<p> Most states require that schools engage in school improvement programs to meet accountability mandates which necessitates that teachers develop the skills necessary to accomplish school improvement efforts. The problem is that classroom practitioners lack the skills necessary to achieve effective school improvement. Limited research exists with respect to professional development activities and teacher perceptions toward professional learning experiences. Teacher perceptions of their professional development experiences affect classroom instruction and student learning. The SMART Goal Framework (SGF) has been developed as a school improvement model designed to provide teachers with the skills necessary to build leadership capacity through focus, reflection, and collaboration. This qualitative, single site case study examined teacher perceptions with the SGF to understand how the skills learned affected teacher behavior and student learning, built collegiality with peers and school leaders, and built leadership capacity within the school. Individual interviews, written responses, and a focus group interview were conducted with 10 teachers who were trained and implemented the SGF over a 5-year period in a rural East Texas school district. Using case study analysis, data were triangulated and three themes emerged relative to the skills learned from the SGF training: intentional instruction, collegiality and collaboration, and leadership and leadership capacity. Results of the study indicated that: 1) teachers were empowered to make instructional decisions which increased teacher efficacy and student learning; 2) collegial relationships allowed teachers and administrators to work collaboratively to solve instructional problems; and 3) teachers could articulate the traits of leadership capacity, but they were unable to articulate a conceptual understanding of leadership capacity. Teachers identified campus leadership as the key to successful SGF implementation. Teachers perceived three barriers that hindered campus implementation: failure to train non-core content teachers, new employee training, and campus leadership. Recommendations included: 1) developing an induction program for new employees; 2) developing a training plan for non-core content teachers; and 3) discussing the findings with district administration regarding leadership capacity. Recommendations for future research included: 1) conducting a study on the effect of the resistance of school leaders to engage in professional development activities to further school improvement efforts; 2) conducting additional studies on practitioners' perceptions and attitudes of professional learning experiences to add to the existing limited research in this area; and 3) conducting additional studies on practitioners' perceptions of professional learning experiences with other initiatives in the current district.</p>

<p> Limited qualitative research has been conducted on academically reinstated students. The purpose of this naturalistic case study was to identify factors influencing the decision to apply for reinstatement and to examine how participation in an academic intervention program assisted academically reinstated students to succeed. Six reinstated students participating in an academic intervention program participated in this study. A social constructivist perspective was assumed, relying on the participants' perspectives to cultivate meanings of their experiences. This research offered a better understanding of the needs and experiences of reinstated students, provided evidence of resources, interventions, and programs that might be helpful for future reinstated students. The findings of this study could enhance attrition and retention of this student population. </p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to determine how stakeholders engaged in school-university partnerships, specifically in the work preparing future school administrators, created and captured value for their own organizations. These case studies examined three partnerships that involved three school systems who all partnered with the same college, which allowed for multi-site and within site analysis. The study used the voices of key stakeholders, partnership documents, and observations of key events within the partnerships as data sources to focus on what stakeholders took away from the partnerships for their own organizations. </p><p> The review of literature included research on the role of school-university partnerships in principal preparation reform, and the impact of such reform on leadership succession in schools. In addition, the literature on collaboration provided a clear context for identifying, analyzing and interpreting the actions of stakeholders in these partnerships. The partnerships were examined using negotiated order theory as a conceptual and theoretical framework. This framework proved valuable for determining the actions stakeholders in regard to the preconditions and processes of collaboration, with specific focus on value creation and capture as outcomes. </p><p> The findings showed that value creation and capture were specific and significant for all organizations, although there was variance across the partnerships as to what and how value was created and captured. Recommendations were offered for organizations interested in creating school-university partnerships. Recommendations could also be broadly applied to many types of organizations in the social sector that are interested in partnering as a means of creating and capturing value for their own organizations.</p>

<p> Discipline in schools exists so that there are guidelines to ensure safety and learning. Administrators and teachers give students consequences based upon discipline guidelines made by the school districts' board of education. The discipline administered can be subjective. In a suburban mid-western school district, alarming trends in the amount of discipline referrals of male students both in the primary investigator's middle school and in the other middle schools within the researched district were recognized. </p><p> The purpose of this mixed methods study is to analyze and understand if gender discrepancies exist in discipline for middle school students among aspiring administrators, practicing administrators, and teachers. The qualitative data, on-line surveys, sent to every middle school teacher within the researched district, revealed a bias towards male students' behaviors. Quantitative data from the researched school district's archival data also showed that male students' within the district received much more discipline and harsher consequences than female middle school students. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from students in the Educational Administration Master's program at a Mid-Western University. </p><p> One hundred-fifty aspiring administrators were blindly surveyed to analyze their responses of five gender specific vignettes. Each student received a vignette that was exactly the same except for the gender of the student's involved. For each vignette, the number of times each consequence of warning, detention, in-school-suspension, and out-of-school suspension was chosen for each gender of student represented in the disciplinary infraction described in the vignettes was tallied. Each vignette consequence showed differences in the assignment of the consequences by male and female aspiring administrators. </p>

<p> While substantiating the effectiveness of honors programs to increase learning among the academically gifted, assessment and any associated outcomes should also be effectively used to understand the psychosocial development challenges of these students and, at the same time, increase their learning in and out of the honors environment. Robinson's (1997) research showed that, saddled with the typical college student's at-risk characteristics, e.g., first-generation status, low-income, financial limitations, etc., gifted students also face unique adjustment challenges in terms of their social development. These challenges include habits and attitudes associated with and/or resulting from not having to work at their studies in high school, such as `grade shock,' mediocrity, and an expectation of naturally being at the top of their class; not knowing their strengths and weaknesses due to a lack of academic challenge; not experiencing having to ask for help; and having multiples gifts and talents that are or can be channeled in multiple directions. This mixed methods study examined how educators may be able to use psychosocial student development theory and research in the use of personality type assessment instruments, such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to support these students whose unique attitudes and behaviors put them at risk of losing their educational and career opportunities.</p>

Accounting systems are affected by historical, political, social and economic factors. Singapore and Indonesia were chosen for this study because there is very little written about accounting in either country. Singapore was under the British for nearly 150 years and the Indonesians were ruled by the Dutch for over 350 years. Besides these different colonial influences, both countries are different economically, politically and socially. This thesis traces the development of the accounting system, namely, corporate reporting, government accounting, capital market, accounting profession, accounting education and management accounting, in Indonesia and Singapore. It explains the influences that brought about these developments and analyses the features that distinguish the two systems. It is very common for developing countries to adopt foreign accounting systems. In the case of ex-colonies, the tendency has been for them to follow the practices of their colonial masters and to be influenced by the latter even after independence because of their longstanding relationships. However, the degree of reform after independence varies among countries. This study found that for Singapore, the process of adaptation and reform since independence has been dynamic, though, within the historical framework inherited from her colonial period, and there have been continued efforts to improve her accounting system to meet local requirements, and at the same time keep up with developments overseas, not only in the UK but also other developed countries such as the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. In the case of Indonesia, major reforms in accounting are slow and in many areas, inadequately coordinated. Reform to the commercial code, adopted from the Dutch in 1848 has been stagnant to the extent that it virtually remains intact. At the other extreme, the Jakarta stock exchange, which was established in 1977 with US support, adopted US accounting and reporting practices. The consequences of the lack of control and co-ordination gave rise to sub-standard accounting practices and the emergence of dualism in accounting training, education and practice. For example, the training and education of accounting technicians follow the Dutch system, whereas at the tertiary level, namely at State universities, the American-oriented approach with a heavy emphasis on financial reporting and auditing is taught. While it is desirable for a developing country to follow and keep up-to-date with accounting practices in developed countries, the blind transplant of foreign systems will yield negative results if the questions of compatibility and the recipient country's needs are not adequately considered. In this regard, Singapore and Indonesia present two contrasting examples on how each country handled the issues of accounting development. Finally, we have learned from this thesis the importance for developing countries to adapt and improvise accounting systems to suit their particular needs, and that purely relying on foreign assistance is inadequate to ensure the success of any national accounting development programme.

<p> The rapidity of technology innovations appearing in the educational context increased dramatically over the past decade, resulting in 1:1 technology initiatives materializing across the nation. School districts, attempting to keep pace in preparing students with 21st century skills, place technology into the hands of students and teachers to utilize as a teaching and learning tool within the classroom. This qualitative case study set out to explore the 1:1 tablet initiative in the Manhattan Beach Unified School District (MBUSD) and its commitment to 21st century education, which encourages teaching and learning to move from passive to engaged and active learning. </p><p> Grounded in Fullan's theoretical framework of educational change, this study explored both the innovative-focused approach and the capacity-building focus which function concurrently in an effort to inform education reform strategies. In light of new tablet technology, attempts at educational change resulted in success for some districts and failure for others attempting to adopt new innovation and implement change within their organization. Through the lens ofFullan's framework, this study tells the story of MBUSD's endeavor to build a sustainable program along with the capacity of its teachers, principals and district office administrators. </p><p> Participants consisted of three teacher focus groups and 10 site and district administrators who were interviewed for this study. These participants were part of the MBUSD iPad program during its first 2 years of implementation. Through the experiences of these MBUSD stakeholders, the findings identify essential factors districts must consider when contemplating the idea of adopting a 1:1 initiative. The findings highlighted the idea that too much planning can hinder the actual implementation of an adoption of new innovation. Implementing sooner rather than later can be a benefit in lessons learned and the opportunity to discover and adapt through the process. Recommendations for policy and practice relative to the California Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), Common Core State Standards (CCSS), Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and institutions of higher education are addressed in this study</p>

<p> State and national policy makers for 150 years have promoted public access to higher education, supported through state tax funds and more recently through federal direct appropriations and tax expenditures. In the past 3 decades, state tax funding of higher education has declined, resulting in increased reliance on tuition and reduced college affordability, thereby raising barriers to access. There are also vast differences in how well states fund higher education, with some providing more generous tax funds and others steadily providing less.</p><p> Higher education researchers have conducted ongoing inquiry regarding factors that may influence the level of state legislative support for higher education. These include institutional, political, economic, cultural, demographical, and fiscal factors. Several have pointed to what appears to be an inverse relationship between state funding of higher education and state funding of Medicaid.</p><p> This study employs regression analyses of a 20-year, 50-state panel of data (1992-2011), considering the changes in budget share devoted to higher education, Medicaid, K-12 Public Education, and Corrections. During that 20-year period, higher education's share declined in 33 states, Medicaid's increased in 44 states, and 28 states experienced both a decrease in higher education's share and an increase in Medicaid's. Also considered were political party control of states, and changes in Gross State Product. The analysis tries to determine if increases in Medicaid's share is contributing to a decline in the share for higher education, and whether the share for each budget category explains state funding variations.</p><p> A fixed effects regression model, taking into account both the differences within (across time) and between (across states), determined that 85% of the variation in the error term is due to the wide cross-sectional state differences. This calls into question much of the prior research that relied on ordinary least squares regression models, and did not account for what Zhu called "cross-unit heterogeneity". These findings indicate that additional research is needed, both quantitative (considering groupings of states rather than all 50 states), and interpretive case studies to elicit more insights and research questions that will yield more definitive answers about budgetary tradeoffs between higher education funding and other budgetary categories. </p>

<p> Informal classroom walk-throughs conducted by school principals with feedback provided to teachers has been demonstrated to improve learning achievement in kindergarten through twelfth grade (K-12) education. Principals are often trained by experts to conduct these walk-throughs. Unfortunately, research shows that experts may omit up to 70% of the critical information needed by trainees to replicate their expertise. The purpose of this study was to capture the knowledge and skills expert K-12 principals use when they conduct informal classroom walk-throughs and provide feedback to teachers. Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) semi-structured interviews were conducted with three principals who were qualified as experts using both qualitative and quantitative measures. Action and decision steps, as well as standards, equipment, and conceptual knowledge from individual subject matter experts (SMEs) were captured and aggregated into a gold standard protocol which was reviewed by a fourth expert. The study also sought to identify and quantify the number and percentage of expert knowledge and skills omissions when the principals described how they conducted classroom walk-throughs and provided feedback to teachers. Findings indicate that expert principals omitted an average of 54.76% of the action and decision steps when compared to the gold standard protocol. This study extends the potential negative effects of relying on experts for instruction and curriculum development. The expert knowledge and skills captured by CTA methods may be used to train pre-service and in-service principals in performing the complex instructional leadership task of informal walk-throughs and providing feedback to teachers, which may ultimately improve teachers' classroom instruction and student achievement.</p>

<p> This study investigated the perceptions of Black and White central office administrators regarding the Black-White achievement gap. Four research questions (RQ) were explored: RQ1: How docentral office administrators understand the causes of the Black-White achievement gap? RQ2: How do central office administrators perceive their role in impacting the Black-White achievement gap? RQ3: How docentral office administrators address Black-White achievement gaps in their districts? RQ4: How do perceptions about achievement gaps and agency vary between Black and White central office administrators? Data for this qualitative study were gathered in 15 interviews with current and former central office administrators from seven districts in the Middle Atlantic region. Eight of those interviewed were White and seven were Black. Relationships between teachers and students were viewed as a major factor in the creation of achievement gaps. Raising the issue of gaps and providing professional development to educators are two major ways central office administrators viewed their role. Teachers and their inability to develop positive relationships with students were identified by participants in the study as a major obstacle in closing achievement gaps. Administrators used a multifaceted approach to addressing achievement gaps including working directly with students, parents, educators (through professional development), and changing the structure of the school day to provide intervention. A major distinction between Black and White administrators in the study had to do with the perceived obstacle of alienation. Five of the seven Black administrators expressed some sense of alienation due either to job title (typically those who work in offices of diversity or equity) or race. </p><p> <i>Keywords:</i> achievement gap, central office administrator, social capital, deficit thinking,color-blindness, White privilege, and identity. </p>