Typical public secondary school students seem unable to compete with distinguished public and elite private secondary school students when seeking admission to highly selective colleges. This study has identified the characteristics that distinguish college guidance and school-wide programs at public secondary schools perceived to be the strongest (distinguished) from other public secondary schools. School boards, public secondary school counselors, school administrators, and the communities they serve now have college guidance programs they can emulate to better prepare students for admission to highly selective colleges. / Ph. D.

In May 1993, 795 school district associates, students, and parents participated in a study to determine whether the implementation of TQM from 1990 to 1993 has made fundamental and significant changes and improvements in the district. In 1990-91, senior management of the district received 80+ hours of training and were certified as Quality Trainers by the Xerox Corporation and the Virginia Department of Education through a US Department of Education partnership grant. By September 1992, nearly 90% of all Rappahannock school district associates (employees) had received 30+ hours of training in quality management. The Xerox model of training includes components on defining quality, meeting needs of customers, interactive skills, working in teams, problem solving, and a quality improvement process. Over 60% of associates volunteered to serve on quality teams to address concerns targeted by customer surveys. In 1992-93, all associates served on required quality teams to improve instruction and support services. A couple of elementary school quality teams reduced numbers of students needing math remedial pullout services by 35% to 40%. The high school math team devised an improved process for team-teaching math and quality problem solving. Bus drivers, parents, teachers, administrators, and students served on a quality team to reduce 34% parent dissatisfaction with transportation services to 11%. The study found that since the 1990 introduction of TQM in the district: 89% of associates are using aspects of the quality training in their work with others; 72% of associates feel that administrators have increased their efforts to meet their needs; 66% of associates feel more empowered; 78% of students identify things that have improved; and 79% of parents feel that the schools have increased their efforts to meet their childrens’ needs. A "quality customer service in education" (QCSIE) scale was devised from the student survey items and responses. Seventy-eight percent of the district's students have positive QCSIE scores. The QCSIE scale can be used to help schools determine the level of student satisfaction with educational and support services. A similar scale found that 88% of students have a willingness to help produce, or coproduce their education. / Ph. D.

Historically, African American male students have been disproportionately overrepresented in special education under the eligibility categories emotional disturbance, and behavior disorders. Additionally, African American male students with disabilities have consistently underperformed academically. If a student does not perceive that the teacher cares for him, it may be more difficult for a teacher to be successful in engaging the student in the learning experience. The literature indicates that care is a basic need that is grounded in relationships. In schools, those relationships are based on the interaction between the student and teacher. There is a lack of data that specifically addresses the care of African American male students with special needs in nonpublic-school settings. This qualitative study utilized interviewing as a methodology to better understand how the care of a teacher supported the educational experience of African American males for the purpose of informing teachers and leaders in how to work with this specific population of students by addressing the following research questions: (a) How do African American male secondary school students with special needs define care? (b) To what extent do African American male secondary school students with special needs’ perceptions of teacher care affect their educational experiences? (c) Based on African American male secondary school students' with special needs perceptions of teacher care, how are the components of the ethic of care demonstrated in the classroom by the teacher? (d) How are the three suppositions of culturally relevant pedagogy demonstrated by the classroom teacher, according to the perceptions of African American male secondary school students with special needs?

This study investigated the present status of classification/salary administration of office support personnel employed in the public schools of North Carolina. Although this study was limited to office support personnel positions, it had implications for all classified positions within the public schools. The purpose of the study was to provide information and develop recommendations for planning and establishing classification/salary administration policies for classified personnel. The recommendations addressed concerns identified through the review of literature, a questionnaire which was completed by administrators across the state, and interviews with administrators from five school systems. The results from this study indicated that superintendents, more often than other administrators, were responsible for classification/salary administration of office support personnel. The majority of office support personnel were classified in the lowest state classification levels. The criteria most often used for determination of classification levels was matching job description with state job classification level descriptions. The interview and observation methods were the two methods most often used for collecting job classification information. The majority of administrators believed: the local school systems should determine classification status, there should be a standardized performance appraisal instrument, there should be performance-based pay, and salaries of office support personnel were slightly lower than the local business community. Uniformity issues were perceived to exist both internally with the respective school system and externally by comparison of school systems. As a result of this study, recommendations for school systems to follow in their classification/salary administration policies and procedures for classified personnel were developed. The ultimate aim of these recommendations was to eliminate some of the inconsistencies found to exist. / Ed. D. / incomplete_metadata

The purpose of this study is three-fold: (1) to make a study of the attendance records of Latin American children in the Wichita Falls Public Schools to determine the extent of non-attendance and withdrawals; (2) to study factors causing this non-attendance and withdrawals; and (3) to plan some remedial measures to improve the educational opportunities and improve the attendance of these children.

The purpose of this study is to attempt to show the development, growth, and some of the outstanding accomplishments with methods used in developing the environmental control in Smith County school rooms since October, 1946.

The purpose of this study is to determine if the industrial arts and vocational education program of the Orange Public Schools is meeting the needs of the pupils, parents, and industries of the community.

No description available.

The purpose of this study was to explore the participatory management system used by the Tulsa Public Schools in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Due to the size of the system and interest of the researcher, the middle schools were chosen as the units for investigation. A total of 535 (82%) of the teachers in the 17 middle schools responded to the survey. The major variables investigated were participatory management, job satisfaction, job-related tension, intention-to-leave the school or the profession, absenteeism, sex, and years of experience. Additional observations were made which were used as supporting qualitative data. The data were analyzed by using several statistical procedures: mean scores, analysis of variance, Pearson product-moment correlations, and t-tests. The findings not only confirmed participatory management to be the perceived mode of middle school governance in this system but determined that this management style was related to the majority of variables in the study. When the variables were analyzed separately, it was found that, in general, teachers were satisfied with their job, rarely felt tension related to their job, infrequently considered leaving their school or the profession, and maintained a high attendance rate. When these variables were examined in conjunction with participatory management, the variables of teacher job satisfaction and job-related tension were found to be correlated positively with teachers' perceptions of shared governance. In addition, teacher intent to leave and teacher absenteeism were lower when greater participation in the school's management was perceived. However, the sex of the teacher and the years of experience had no relationship with teachers perceived degree of involvement in the decision-making process. It can be concluded that participatory management practices may enhance teacher attitudes as noted by the analysis of the variables investigated in this study. Future research is needed to substantiate further these results by comparing the management system used by the Tulsa Public Schools with other educational systems throughout the nation. / Ed. D. / incomplete_metadata

The research centres on the degree to which the no-fee-paying policy is influencing the financial management of schools in Soshanguve. The no-fee-paying policy stems from the Education Laws Amendment Act 24 of 2005 according to which the levying of mandatory fees was abolished at public schools that are declared no-fee-paying institutions. The state funded these newly declared no-fee-paying schools in order to create greater access to quality education and to improve the educational resources and equipment in impoverished schools. According to the findings of this research, there is little or no financial management in the former underprivileged schools in Soshanguve. This lack of proper financial management in these schools appears to be due to the lack of capacity within both the schools and the school governing bodies themselves. In addition, there appears to be a lack of equality and equity between the formerly underprivileged schools and the advantaged schools. In the words of Fiske and Ladd (2004b:248), equality and equity seem to be elusive. Schools in the cities are still advantaged since the parents are paying fees and schools are managing their funds, while parents in the township schools (especially in Soshanguve) have been found to be unsupportive financially. This is probably because communities around the schools are, in the main, poverty stricken. / Public Administration / D. Litt. et. Phil. (Public Administration)