Education Policy Commons^™

Three Essays Evaluating Choices Of Teachers And Administrators In Kentucky Public Schools, Nathan Barrett

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Public K-12 education is a large enterprise in the United States. Through local, state and federal sources, the U.S. allocated over $610 billion to K-12 public education in 2009 (NCES). Not only is the commitment of public funds for education substantial, the provision of K-12 education is primarily administered by the government in non-market settings through local school districts. It is this institutional environment that generates the impetus for evaluating how those in education make choices in the absence of markets.

Like traditional markets, non-market solutions often fail because the incentives facing individuals and agencies elicit choices which produce outcomes …

Addressing The Decline Of Academic Performance Among First-Year Composition Students: A Usability Analysis Of Two Important Online Resources, Kate Zephyrhawke

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

An increasing number of students entering college lack the academic skills necessary to perform well at the college level, forcing professors and academic institutions to lower standards. Students approach higher education as a commodity, and as consumers they assert their desire for easier course work by giving poor evaluations to instructors whose courses they find too demanding or difficult. Eliminating student evaluations is one necessary change that will help reverse declining standards in higher education and increase performance; providing effective venues for supplemental instruction is another. Teaching basic writing skills in freshman composition courses would waste valuable instruction time that …

The Relationship Between Systems-Change Coaching And Levels Of Implementation And Fidelity Of Problem-Solving/Response To Intervention (Ps/Rti), Amanda March

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the extent to which coaching facilitates the successful implementation of the Problem-Solving/Response to Intervention (PS/RtI) model in schools, as well as the extent to which coaching enhances the fidelity of implementation of PS/RtI practices in those schools. Data from 34 schools in seven districts participating in three years of a statewide initiative to implement PS/RtI practices with assistance of a PS/RtI coach were used to evaluate the relationship between coaching activities and levels of implementation and integrity outcomes. Data on various coaching-related factors (i.e., perceived coaching quality, coach continuity, frequency and duration of training and technical assistance), …

Special Education, Poverty, And The Limits Of Private Enforcement, Eloise Pasachoff

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Article examines the appropriate balance between public and private enforcement of statutes seeking to distribute resources or social services to a socioeconomically diverse set of beneficiaries through a case study of the federal special education law, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). It focuses particularly on the extent to which the Act’s enforcement regime sufficiently enforces the law for the poor. The Article responds to the frequent contention that private enforcement of statutory regimes is necessary to compensate for the shortcomings of public enforcement. Public enforcement, the story goes, is inefficient and relies on underfunded, captured, or impotent …

Certification Of Financial Aid Administrators, Stacey A. Peterson

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

The certification of financial aid administrators has been debated for over 37 years. A job satisfaction survey conducted by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA, 2008a) revealed that college and university administrators' perceptions of the efficiency, effectiveness, and quality of the services provided by the financial aid office have a direct effect on the job satisfaction of financial aid practitioners. The study also hinted at a possible link between these perceptions and the resources allocated to the financial aid office. Open-ended comments collected as a part of the survey suggested that while members of the financial aid …

Descriptive Representation, Representative Bureaucracy And Bilingual Education Policy: Examining Implementation, Victoria Marie Ibáñez

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

In this study, I examine the factors that influence school districts’ commitment to implement ESL (English as a Second Language) education in compliance with the federal Bilingual Education Act of 1968. To explain variation in implementation effort, I focus on several features of the local implementation environment, including the role of Latino descriptive representation. Utilizing data on all public school districts in Texas, I employ a Heckman two-stage estimation procedure that accounts for factors that influence school districts’ decisions to implement bilingual education programs as well as factors that affect the amount of resources school districts are willing to allocate …

Adequate Yearly Progress In Arkansas 2009-10, Nathan C. Jensen, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

At the end of October, the Arkansas Department of Education released annual adequate yearly progress (AYP) figures for Arkansas schools. These results are based on benchmark and end-of-course test scores in math and literacy for both overall populations and subgroups within schools. They are used to determine whether a school meets state standards and, given their performance in the most recent two years, whether they are placed in the "school improvement" category

Marginalized Stakeholders And Performative Politics: Dueling Discourses In Education Policymaking, Celina Su

Publications and Research

American urban education policy debates pivot around dueling lines of discourse on what ails inner-city youth; such students are portrayed as emblems of a largely African-American and Latino ‘culture of failure’, even as their voices remain largely absent from debates about them. In response, youth-led organizations attempt to forward youth as political stakeholders. I draw upon ethnographic data from two such organizations to examine the performative aspects of their campaign work. I focus on how they engaged in (1) counter-scripting, to imagine themselves as political stakeholders and substantively prepare themselves for their new roles, and in (2) counter-staging, to gain …

Administration Without Borders, Jonathan G.S. Koppell

Publications from President Jonathan G.S. Koppell

To thrive in 2020, we must conceive of the field of public administration in the broadest possible terms. Phenomena that typically have been treated peripherally in our literature are emerging center stage in recent years, confirming that the “old” boundaries of our discipline do not reflect contemporary reality. After reviewing three key developments—the rise of mixed and nongovernmental institutions in public policy, the increasing importance of market mechanisms, and the assertion of meaningful global regulation—an argument is made for a broader reconception of “publicness” that goes hand in hand with the embrace of governance in lieu of administration.

The Fiscal Impact Of The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program: 2010 – 2011 Update And Policy Options, Robert M. Costrell

School Choice Demonstration Project

In February 2008 and March 2009, the School Choice Demonstration Project (SCDP) issued its first report and subsequent update on the fiscal impact of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) on taxpayers in Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin. These reports covered the period 1993-2009, and addressed two distinct questions: 1. What is the net impact of the MPCP on state and local public funds? That is, what is the difference between the public funds expended on Wisconsin students, including MPCP students, and the amount that would have been spent without the MPCP? 2. How is the fiscal impact distributed …

Inequities In Education: The Case Of Fulton County School District, Lyndsay M. Moses

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects (Full IR Collection)

On June 30, 2007, after much dissension the United States Supreme Court came to a final decision that public schools are not allowed to use a student’s race or ethnicity as the primary factor in assigning students to particular schools. This ruling comes at a time when there are high levels of residential segregation that are producing resegregated schools. Residential segregation is not only creating racial resegregation, but also a consolidation of poverty. Forty-three percent of African American and Hispanic students attend schools with poverty rates over 80 percent, compared to just 4 percent of Caucasian students (McArdle, Osypuk, and …

The Arts In Cobb County: A Case For Increased Public Funding, Samuel G. Robinson

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects (Full IR Collection)

Public funding for the arts has been the subject of debate for many years, particularly since the inception of the National Endowment for the Arts in 1965. Early questions about the role that government has in supporting the arts gave way to significant support at the federal level. A series of controversies in the 1990s, and a shift in opinion regarding the role of the federal government, however, led to the devolution of public funding from the federal to the state level, and a move away from supporting individual artists to supporting arts organizations and arts education programs. As state …

Milwaukee Independent Charter Schools Study: Report On One Year Of Student Growth, John F. Witte, Patrick J. Wolf, Alicia Dean, Deven Carlson

School Choice Demonstration Project

The general purpose of this evaluation is to assess the effectiveness of independent charter schools in promoting two desirable student outcomes: student achievement growth and educational attainment. Independent charter schools are authorized by non-district entities and are considered “independent” because they are not a part of the Milwaukee Public School District. We will estimate achievement growth of independent charter school students in grades 3-8 over four years in reading and math on the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination (WKCE). Similarly, in later reports we will track student attainment, specifically whether uppergrade cohorts in our evaluation graduate from high school. Case …

An Evaluation Study: Does The Workforce Investment Act Impact Secondary Student Retention In Selected Mississippi Delta Communities?, Tyrone Price Dooley

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study used a quasi-experimental cross-sectional quantitative model to evaluate the Youth Development Program, a component of the federal Workforce Investment Program. This evaluation study determines whether participation in the Youth Development Program reduced dropout rates among youth in secondary schools in seven school districts in the southeast Arkansas Delta. The impact of the Youth Development Program was examined in the following school districts: Dollarway, Pine Bluff, Watson Chapel, White Hall, Stuttgart, Dewitt, and Star City. The cross-sectional analysis covered the 2006 through 2008 program years. The evaluation model consisted of a comparison group that included 437 youth randomly drawn …

Trade And Divergence In Education Systems, Pao Li Chang, Fali Huang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper presents a theory on the endogenous choice of a country's education policy and the two-way causal relationship between trade and education systems. The setting of a country's education system determines its talent distribution and comparative advantage in trade; the possibility of trade by raising the returns to the sector of comparative advantage in turn induces countries to further diferentiate their education systems and reinforces the initial pattern of comparative advantage. Specifically, the Nash equilibrium choice of education systems by two countries interacting strategically are necessarily more divergent than their autarky choices, although the difference is still less than …

Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High Achieving Arkansas Schools, 2010, James L. Woodworth, Jeffery R. Dean, James V. Shuls, Caleb P. Rose, Nathan C. Jensen, Gary W. Ritter

Arkansas Education Reports

So, in this Arkansas Education Report (AER) we aim to highlight excellent performance and give our congratulations. To that end, we are happy to highlight many high performing schools around the state in our now-annual AER entitled the Outstanding Educational Performance Awards.

Teaching, Research And Engagement: Strengthening The Knowledge Triangle, Ellen Hazelkorn

Other resources

The presentation looks at the the changing mission of higher education, and how the Knowledge Triangle can be used to help formulate a new understanding of higher education's interaction with society and the economy.

A Protection Post-Mortem On The "Death" Of Multiculturalism In Germany, Erin Mooney

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Noticeably absent from the recent pronouncements of the “death” of multiculturalism in Germany, including Chancellor Angela Merkel’s own conclusion that the policy had “utterly failed,” has been any interest to seriously examine, let alone address, the reasons for such a failure.

Conference Schedule, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas, Brookings Mountain West

The Political Demography and Geography of the Intermountain West Conference

The Intermountain West region, including Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah, is the new swing region in American politics. Many national observers and commentators have only a superficial understanding of the profound economic, political, and social changes that continue to reshape this region. Brookings Mountain West is pleased to offer a collection of contemporary research papers on recent demographic trends that alter this region and its politics. These studies, including a public opinion survey that explores attitudes on state and national politics, alternative energy, education, deficits, health care, immigration, and other topics illuminate the political landscape of this …

The Intermountain West Today: A Regional Survey, Ruy Teixeira, Karlyn Bowman

Brookings Mountain West Publications

What does it mean to live in the Intermountain West today? What issues are most and least important to the region’s residents? Do Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah have a collective identity or are state-level differences too great? Is there an identifiable Intermountain West personality? Today we will present the results of a unique survey that attempts to answer these questions.