Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'ACT Dept of Education'

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the experiences and perceptions of principals whose schools were granted innovation status in accordance with the Colorado Innovation Schools Act of 2008 (CISA). The CISA created a statewide system that allowed individual schools and entire districts to increase autonomy and flexibility in areas such as staffing, scheduling, educational programming, and resource allocation.

The data were collected from interviews with principals and a rural superintendent and from an examination of the School Innovation Plans. Data were refined into common themes, and a rich narrative was created. The conclusions indicated that successful principals of innovation schools understand the change process, focus on instructional leadership, promote a positive school culture, require autonomy, implement exemplary leadership strategies and qualities, and tailor innovation plans to the needs of the school. The conclusions also indicated that successful superintendents tailor innovation plans to the needs of the district.

This research is important because education reform in the United States is in need of school reform models that result in increased academic achievement. The implications for positive change are that schools given the autonomy and flexibility to operate may have the potential to increase academic achievement. In addition, the CISA model has the potential to be replicated for application in other states. The experiences and perceptions of principals of innovation schools provided a window into the leadership role principals have in implementing the Colorado Innovations Schools Act of 2008.

Large achievement gaps have been found in ACT scores between high schools throughout the same state and in comparisons between states. In Missouri, four public high schools have consistently scored four points higher than the Missouri average for years 2007–2011. States, such as Nebraska, Minnesota, and Iowa, have shown consistent above average scores as compared to states with similar participation numbers throughout the nation. Schmoker (2006) believed that due to the existing culture of schools and school leadership, learning from others' successes is often discouraged; therefore, this study was conducted in an attempt to discover the best practices used in high-achieving high schools and states that obtain high student achievement on the ACT. Educational leaders within the top 5% of high schools in Missouri, based on a five-year (2007–2011) average of ACT scores, were surveyed to determine successful teaching strategies and programs educators in these schools are implementing. Leaders from consistently successful states (having higher than average ACT scores with a high percentage of participation) took part in a survey to extrapolate further characteristics regarding high achievement. Furthermore, the trends and the approaches that contribute to student success in states that require the ACT were examined through interview responses. While the study did not reveal any new best practices, the findings supported many best practices already in existence, and most importantly, showed the necessity for the development of a learning culture that emphasizes success and achievement.

The purpose of this research was to explore community college counselors' perception of role strain in their positions. Role strain theory explains the difficulties individuals face as they determine which behavior expectations they fulfill in their relationships. It was determined that counselors have important role relationships with students, college administrators and their peers.

Through qualitative analysis, this study provided knowledge about community college counselor's perceptions about expectations of their role on campus. The study discovered student and administrator expectations of counselors, and beliefs counselors held regarding their roles based on formal educational and on the job trainings.

This research aimed to answer the following questions: (a) How do California community college counselors define their roles in serving their student population? (b) What are California community college counselor's perceptions of student, administrative and professional expectations of the counselor's role? (c) What are the role expectations community college counselors learned from their formal education and on the job training programs? and (d) How do community college counselors perceive any differences in role expectations to affect their ability to provide quality counseling services? To answer these questions, in-depth interviews were utilized to collect qualitative data from community college counselors.

The findings resulted from qualitative data analysis of the interview transcripts from study participants. Using thematic coding and analysis the interview data was grouped by codes into recurring themes. This resulted in the identification of four critical themes: (a) counselor preparation; (b) counselor role expectations; (c) counselor experiences with students; and (d) Counselor perceptions of college administrators.

The results showed to improve counseling practice, counselors must discover ways to effectively deal with student mental health, and teach students how to navigate the higher education system. Counselors must also learn new ways to meet administrative requests for data based on information they already collect from students. This research be further developed by collecting data from a larger more diverse group of counselors. The data can be enriched by analyzing what Master's programs intend to teach future counselors. Last, collecting data from students is always recommended as the goal is always to improve their success.

School administrators struggle with an emerging threat to school safety-cyberbullying. When does a school administrator have authority to punish a student for off-campus, online speech? When does a student cross the line from protected speech to punishable act? The Supreme Court of the United States has yet to decide such a case that would provide school administrators with a standard to utilize when faced with cyberbullying on campus. This dissertation will examine current research, case law, state statutes, and current cyberbullying frameworks put forth by Williams (2008), and King (2010), and Willard (2011) to provide guidance to school administrators on how to approach cyberbullying incidences. In addition, an interview with Assistant United States Attorney Luke Walker will be employed in an effort to bring to light how timely research, such as this dissertation, is needed for school administrators. A repeated concept stemming from this research study is the idea that while no Supreme Court standard currently exists, school administrators should not punish students for merely content alone, but make a strong connection to the student speech causing a substantial disruption to the learning environment. School administrators should also work to promote, not stifle, student speech as they create a safe learning environment.

In 2004, Alabama abolished its previous teacher tenure law that allowed for teachers to appeal adverse board decisions to a seven member Alabama State Tenure Commission. In its place, the Alabama legislature provided a process for teachers to appeal terminations, transfers, and major/minor suspensions to a hearing officer. The hearing officer was either selected from a panel of arbitrators through the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services’ Office of Arbitration Services (FMCS) or could be mutually agreed upon by the parties. Unlike the previous tenure law, the hearing officer was not required to given any deference or consideration to the board’s decision below. Not long after its adoption and implementation, the 2004 Alabama Teacher Tenure Act came under fire for not fulfilling its intended goals of providing for an expedited and less-costly method of review for adverse employment actions. By 2011, Alabama’s (as well as most other states’) political landscape had changed significantly and the 2004 Alabama Teacher Tenure Act was repealed and replaced with the Students First Act. This qualitative research project analyzes the issues and application of arbitration-type hearings in 106 Alabama K-12 tenured certified personnel adverse employment actions. Specifically, the research addresses the issues regarding Alabama’s 2004 Teacher Tenure Act, including how hearing officers trained as employment law arbitrators decided for or against board decisions in adverse employment actions, what trends emerged from their decisions, and what legal principles remain applicable for school administrators.

Voters’ hatred of the property tax has led to the enactment of tax and expenditure limitations (TEL) in most states (Brunori, Bell, Cordes, and Yuan, 2008; Sokolow, 1998). Past research suggests that TELs have consequences for school districts, such as reductions in revenue and expenditures, and that these effects may be felt disproportionately by districts that are less able to adapt, such as poorer districts (Figlio, 1998; Joyce and Mullins, 1996; Downes and Figlio, 1999; Mullins, 2004; Wallin and Zabel, 2011; Della Sala and Knoeppel, 2014; Arsen, DeLuca, Ni, and Bates, 2016; Steinberg and Quinn, 2015). Such disproportionate impacts may increase revenue inequity across districts, further widening the gap between the “haves” and “have nots.”

This dissertation explores the impacts of TELs on school district revenue and equity through analyses of Pennsylvania’s Act 1, a useful case for studying these effects because it was enacted more recently—2006—and is in place in a diverse state with a heavy reliance on property tax revenue that faces ongoing concerns over its allegedly inequitable public education funding system.

In the first study, I use multivariate regression analyses with fixed effects to consider the effects of Act 1 on various revenue sources available to school districts and whether districts that may be less able to adjust to changes in revenue streams felt these effects disproportionately. I find that local revenue and property tax revenue were reduced for school districts subject to Act 1’s tax limits compared to those not subject to them, and that state revenue did not offset these reductions, resulting in reductions in total revenue. My findings do not suggest that these effects were disproportionately felt by districts with greater needs.

In the second study, I consider the characteristics of districts that are able to avoid Act 1’s tax limits. Using logistic regression with year fixed effects, I find that districts with better fiscal conditions were more likely to receive an exception from the state that allowed them to avoid the tax limit. These results raise concerns of potential inequity, albeit with no intent on the part of the districts or Pennsylvania officials.

In the third study, I use both descriptive and multivariate regression analyses to consider the impacts of Act 1’s limits on revenue equity among districts. I find that Act 1’s tax limits appear to have reduced revenue equity among districts, and to have had a differential effect on higher need districts, when using poverty as an indicator of need.

Taken together, the findings suggest that Act 1 may have both reduced funding and revenue equity among districts, and had a differential negative effect on revenue for higher poverty districts. These results therefore suggest that the tax limits may have somewhat widened the divide between the “haves” and “have nots,” and raise concerns that revenue equity among districts has been reduced and that districts better able to adjust to tax limits—those in better fiscal health—may also be those most likely to avoid them.

Performance funding, the automatic and formulaic association of specific resources to institutional results on designated indicators, grew out of the accountability movement in higher education that originated in the 1950s and 1960s and redefined itself as the “new accountability” in the 1990s. To date, much of the literature on performance funding has been descriptive, prescriptive, and anecdotal, at best, with very little empirical evidence that performance funding is effective in impacting institutional performance. While recently some researchers reported on multivariate, multi-state analyses, findings continue to be mixed.

The 1974 Louisiana Constitution empowered the Louisiana Board of Regents to develop a funding formula for higher education with three main formula components, an example of a performance funding 1.0 program, which was finally incorporated into the Master Plan for Public Postsecondary Education (Louisiana Board of Regents 2001, 2012). The Louisiana Granting Resources and Autonomies for Diplomas Act of 2010 (GRAD Act) as amended in 2011 (Louisiana Granting Resources and Autonomies for Diplomas Act, 2011), an example of a performance funding 2.0 program, provided four performance objectives and related specific targeted measures. Finally, Act 462 (Louisiana Legislature, 2014) called for the development of a new comprehensive outcomes-based funding formula that ensures the optimal allocation of state appropriated funds to public postsecondary educational institutions. That formula, approved by the Board of Regents in December 2015, was implemented in the 2017 fiscal year.

This study describes institutional efforts and changes in policies/initiatives implemented at select four-year, public institutions in Louisiana as a result of the GRAD Act. The study discusses, from a policy perspective, whether or not the GRAD Act as a performance funding policy achieved its stated goal of increasing “the overall effectiveness and efficiency of state public institutions by providing that the institutions achieve specific, measureable performance objectives aimed at improving college completion and at meeting the state’s current and future workforce and economic development needs” (Louisiana Granting Resources and Autonomies for Diplomas Act, 2010, pp. 1–2). Unintended consequences of the Act are also noted. The study could inform future changes to Louisiana higher education performance funding models.

The Emergency Immigrant Education Act of 1984 (EIEA) was passed by the 98th U.S. Congress to provide funds to states to "meet the costs of providing immigrant children supplementary educational services" (Emergency Immigrant Education Act of 1984, Title VI, Sec. 607). This study analyzes the culture, values, and political context in which the Emergency Immigrant Education Act of 1984 was developed, passed, and amended through its most recent reauthorization. EIEA is the only federal legislation that specifically targets new immigrant students. However, EIEA has been largely overlooked by education policy analysts, because new immigrant students are rarely considered as different from limited English proficient (LEP) students. The study employs historical document and content analysis, applying Kingdon's (2011) theoretical framework of agenda-setting and Manna's (2006) concept of borrowing strength to explain EIEA's path to the agenda. In addition, it applies McDonnell and Elmore's (1987) policy framework to EIEA to understand how policymakers sought to realize EIEA's goals, as well as that of Wirt, Mitchell, and Marshall (1988) to identify the cultural and political values revealed in the rhetoric of the legislation. In tracing EIEA's 30-year route, I describe how the nature of the legislation changed from a primarily capacity-building policy to more of an inducement. In addition, the study revealed a change in an egalitarian culture to one that emphasizes quality.