicit bias of police officers criminalizes and punishes Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) students unfairly. School shootings have continued to enforce the idea that officers are needed. However, this notion is untrue. Policing in schools builds a school-to-prison pipeline that is now, in the online schooling era, translating to the Zoom-to-prison pipeline, which reveals that BIPOC …

Seismic Safety Standards Of Private School Buildings In The San Francisco Bay Area: An Exploratory Study, Charles Stauss

Master's Projects

The purpose of this study is to examine whether the Private Schools Building Safety Act of 1986 had an impact on the seismic safety of private school buildings in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Private Schools Building Safety Act was inspired by the Field Act of 1933 and subsequent legislation that significantly improved the seismic safety of California’s public schools. This paper begins by describing seismic activity characteristic of California and proceeds to elaborate upon legislation pertaining to the design and construction of school buildings. Following that is a description of the methods used to investigate the impact of …

Program Evaluation Of Affordable Housing Projects For Educators: Pathways To Success, Giulia C. Seminatore

Master's Projects

Research was conducted to answer the question, what are the successful pathways to the creation of school district-driven affordable housing projects to enhance recruitment and retention of teachers and other school district staff? This research is based on a program evaluation of four current housing developments for educators and school district staff, and describes successful models for implementation that can be followed by other interested school districts or organizations. For the purpose of this research, successful is defined as projects that were able to secure land, funding and public support during the planning phase, and house district workforce upon implementation. …

Pupil Transportation Alternatives: An Analysis Of Alternative Pupil Transportation Models, Jarrett Garife

Master's Projects

The purpose of this study was to examine whether alternative pupil-transportation models are more cost efficient and safer for students than traditional school bus transportation in California. The study also focused on the fiscal and safety challenges that school districts face when transporting students. For the purpose of this analysis, “safer” will be defined in relation to the estimated injury or fatality costs resulting from a vehicle/school bus accident during pupil transportation.

The study analyzed the transportation departments of five California school districts (San Francisco Unified School District, Monterey Peninsula Unified School District, Salinas City Elementary School District, Chualar Union …

Credit For Prior Learning Among Student Veterans Across Selected Campuses Of University Of California And California State University: A Managerial Audit, Janani Chandrasekar

Master's Projects

What variations are observed in the implementation of Credit for Prior Learning (CPL) for student veterans across different public universities in California? What gaps, if any, exist in SJSU’s CPL program when compared to other campuses, and what recommendations can be made to build a more efficient process?

Educating Children And Youth Experiencing Homelessness By Funding Local Implementation: Compliance For Positive Student Outcomes Under The Mckinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, Darius Jamal Brown

Master's Projects

This project focused on two LEAs that received EHCY funding in California, and aimed to answer the following research question: How does receiving EHCY funding affect the services directed at fulfilling the goal of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of ensuring free public education for children and youth experiencing homelessness in two California counties?

A Project Evaluation Of The California Education Code's Aquatic Mandate And Related Safety Protocols In High School Aquatics Courses, Jesus Raygoza

Master's Projects

The California Education Code (CEC) requires high schools to provide swim lessons for their students. How can the CEC and California Health and Safety Code (HSC) be amended to ensure the safety of students in swim classes? What best practices should they follow?

Graduation Rates At San Jose State University Of Transferring Community College Students With An Associate Degree For Transfer: A Process Evaluation, Alex Cordova

Master's Projects

One area of focus by the state of California to answer the educational needs is community college transfer students. Transfer students are students who begin their college career in a California community college, then transfer to a four-year degree granting institution. The state of California views this group of students as a key part of creating more college-educated Californians for the economy of the future (California Legislative Information, 2010). There are two main issues when evaluating community college transfer students. The first is the complexity of the transfer process. Second is the unreliable data that is being used to determine …

A Process Evaluation Of The Campbell Union High School District Bond Measure Aa, Gabriel Altamirano

Master's Projects

The Board of Trustees at the Campbell Union High School District (CUHSD) completed a district wide facility assessment and created updated facilities master plans (CUHSD, 2015). Consultants were contracted to coordinate focus groups consisting of district students and staff to develop a list of facility needs across the district (CUHSD, 2015). The facilities at all five high schools were in need of major capital projects, from replacement of aging mechanical systems to new classroom spaces for student growth (CUHSD, 2015).

The school district decided to request a general obligation bond measure for the community to approve for the facility improvements …

Walk N’ Roll (Wnr) San Jose: An Initiative To Promote Active Transportation And Safe Routes To School For Children In San Jose, California, François Xavier Hans Voltaire

Master's Projects

How effective is the Walk n’ Roll (WnR) program in promoting active transportation near school zones in San Jose, California? The intent of this research question is to discern the effect of the City of San Jose’s WnR program in encouraging children to actively travel to school (walking/cycling) and using other means such as scooters and skateboards. This research will use data from 2012-2018 to measure the efficacy of the program. This project strives to discover whether the tools and strategies that the program is using impact the augmentation level of the number of students who actively travel and transport …

San Jose's Walk N' Roll Program: An Evaluation Of School Pedestrian Education Programs, Stephen Ngo

Master's Projects

The City of San Jose has been recognized as among the safest cities in the United States, but an area that the city seeks to improve in is reducing the number of traffic accidents involving pedestrians and bicyclists. As stated by the city, “San Jose’s injury crash rate is about half the national average” (Vision Zero San Jose, 2015, p. 6), but, on average, 40 people are killed annually and 150 are seriously injured on San Jose’s streets. To address this, San Jose is using data, education, and technology to make a shift towards creating streets and roads that benefit …

Public Education For Democracy: Teaching Immigrant And Bilingual Children As Equals, Luis E. Poza, Sheila M. Shannon

Faculty Publications

This theoretical essay offers a genealogical analysis (Foucault, 1975) that problematizes the idea of “public” with respect to schooling immigrant and bilingual students. “Public” has been reconfigured in ways that privilege hegemonic whiteness, resulting in policies and practices such as standardized testing, for example, that primarily evaluate, sort, and penalize (Foucault, 1975) schools serving these students. We contend that testing’s pernicious impacts stem from a raciolinguistic project of American identity (Flores & Rosa, 2015). Educators, adapting to the tests (Freire, 1974), cement linguistic and racial hierarchies. Referencing classrooms from our teaching and empirical work, we argue for teacher education that …

Policy 15.02.2 Of The Ncaa Regulation Handbook: An Impact Analysis, Nick Kaspar

Master's Projects

In January 2015, the Power Five Conferences of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) passed a new policy to change the procedure by which the amount of athletic financial aid is calculated and provided to student athletes (Sherman, 2015). Policy 15.02.2 of the NCAA Regulation Handbook states that institutions can provide athletic financial aid based on the cost of attendance rather than the cost of living (National Colligate Athletic Association, 2017). The previous policy allowed for institutions to provide cost of living aid, including total cost of tuition, books, supplies, and meals (National Colligate Athletic Association, 2012). The new ruling …

Book Review: Rewired: Research-Writing Partnerships Within The Frameworks, Ann Agee

Faculty and Staff Publications

On many campuses, writing skills and research skills are supported in separate instructional silos. When it comes to college composition assignments, however, writing and research are interdependent, and this close relationship is evident in the many common elements shared by the Council of Writing Program Administrators (WPA) Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing and the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. How the core concepts in these frameworks interconnect and how librarians and writing instructors can work together to implement them in the classroom is the focus of Rewired.

Exploring The Links Between Legislator’S Education And State Spending, Megan Thiele, Kristen Shorette, Catherine Bolzendahl

Faculty Publications, Sociology

In the current political climate of education financing, public institutions are often the targets of budget cuts. This erosion of the financial backing occurs alongside an expansion of higher education. This research investigates one component of this political realm. Based on research suggesting that policy-makers’ personal characteristics (e.g. gender, race, religious status) affect policy outcomes, this work investigates the extent to which legislators’ educational backgrounds matter for public higher education spending (Washington 2008). Do states with a larger percentage of legislators with a public higher education degree spend more on public higher education than do other legislatures, all other things …

A Prison Of Education: The School-To-Prison Pipeline In Low-Income Schools, Adam Le

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

This paper examines the relationship between prisons and education in American culture, comparing public schools in California cities to wealthier private schools. The essay critiques the American dream’s notions of social stratification and success of the individual in racialized areas. The first section compares funding disparities between education and prison and argues that while funding is an integral part of the inner-city’s problem, the curriculum itself is ineffective. The second section takes a closer look at differences in the curricula and educational settings of an inner-city school and a private school. It offers ethnic studies in secondary education as a …

State Spending On Public Higher Education: Do The Educational Histories Of Legislators Matter?, Megan Thiele, Kristen Shorette

Faculty Publications, Sociology

State commitments to public higher education vary widely and are determined in part by unique political environments. Based on research suggesting that policy-makers’ personal characteristics affect policy outcomes, this work addresses the following: Do states with a larger percentage of legislators with a public higher education degree spend more on public higher education than do other legislatures, all other things equal? To answer this question, this author will use a robust time-series dataset of the educational backgrounds of state legislators. Currently, there are 7,383 state legislators. In 2005, I compiled the first wave of this database, which included the educational …

Website Blocked: Filtering Technology In Schools And School Libraries, Jennifer M. Overaa

School of Information Student Research Journal

This paper investigates the impact of filtering software in K-12 schools and school libraries. The Children's Internet Protection Act, or CIPA, requires that public schools and school libraries use filtering technology in order to receive discounted rates on technology. As a result, nearly all public elementary and secondary schools today use filtering technology. While the provisions of CIPA narrowly define the content to be blocked, filters are often set to block much more than is required. Filtering technology is often ineffective, and many unobjectionable sites end up being blocked, including Web 2.0 sites and tools needed to educate students in …

Educating Students Who Do Not Speak The Societal Language: The Social Construction Of Language-Learner Categories, Guadalupe Valdés, Luis E. Poza, Maneka Deanna Brooks

Faculty Publications

On 21 September 2012, California Assembly Bill 2193 was approved by Governor Jerry Brown. The bill added sections to California’s Education Code defining the terms long-term English learner and English learner at risk of becoming a long-term English learner. It mandated that the Department of Education collect data on the number of students corresponding to both new categories and report those data to school districts. This specific example of the construction of categories and labels matters because it is a clear example of how coexisting discourses and language ideologies provide a set of cultural rules, conditions, practices, and power …

Understanding Resistance To Standardization In Education: The Tragedy Of The Commons As A Theoretical Framework, Grinell Smith, Colette Rabin

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this paper is to articulate how a theory, developed in 1968 by Garrett Hardin to describe how shared resources, or “commons” can become depleted, also elucidates the mechanism by which standardization of educational outcomes and assessment have come to dominate current education discourse. We then present results of a case study of a school struggling to succeed within a context of a district’s hyper-focus on standardized measures of success, and employ the theory to illustrate its usefulness to explain what we found at the school site. We believe this theoretical framework provides interesting perspectives on current trends …

What Should We Be Doing To Reduce Or End Campus Violence?, Jason A. Laker

Faculty Publications

Over the last several years, there have been a number of high-profile incidents of violence on college and university campuses. These have precipitated discussions and new initiatives on campuses and within our professional organizations intended to prevent and respond to violence.

A Call To Community: Some Thoughts For Student Affairs About Identity And Diversity, Jason A. Laker

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

College Males: Keeping Them Engaged On Your Campus, Jason A. Laker

Faculty Publications

There has been much discussion in the popular media over the last few years to the effect that there is a “crisis” with regard to men in higher education. There have been several angles in these reports, including arguments suggesting that men are declining in student ranks, or that women are outpacing their male counterparts. In any case, these reports have asked questions about where the men are if not in college; and what will be the consequences of this problem in terms of the workforce, families, or the potential nature and future of higher education. One could easily be …

College Males: Keeping Them Engaged On Your Campus, Jason A. Laker

Jason Laker

No abstract available.

Masculinity In The Quad, M. Kaufman, Jason A. Laker

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Masculinity In The Quad, Michael Kaufman, Jason A. Laker

Jason Laker

No abstract available.

Book Review. One Size Does Not Fit All: Traditional And Innovative Models Of Student Affairs Practice, Jason A. Laker

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of The Book: One Size Does Not Fit All: Traditional And Innovative Models Of Student Affairs Practice, Jason A. Laker

Jason Laker

No abstract available.

His Story/Her Story: A Dialogue About Including Men And Masculinities In The Women’S Studies Curriculum, B. Berila, J. Keller, C. Krone, Jason A. Laker, O. Mayers

Faculty Publications

The article discusses the issue of inclusion of men and masculinities in the Women's Studies curriculum. Women's Studies programs were started to compensate for the male domination in the academics. Women's Studies presented a platform where scholarship for women was produced and taken seriously, female students and faculty could find their say or voice, and theoretical investigations required for the advancement of the aims of the women's movement could take place. If the academy as a whole does not sufficiently integrate Women's Studies into the curriculum, integrating Men's Studies into Women's Studies might end up further marginalizing Women's Studies by …

His Story/Her Story: A Dialogue About Including Men And Masculinities In The Women’S Studies Curriculum, Beth Berila, Jean Keller, Camilla Krone, Jason A. Laker, Ozzie Mayers

Jason Laker

Three faculty members and two program directors in Women's/Gender/Men's Studies contend that Men's Studies can provide an important complement to Women's Studies programs. The director of Women's Studies at Saint Cloud State University, Minnesota, discusses the incorporation of gender studies into Women's Studies programs; a program director describes the College of Saint Benedict/Saint John's University's (CSB/SJU) evolution from a position where many Women's Studies faculty were wary of Men's Studies to support of the incorporation of Men's Studies as an explicit requirement of two required courses for their Gender and Women's Studies minor; two longtime Gender and Women's Studies faculty …