A financially secure public school district can provide children with an educational foundation that will eventually transition them into self-sufficient employed adults. These adults will become tax-paying citizens who will contribute to their local economies. The problem with one midwestern public school district is that a history of financial insecurity has affected the district's ability to provide students with all of the programs to which they are entitled. Using Baumgartner and Jones' conceptualization of punctuated equilibrium as the theoretical foundation, the purpose of this quantitative study was to determine the relationship between aspects of the Local Financial Stability and Choice Act (LFSCA) in 1 state and the educational policy outcomes in 1 affected city. The educational policy outcome variables were student retention, graduation rates, college readiness, student assessments, and the annual budget balance. Secondary data were collected from the Michigan School Data website. Data included the entire school district from the periods of Fiscal Year 2007 through Fiscal Year 2016. Data were analyzed using the non-parametric chi-square test of association. The findings indicated that LFSCA legislation has a statistical association with the graduation rate increasing, student assessment scores decreasing, and college readiness rates decreasing. The effect of the LFSCA legislation was found inconclusive for the student count and the annual budget balance. The implications for positive social change include for legislators to use the findings to create performance outcome measures that provide feedback on public school districts or public institutions.

Cover title: Success and failure of first year university students with special reference to the school attended. Includes bibliographical references (p. 95-96)

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Speech Pathology and Audiology, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 39-45).

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Hannover, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 411-435).

No description available.

This thesis examines the origins of athleticism in England and its transfer to Canada. During the course of the nineteenth century, the focus of the English public schools changed dramatically. At the start of the century an English upper-class student's leisure time was largely employed in roaming the country-side, trespassing on neighboring estates and poaching. Teachers' responsibilities ended at the classroom door. Seventy-five years later an English public school student's life was focussed on games and team sports including cricket and the various types of football. Teachers now ran all aspects of school life which was designed to instill the manly, Christian, virtues which would enable graduates to take their proper place as leaders in the British Empire. And team sports were a vehicle to achieve that end. Team sports such as cricket and rugby, and the various institutions that promoted them, occupied a central place in upper-class English life and became infused with what Professor Mangan refers to as the 'games ethic': the ideology of athleticism. When the British administrators, soldiers, and immigrants came to Canada they brought with them their love of games and this 'games ethic' that was modified by Canadian experience. In England the 'ethic' was firmly entrenched and supported by a unique class and social structure. Because that structure did not exist in Canada, the attempts of early British Canadians to instill the 'ethic' in the new country were problematic and played out in the conflict between amateurs and professionals. Although an emerging working-class culture and an increasingly commercialized society challenged and eventually made the distinction between amateur and professional athletes irrelevant, belief in the 'games ethic' and in the instrumental value of team sports survived and continues to influence Canadian sport policy today.

This research program aimed to identify the factors that influence the Voluntary Donation payment decision in a cohort of parents (N = 250) with a child (or children) at a New Zealand state school. A voluntary donation is a charitable contribution to the running of the school collected from the parents of the school’s students. A survey questionnaire was constructed to examine the attitudes parents hold towards the voluntary donation funding system, the current New Zealand Government and the school the respondent’s child attends. The parents were ‘naturally’ separated into two conditions based on their last voluntary donation payment decision – Paid versus Not Paid – to compare the differences in attitudes on the various statements from the survey and their demographic composition. The results revealed that payment decision was positively correlated with educational achievement, annual household income and age. Individual contributions exhibited strong positive relationships with beliefs about the contributions of others, which was consistent with previous public goods field experiments. The research extended the existing public goods research by examining the social norms of voluntary donation behaviour and assimilating the results with theories of altruism, conditional cooperation and reciprocity. The strongest overall contribution to the prediction of payment decision was parents’ attitudes towards the current Government and the voluntary donation funding system. The results identified that pressures existed in the voluntary donation environment, a result most prevalent in high decile schools. Additionally, a marginal level of comprehension of the voluntary donations characterised the majority of respondents. Overall, the research found that the best predictor of contribution was attitudes towards the voluntary donation funding system.

The purpose of this study was to examine an intradistrict school choice program in an urban setting through the use of three independent variables regarding school principals' perceptions. The independent variables were gender, years of experience, and the building or grade level assignment of school principals. Another purpose was to examine whether school principals saw positive or negative outcomes in student and teacher performance since the school choice program began. Areas explored included student achievement and behavioral performance, teacher attitude and morale, principal and teacher interaction(to facilitate change), and special education.The study's population consisted of the principals of the Indianapolis Public School Corporation, Indianapolis, Indiana. There were 80 eligible principals. A return rate of 72.58 was gained (58 respondents). The study's population was sent a survey instrument consisting of seven demographic items and 25 Likert-type items with five possible responses (strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree, and strongly disagree). The items were designed to evaluate principal responses according to the three independent variables mentioned earlier in addition to the other purposes of the study. The instrument was designed by the researcher with the assistance of a jury of veteran principals familiar with intradistrict school choice from Bartholomew Consolidated School District (Columbus, Indiana).A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to determine any significant relationships between the independent variables and principal perceptions about intradistrict school choice. Further, mean data was examined and compared.The following conclusions were drawn from the study's findings:1. A statistically significant relationship was found with principal perceptions by the independent variable of building or grade level on the special education items of student attendance, less parent complaints, and teacher professional development activities as determined by a MANOVA.2. A statistically significant relationship was found with male principal perceptions about principal/teacher interactions within a change environment by the independent variable of building/grade level.3. A statistically significant relationship was found with male principal perceptions about principal/teacher interactions within a change environment by the independent variable of experience level.4. Mean analysis would suggest that there were no changes in student academic or behavioral performance two years of program implementation.5. Mean analysis would suggest some positive change in teacher attitude after two years of program implementation.6. Mean analysis would suggest some positive change in informal principal and teacher interaction to facilitate program change after two years of program implementation. / Department of Educational Leadership

The purpose of this study was to determine the status of health promotion activities provided by Indiana public school corporations for their employees and the impact of corporation leadership on the provision of these activities. The subjects of this study were Indiana public school superintendents. All 291 superintendents were mailed the survey instrument created by the researcher for this study and there were 227 (78%) responses.The results showed that 54% of the responding Indiana school corporations provided some type of health promotion activity for employees on a corporation-wide basis. The primary reason school corporations provided health promotion activities for employees was to keep employees healthy. The major impediment in providing health promotion activities for employees was a lack of resources. School corporations in rural settings were less likely to provide health promotion activities for employees. School corporations were more likely to provide health promotion activities for employees as the number of full-time employees increased. This study also found a relationship between the importance a superintendent placed on providing health promotion activities for employees and the provision of those activities in a school corporation. As worksites, Indiana public school corporations have not met the national goals and objectives for worksites found in Healthy People 2010. / Department of Educational Leadership

A growing pressure to fundraise at the school level in Ontario is a direct result of funding cuts by the Ministry of Education. The purpose of this study is to examine and analyze the kinds of different fundraising strategies principals use in select elementary public schools in a southern Ontario large city and to determine the positive and negative results of fundraising. Principals of eight elementary schools were interviewed from high and low fundraising schools. Five included school observation tours. The findings show a positive correlation between student achievement and fundraised amounts and utilization, but that the benefits of fundraising only apply to a small number of students. The findings also show that an equal educational opportunity is not being provided to all students, and that moral, civic and democratic values are being eroded. This study highlights the need for Ontario’s Ministry of Education to fully fund public education.