Policy Design, Analysis, and Evaluation Commons^™

Public School Performance: Examining The Relationship Between Teacher Training Program And School Achievement, Lindsay Griffith

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Few would argue the importance of providing today‟s youth with a solid educational foundation, yet the United States ranks as low as 25th educationally among 34 OECD developed nations1 . Many researchers have studied the various factors affecting student performance in the K-12 educational system, but mixed, ambiguous, or conflicting results have led to a general sense of uncertainty regarding who to hold accountable. The research has tended to focus on teacher effectiveness or school funding. While those are among a wealth of valid inputs to examine, this study attempted to determine the viability of examining the effect of teacher …

Facing Up: Managing Diversity In Challenging Times, Carol Hardy-Fanta, Paige Ransford

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

Since its launch in 2008, Commonwealth Compact has grown steadily, employing several strategies to promote diversity statewide. The Benchmarks initiative has collected data, analyzed in this report, on a significant portion of the state workforce. Guided by Stephen Crosby, dean of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at UMass Boston, Commonwealth Compact has conducted newsmaking surveys of public opinion and of boards of directors statewide. In addition, it has convened ongoing coalitions with its higher education partners, and established a collaborative of local business schools aimed specifically at increasing faculty diversity. The Compact has sponsored or co-sponsored …

What's New? What's Not? The Kalamazoo Promise In The Context Of Other Scholarship Programs, Michelle Miller-Adams

Presentations

No abstract provided.

Graduate Programming For Working Professionals: What Makes A Difference?, Christine G. Springer

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Presentations

Education: A Graduate Degree Designed for New and Working Professionals

Mission: To provide a well-rounded graduate learning experience to current and future crisis and emergency management leaders for effectively addressing natural, intentional and technical disasters

The Makeup And Utilization Of University Student Unions: A Comparative Analysis, Ashley N. Wineki

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The University of Kentucky’s Top 20 Business Plan established a list of goals the university must meet in order to become a top 20 research institution by the year 2020. The University of Kentucky Student Center houses student programming and facilities that impact student involvement and retention, both of which are mandated to increase in order to reach the Top 20 goal.

I conducted this research in order to determine how the University of Kentucky Student Center is utilized by the campus and how, if at all, it could improve to better serve the student body and campus. Survey data …

Senate Bill (Sb) 172: Governance Of Nutrition In Kentucky Public Schools: Implementation Analysis Final Report, Bill Brumbach

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

This report is intended to evaluate the implementation of Senate Bill (SB) 172 in Kentucky's public schools. This law requires that all schools in Kentucky implement strict nutrition standards that apply to all foods sold during the school day. This report highlights the different methods used by selected schools in implementing the requirements in SB 172. In performing my analysis, I traveled to different schools in central and southeastern Kentucky to assess how these select schools were meeting the requirements of the law. Site visits allowed me to discuss implementation strategies with school administrators and aided in my understanding of …

Violent Personal Crimes On Campus: The Influence Of Size, Setting, And Police Presence, Chris Mckinney

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Statement of the Problem

Violent campus crime, in particular rape and aggravated assault, has become more pronounced in the last several decades. The judicial and legislative branches have responded through court decisions and legal enactments that require most universities to collect and report campus crime data. Many concerns have arisen as to the effectiveness and implications associated with such mandates. Some believe current laws do little to improve campus safety. Some suggested solutions to address campus crime have involved safety initiatives/programs and potential staffing increases to their campus police force.

Research Questions

• Are universities a reflection of surrounding community levels …

The Professional Ethics Of Professors, Deborah L. Rhode

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Brief 19: The Dean’S Role In Faculty Evaluation, New England Resource Center For Higher Education, University Of Massachusetts Boston

New England Resource Center for Higher Education Publications

Faculty work continues to change in response to the increased emphases on diversity requirements in undergraduate education, partnerships between academic and student affairs, and computer technology (O’Meara, et al, 2003). As even more is learned about strategies for the educational success of their students, faculty will be counted on to tailor their skills and pedagogies to new populations of students. At the same time, colleges and universities must keep pace with these changes by ensuring that expectations about faculty work are clearly defined and are reflected in evaluation and reward structures—and that faculty are supported in their efforts. The quality …

A Case For Choice In Education, Edward Tyndall

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This is an advocacy that paper outlines a history of the battle for school choice, key court decisions concerning school choice, arguments for and against school choice, alternative measures such as charter schools, and attempts to answer the question of “Should Nevada consider vouchers as a means to improve education?”

Governing Massachusetts Public Schools: Assessing The 1993 Massachusetts Education Reform Act, John Portz

New England Journal of Public Policy

The Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993 created a number of important changes in public education. In the area of local governance, the act was guided by a corporate model in which authority and responsibilities were reallocated among school committees, superintendents, principals, and newly created school councils. School committees in particular assumed a policymaking role, and superintendents became the chief executive officers of their school districts. This article, based on responses to a mail survey, is an early assessment of the act's governance changes. Superintendents are most satisfied with their role, especially their authority over principals and teachers. School committee …

Utilization-Focused Evaluation: The New Century Text: By Michael Quinn Patton, New Delhi: Sage Publications,1996., Abhoy K Ojha

IIMB Management Review

No abstract provided.

The Changing Nature Of Universities, Ernest A. Lynton

New England Journal of Public Policy

Excessive emphasis on research as the dominant measure of institutional as well as individual prestige and values has created a critical mismatch between the activities of American universities and societal expectations. This article traces the origins of the resulting crisis of purpose to the post-World War II surge in federal research support and articulates the urgent need for basic changes in university priorities at a time teaching and professional services have acquired both new importance and new complexity. It further describes current efforts toward a more balanced view of the components of university missions and a resulting shift in faculty …

Service Learning: The Promise And The Risk, Alice L. Halsted, Joan C. Schine

New England Journal of Public Policy

Service learning, the pairing of meaningful work in the community and structured reflection, has the potential to transform schools. It provides opportunities for young people to test new roles, develop skills, apply academic learning in a "real world" setting, and move toward responsible citizenship. Service learning can reinvigorate traditional classrooms and turn passive students into dynamic and engaged learners. However, unless it is implemented with care, with a solid rationale and clearly articulated learning and service goals, service learning will fail to realize this potential. The power and the promise of service learning are too great to allow this imaginative …

The School Improvement Industry: A Case Study Of Framingham, Abigail Jurist Levy

New England Journal of Public Policy

This study looked at school improvement in the Framingham public schools from three perspectives. We were interested in finding out if the administration and school committee, local businesses with an interest in education, and agencies that provide training and technical assistance to schools have similar ideas regarding how the Framingham schools should improve. We conducted interviews with administrators and members of the school committee, local businesses and businesses involved in school/business partnerships, and six agencies that provide training and technical support to schools in the Greater Boston area. We found that although all groups shared many interests, the businesses and …

A Thoughtful Approach To Public Education Reform, John C. Rennie

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article restates the underlying rationale for the importance of high-quality K-12 public education. The author describes some of the difficulties reformers encounter in engendering support for and determining the most cogent elements of reform. The differences between the aims and capabilities of school-business partnerships, which essentially assist the current system, and systemic reform, which aims to change the system, led to the formation of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education. Rennie summarizes the process followed by MBAE in developing a framework for reform and meeting its objectives.

What's Wrong With Reform?, James H. Case

New England Journal of Public Policy

The conservative educational reform movement, which still, after more than a decade, is the dominant force in school reform, has had little success in improving schools because it is based on invalid and self-defeating theoretical assumptions. Taken together, these assumptions have the effect of substituting nostalgia — a longing for the schools the reformers themselves attended —for policy and for increasing standardization at the expense of individual growth and development. The reformers (Bloom, Hirsch, Ravitch, Finn, Bennett, et al.) have particular difficulty, given their assumptions, in dealing both with individual differences among students and with ethnic and racial differences among …

Follies: Education Reform And The Promise Of Technology, Nicholas Paleologos

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article offers an overview of forty years of American education and suggests why technology may save us from ourselves.

Naep State Reports In Mathematics: Valuable Information For Monitoring Education Reform, Ronald K. Hambleton, Sharon F. Cadman

New England Journal of Public Policy

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a congressionally mandated program, can provide valuable data to educational policymakers in Massachusetts and other New England states about the status of their educational reform initiatives and their performance standards. The three purposes of this article are to describe NAEP and its goals and structure, to present some of the results of the 1992 Mathematics NAEP Assessment as an example of the utility of this national assessment program, and to highlight ways in which background data collected by NAEP can be helpful in interpreting assessment results and monitoring educational reform. The six New …

Local Autonomy, Educational Equity, And School Choice: Constitutional Criticism Of School Reform, James J. Hilton

New England Journal of Public Policy

Many critics of America's public education system hail parental or school choice, a program that allows public school systems to compete against one another and, under some proposals, against private educational institutions, for students and educational funding, as the answer to Americas educational crisis. Proponents argue that competition will force public schools to offer students a quality education or close. This article does not evaluate the claims of the parental-choice proposals; rather, it examines the difficulties inherent in funding such a system through traditional school finance mechanisms.

A Net Impact Study Of The Mtp Program: Briefing Guide For Presentation To Jobs Central, Kevin Hollenbeck

Presentations

No abstract provided.

A Survey Of Bond Campaign Procedures Followed By A Selected Number Of California School Districts, John William Adamson

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

California Schools have experienced an unprecedented growth during the past several years. Enrollments in many school districts within the state have more than doubled since the end of World War II.

It took California ninety years to enroll its first million children in school in 1940. It took only thirteen years to enroll the second million in 1953. It will take only an estimated five years to enroll the third million by 1958.¹ Practically every California school system, therefore, is faced with the continuing problem of providing more classrooms to house these new pupils. To provide funds for additional …