The main purpose of this study is to determine some of the effects that the school laws passed by the Fifty-First Legislature will have upon the schools of Walker County.

The purpose of this study was to examine the essential elements of a community of practice intended to increase communication and collaboration between traditional public and charter school leaders. Members of the Los Angeles Cohort of the School Leaders Network participated in this study. This case study triangulated observation, interview, and document review data to identify the factors that were most beneficial to this particular community of practice. Drawing on the research of communities of practice, constructivism, and leadership theory, these factors were articulated into five domains with the hope that, with further research, this framework could influence the creation of additional communities of practice between traditional public and charter school leaders. This framework, including indicators and action steps to aid in creating a community of practice, identified five key factors: knowledge, relationships, authenticity, constructivism, and leadership. The convergence of these five domains pointed to two key take-aways: Communities of practice must create a risk-free environment in which sharing can occur so that participants can use storytelling as a vehicle for the exchange of ideas. Essential in creating this environment is the influence of a skilled facilitator who can drive these conversations. Ultimately, in sharing stories and building community, these communities of practice are meant to further the cause of a socially just education for all students regardless of the type of schools they attend.

The problem of this study was the writing of a comprehensive history of speech and drama education in the Dallas Public Schools from 188^-1970. This necessitated the recording of the facts, events, and circumstances which have determined the condition and progress of speech and drama education in the Dallas Public Schools during this period of time.

The face of North America's public education system is changing. Across the United States, hundreds of thousands of students have migrated away from traditional public school into charter schools. While both are considered public schools, often that is where the similarity ends. Claims and counter claims have been made about the virtues and advantages of a charter school versus the traditional public school. This study, focused on the nation's sixth-largest school system in Broward County, Florida, compares comments from stakeholders involved in charter programs to feedback from those still involved in the traditional public system. Three hypotheses are evaluated including: whether traditional schools are not adequately serving the needs of students; whether charter schools are better at serving student needs; or people believe that charter schools are doing a better job at serving the needs of students. Evidence suggests that while each model of education has its advantages and disadvantages, neither clearly provides a ""better" opportunity for students. Conclusions are that consumer perceptions are driving the shift in enrollment. This is attributed to the narrative about "choice" created by charter school advocates that aligns with American ideologies of liberty, freedom and independence. Ultimately, it is argued that the deconstruction of the traditional public education system is part of a larger effort to shift selected rights and privileges out of the public sphere and back into private control. For traditional public schools to regain momentum, they must learn to control the narrative and ultimately public policy and public opinion about our nation's public schools. / by Merrie Elyn Meyers. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

When Oregon voters passed the property tax limitation initiative, Measure 5, and the state legislature enacted school reform under the Oregon Educational Act for the 21st Century during the 1990-91 school year, the trajectory of public schooling in the state changed significantly. After Oregon's tax revolt, the state legislature also enacted legislation that equalized school funding throughout the state. The combination of equalization and the Measure 5 step-down to the $5 per $1000 tax limitation led to a decrease in statewide school funding over the decade. Many wealthy urban districts experienced years of budget cuts, while rural districts received additional funding. Despite differences in school funding, teachers emphasized the importance of student teacher relationships for teaching and learning. This thesis traces the history, passage, and implementation of these pieces of legislation and evaluates the impact of school funding and school reform, two simultaneous but uncoordinated movements, on the school system in the state. Through historical research and oral history interviews with teachers from the large urban district, Portland Public School, and the small rural district, Nyssa School District, this thesis demonstrates that teachers experienced school reform similarly. When school reform implementation relied upon teachers' collaboration to align, develop, and assess curriculum, teachers embraced change. However, when school reform shifted from outcome-based to standards-based, teachers disengaged from the reform process. They rejected reform when standardized testing drove the curriculum, was deemed irrelevant to the lives of their students, utilized inauthentic assessment, did not treat teachers as professionals, and disregarded teachers' knowledge and skills. Teachers viewed their profession as a craft and disagreed with a business model of schools. Taken together, however, school funding and school reform led to a more uniform school system centralized by the state.

While current accountability regimes in U.S. public education focus on the job performance of individual school professionals, research in industrial/organizational psychology has established the importance of system-wide factors for organizational outcomes. The purpose of this study was to identify school-wide factors that predict guidance program readiness in New York State high schools. This nonexperimental, quantitative study was based on a survey sample of 97 guidance counselors in New York State. Multivariariate analyses of variance showed that two school-wide independent variables-urbanization of school location and counselor-student ratio-predict scores on guidance program readiness, measured using the American School Counselor Association Readiness Survey. This instrument assesses program readiness on seven subscales-community support, leadership, guidance curriculum, staff/time use, counselor's beliefs and attitudes, counselor's skills, district resources-and overall program readiness. Because prior research shows that this instrument predicts guidance program effectiveness, the findings of the present research have important implications for school reform debates. Specifically, it would appear that school-wide factors significantly influence guidance program outcomes, calling into question the adequacy of accountability systems based on the job performance of individual guidance counselors and other education professionals. This research contributes to a growing body of evidence in support of the whole system paradigm of school reform, which seeks to improve both individual and system outcomes through system transformation.

Cette thèse porte sur les neuf principales public schools anglaises entre 1914 et 1951, de la Grande Guerre à la fin de l’expérience travailliste. Elle revient sur la période de l’entre-deux-guerres, dans laquelle sont progressivement remises en cause les valeurs de la masculinité chrétienne promues par les écoles, alors que la critique se fait aussi politique à l’égard d’un système privé perçu comme de plus en plus inégalitaire. Cette étude montre que pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, les public schools confrontées aux bombardements, à la mobilisation, à l’évacuation et à l’effort de guerre, apparaissent plus en phase avec la communauté nationale et que les écoles manifestent la volonté de maintenir, au-delà des années de guerre, un esprit de coopération nationale. Ce travail suggère enfin que les réformes éducatives des années 1940, dont le Fleming Report qui recommandait l’admission de 25% d’élèves issus de l’enseignement public, peinent cependant à rapprocher les systèmes privé et public dans la période de l’après-guerre. / This thesis focuses on the nine leading English public schools from 1914 to 1951, i.e. from the Great War to the end of the first Labour majority governments. It looks back on the interwar years, when the Muscular Christian values championed by public schools were progressively challenged, and politicised criticism was levelled at the social exclusiveness of the private system. This study shows that during World War Two, public schools were confronted to bombings, the calling-up of masters, evacuation schemes and the war effort, and appeared more attuned to the national community. Lead players in the field of private education also expressed their wish to maintain a spirit of national cooperation beyond the war years. However, this work finally suggests that the educational reforms of the 1940s, including the Fleming Report, which recommended the admission of 25% of students from state schools, failed to bring public schools more in line with the state system in the post-war period.

xiii, 302 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / This study examines the role of narrative in racial integration politics in the Seattle Public Schools between 1954 and 1991. In 1978, the Seattle School District in coalition with civic actors implemented a mandatory student assignment desegregation policy, "The Seattle Plan," without a court order. A decade later, another similar coalition of actors came together to shift desegregation policy towards a "controlled choice" method of student movement. In 1991, with the support of the newly elected Democratic mayor, the foundation of desegregation was dismantled. In Seattle, the shifts in desegregation conflicts can be explained as the transposition of certain arrangements of ideas into policy and the concurrent shift in the arrangement produced by new alignments of actors able to find enough common ground to coalesce and make policy. This dissertation explores the complexity of ideas about racial equality and the oftentimes-surprising arrangements actors created. I analyze the way elected, elite, and non-elite actors at the local level talked about, interpreted, and re-interpreted questions of racial segregation, equality, and the role of the public schools and explore the amalgamations of ideas about race and schools that explain the unique development of policy in Seattle with a way to account for change relying on micro-political developments. I examine the discursive arrangements generated within these conflicts, the coalitions built around these ideas, and how the ideas were implemented as policy. I analyze a broad range of archival materials, newspaper accounts, and interviews with actors who were involved in these events. / Committee in charge: Gerald Berk, Chairperson, Political Science; Julie Novkov, Member, Political Science; Joseph Lowndes, Member, Political Science; James Mohr, Outside Member, History

The purposes of this dissertation were to determine the constitutional rights of parents to shield their children from exposure to parts of the public school curriculum that the parents find objectionable on religious, moral, or other grounds and to determine the statutory rights of parents to remove, or opt-out, their children from objectionable parts or all of the public school curriculum as set forth in the statutes of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Many pivotal federal court cases dealing with parent rights and curricular issues, including Mozert v. Hawkins County Board of Education (1987), Vandiver v. Hardin County Board of Education (1987), Brown v. Hot, Sexy, & Safer Productions, Inc. (1995), Leebaert v. Harrington (2003), and Parker v. Hurley (2008) were surveyed using legal research methods. Specific types of curriculum opt-outs (e.g., sex education, comprehensive health programs, HIV/AIDS instruction) granted by each state were ascertained. States' statutes and regulations were categorized as non-existent, restrictive, or permissive based on the scope and breadth of each state's curriculum opt-out statute or regulation. A long list of federal court rulings have provided public schools the right to teach what school boards and administrators determine is appropriate. Parents did not have any constitutional right to opt their children out of public school curriculum. Many states' legislatures have granted parents a statutory right to opt their children out of certain parts of school curricula. In this study, 7 states had non-existent statutes or regulations, 18 states had restrictive statutes or regulations, and 26 states had permissive statutes or regulations.

Thesis (M.Dev.) -- University of Limpopo, 2017 / The study focused on the participation of public schools in LED. Public schools are viewed as the corner-stone of community development. They are institutions which are based within the community to cater for their needs. The South African School Act 84 of 1996 section 36, subsection (1) authorizes a governing body of public schools to take all reasonable measures within its means to supplement the resources supplied by the state in order to improve the quality of education provided by the school to all learners at the school. The purpose of this study was to explore the feasibility of using school assets as a means to access the untapped potential of public schools to serve as basis of LED. The objective of the study was to determine activities that public schools can engage in to enhance LED opportunities. Quantitative, qualitative and explorative researches were used.