The purpose of this research was to study home based businesses from 1880-1980 with special emphasis on society's attitudes towards people who earned an income in the home. Government's role in the development of home based businesses was also investigated. This information was coupled with a survey of home business owners in Franklin and Berkshire counties in Massachusetts. Findings from the research conclude that home business owners in 1980 experience the same problems and frustrations as those over the past 100 years. It is also apparent that attitudes towards work in the home have become more positive since 1960. A search of government documents provides evidence that numerous government agencies have contributed to the support of home businesses. In addition, there continues to be an important place for both private and government agencies in the support of home businesses.

The concept of a school-business partnership offered education a tool to forge linkages with business organizations to smooth the transition from school to work for noncollege-bound students. Massachusetts became the first state to charter student branch banks under the sponsorship of a school-bank partnership. The purpose of the descriptive study was to document the initiation process that promotes the implementation of a public high school student branch bank with a collaborating financial partner. Using two dimensional samples of secondary administrators and financial executives, perceptions were obtained for clarification of four basic research questions: (1) How does the high school student-bank innovation become a component of the school curriculum? (2) What are the perceptions of educators and financial executives concerning their roles and responsibilities in the evolvement of a school-bank collaboration? (3) How does the school structure affect the learning environment of student branch bank (SBB) students? (4) How does the student-bank partnership contribute to the learning experience? Qualitative research methodology--including in-depth, semi-structured interviews; a survey questionnaire; field observations; and analysis of related documents--was used to collect data from 37 educators and 34 financial executives. Data gathered in the study indicated the catalysts of school-bank partnerships were mainly educators seeking to offer noncollege-bound students experiences to aid them in their transition from school to work. The research also showed that financial institutions used the student-branch-bank innovation as an investment in the youth of the community and as a future pool of trained, qualified teller-employees. The findings of the study revealed the success of welding the relationship between education and bank organizations rested heavily on leadership efforts to provide solutions to difficult problems, particularly those identified with scheduling and interorganizational communication. A review of literature covered the theoretical parameters of partnership, change, interorganizational relations, and leadership that were associated with innovation. Research design; data presentation and analysis; summary, conclusions, and recommendations; and further research implications are included in final chapters.

An established faculty union affects the administration of an academic institution. To examine how it impacts on the role of the dean, these basic questions were used to guide the study: (1) What are the perspectives of the deans on the impact of faculty collective bargaining on the role of the dean? (A) Faculty personnel policies and procedures? (B) Budget and resource acquisition and allocation? (C) Planning and curricular program development? (2) What views do the deans have for improving the administration of unionized, academic institutions, especially the state colleges and universities? Using a qualitative research method and nine academic deans, I explored the above issues. Tape recorded, in-depth, personal interviews, consisting of open-ended questions, provided the data. The institution's governance documents, academic personnel policies, union contracts, and other publications were reviewed, and information from them used in analyzing and interpreting the data. Some significant results were: (1) Faculty collective bargaining has made deans cautious, careful, conservative and safe in making personnel decisions, and ultimately made the campus less daring, bold, flexible, and innovative. (2) It has contributed to clear, precise, and detailed personnel procedures, limited arbitrariness in decision making, increased faculty involvement and cooperation in certain decisions, and limited them in others. (3) It has curtailed deans' roles in decision making for faculty salary, reduced the percentage of money for merit pay, and limited deans' ability and discretion to use merit pay to reward faculty. (4) It has not contributed to increased time or administrative skills that the majority of the deans require to perform their duties in personnel administration. (5) The financial condition of the institution has the greatest impact on the role the deans play in the budget, while federal/state regulations have the least impact, followed by faculty collective bargaining. (6) Faculty collective bargaining has not caused any shift in the roles and responsibilities of the deans compared with those of the faculty in academic program planning. (7) The academic personnel policy changes implemented before the establishment of the union reduced the impact of faculty collective bargaining on the roles and responsibilities of the deans.

Numerous national reform reports have been written about the quality of teacher education. Improving the skills of beginning teachers has been a major area of concern to educators and legislators. In order to address the issues of improving teacher training, teacher performance and teacher retention, mentor teacher programs have been developed. Since beginning teachers have much to learn about the teaching/learning process, becoming a fully competent teacher can be facilitated during the early stages of professional development by a mentor teacher. Principals have played a critical part in this process. However, there is an absence of literature on their role in the induction of beginning teachers. The purposes of this study were to determine the impact the principal makes in sharing, advancing, and encouraging teacher leadership; as well as, to determine what mentor teachers felt were effective leadership strategies employed by their principals as teachers assumed a leadership role in their schools. The mentor teachers and principals of the sixteen schools who participated in a pilot mentor teacher program in a large urban district in Massachusetts were the subjects of this study. Fourteen principals and twenty-one mentor teachers completed questionnaires. In order to gain additional data and insights beyond the questionnaire responses, interviews were conducted with three of the fourteen principals. The researcher concluded: the pilot mentor teacher program functioned in isolation within many of the participating schools; principals were supportive of the concept that shared leadership can successfully contribute to enhanced training and preparation for new teachers; and mentor teachers did not positively view the contributions of their principals to the program. The support and involvement of the principal and a school climate conducive to schoolwide sharing and learning are important to the success of a mentor teacher program. Continued documentation of the effect of mentor teacher programs and the role of the principal will be essential as experienced teachers help new teachers improve the practice of teaching.

My research was an eighteen-month study of how mature, college-educated adults (age range 24-56, professional experience diverse) transformed themselves from the men and women who entered a small, independent, field-based teacher preparation program in August into effective, state-certified teachers by the following June. The study continued into the next school year, tracing further development of each of the originally selected nine intern teachers, seven in their own classrooms, two, finally, in other chosen roles. The research was an interpretive study, combining the use of questionnaires, classroom observation, selections from journals, and in-depth interview/discussions with each of the nine participants at four times during the eighteen months. The interns' own assessments of the time in different classroom settings with children/young adults and experienced mentor teachers, were that the extensive daily experiences were pivotal in moving them toward a perception of self as teacher. This perception represents an aspect of human development described by Piaget as decalage, by Kegan as the whole becoming a part of a new whole, by Perry as commitment in relativism. Learning of this depth and human development are synonymous. Analysis of reflective comments of participants revealed how each mature intern teacher wove knowledge, attitudes, materials, educational theory, support from his/her mentor teacher, and personality into the unique teacher she/he was becoming. The intensity of the intern experience led the majority of the interns, by the middle of the second semester, to know the kind of teacher each would be, to be articulate in discussing her/his approach to teaching in both theoretical and practical terminology, and to display effective leadership in the classroom. The route to this knowing I call an epistemology of learning. This is a study of individuals who know what they have learned in such a deep, meaningful sense that they are confident in their useable knowledge. The route to this knowing is interactive and collaborative, experiential and theoretical; the resultant learning is deeply meaningful in that it incorporates intellect and emotion as the whole person develops dynamically (Kegan), works through the imbalance of transition to a more inclusive view of the world (Perry), and senses the ego-integrity of a generative self (Erikson).

What are the sources of a teacher's commitment to lifelong learning and to reflection-in-action? In order to improve the quality of teacher training and development programs, we need to reach a better understanding about what motivates a teacher to develop and sustain a commitment to her own learning as well as a capacity to apply new learning, upon reflection, into action in the classroom. Applying case study methodology, the researcher will trace the "intellectual biographies" (Shulman, 1986) of four secondary teachers of English. The case study approach provides for hypothesis-generating, qualitative investigation. This particular investigation will take many forms: (1) a series of interviews with each subject; (2) a written narrative (a guided autobiography) of each subject; (3) field site (school and classroom observations; and (4) background questionnaires and inventories. The final data gathering mode will be a group meeting to discuss the researcher's findings. Her subsequent analysis of the data must also be confirmed by the subjects themselves if it is to have any validity. The goal of the project is to understand what experiences, influences, and responses in the lives of four teachers have contributed to their on-going productive involvement in professional development. Case study findings are instructive in their descriptions. The researcher's concrete and direct efforts will be to suggest the possibilities of transferring any lessons to be learned through the study of the lives of these four teachers to the design and implementation of teacher training and professional development programs.

Public education has been in a recession many years longer than our economy and unless we make some attempt to break from the past the outlook for public education in the state of Massachusetts looks bleak. This study discusses the status of experienced teachers working in public schools in ten communities in Massachusetts. Using the telephone interview survey the research shows a lack of technological skills among the participants and demonstrates a definite need for retooling the seasoned teacher. Public schools do many things well but very often we find our school systems short on finances and short on long-range planning. This is especially true in the areas of staff development. There are still many educators who are still professing that our traditional teaching methods are adequate to address the needs of today's student. The survey relates the responses of one hundred teachers regarding their knowledge and expertise in the use of computers and the use of computers in education. Retooling the experienced teacher is essential to the success of our public schools. Among the towns surveyed all ten of the communities reported that seventy-five to eighty percent of their teaching staffs are on the maximum salary step. The subjects of this study ranged from twenty years of experience to thirty-four years. The literature review indicated that very little research has been conducted around the topic of teacher training in technology. Most of the literature and research has been dedicated to the promotion of various brands of computers and various software programs and very little on the needs of the classroom teacher in the age of technology. All of the subjects surveyed recognized the prominence of computers in education and also showed a willingness to be trained to make use of the computers available to them. This study discussed the responses of the teachers and their suggestions for staff development.

<p> Inclusive STEM-focused high schools (ISHSs) are a relatively new phenomenon in the landscape of public education. This study of four exemplar ISHSs (identified by experts in STEM education as highly successfully in preparing students underrepresented in STEM for STEM majors in college and future STEM careers) provides a rich description of the approach to ISHS school leadership by identifying various internal and external leadership factors influencing school leadership. This study examined an existing data set that included site visits to four ISHSs along with pre- and post-visit data, and a cross-case analysis focused on the leadership contributions of ISHS leaders and their larger community. </p><p> This study found that the ISHSs expanded the concept of school leadership to include leadership both within and outside the school. In addition, school leaders needed autonomy to innovate and respond to their schools&rsquo; needs. This included autonomy in hiring new teachers, autonomy from school district influence, and autonomy from restrictive teachers&rsquo; union regulation and policies. Finally, ISHSs needed to continually invest in increasing their schools&rsquo; capacities. This included investing in teacher professionalization, providing pathways for school leadership, collaborating with business and industry, and identifying the best student supports. A product of this study was a proposition for characterizing school leadership in an ISHS. This proposition may offer valuable insight, implications, and information for states and schools districts that may be planning or improving STEM education programs.</p>

<p> Due to civil rights legislation, advances in technology, disability support services on college campuses, medication therapy and increased public acceptance of disabilities, students with disabilities are one of the largest minority group on college campuses (Pryor, Hurtado, DeAngelo, Palucki, Blake, &amp; Tran 2010). According to the 2016 U.S. National Center for Education Statistics Fact Sheet, &ldquo;11.1% of the college students attending college in the 2011-2012 academic year reported a documented disability.&rdquo; The U.S. Department of Education also indicates that nearly &ldquo;60% of students with disabilities attend two-year schools due to their open enrollment policies&rdquo; (U.S. Department of Education 2002).</p><p> This qualitative study focused on understanding the faculty-student perceptual divide between students with disabilities, faculty and administration in open enrollment environments. The study examined interview data of both full and part time community college faculty, students with differing disabling conditions, and disability support directors at two different community college institutions in New York State. The study found multiple themes in which a faculty-student perceptual divide was observed. The theme that caused the most stress and conflict between faculty and students was accommodations. Other themes included: students with disabilities in as an independent learner, the teaching-learning process, obstacles to learning, and perceptions of disabled students strengths and weaknesses. The findings suggest that the lack of disability awareness can precipitate faculty prejudicial attitudes and biases towards students with disabilities. Similarly, students&rsquo; lack of understanding of college culture, academic standards and resources on campus can cause stress and suboptimal learning experiences. This study offers recommendations to alleviate these problems.</p>

<p> While there exists extensive research on the historical development of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the United States, there is limited research focused on the current development of HBCUs in terms of institutional effectiveness and strategic planning. This gap in the research is particularly relevant in the midst of shifts in state funding that have occurred over the past decade. This research study is designed to move further towards filling this research gap by determinations through the examination of: (1) the interplay of fiscal issues and institutional effectiveness in relation to the historic mission, strategic efforts, and state mandates within the context of HBCUs; (2) the perceived institutional effectiveness of HBCUs by key internal and external stakeholders; and (3) the alignment of HBCU mission statements with mandated metrics of institutional effectiveness. Using a qualitative research design, an exploratory multisite case study was employed across two institutions. Nine key HBCU stakeholders such as the Presidents and the Vice Presidents of Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, Financial Affairs, and Alumni Affairs were interviewed to gain their perspectives on institutional effectiveness in relationship to shifting funding, heightened accountability, planned strategies to address these issues, and how these issues directly impact institutional effectiveness at HBCUs. Interviewee perspectives of shifts in funding were examined using a researcher-developed conceptual framework. In addition to conducting interviews, the researcher engaged in document review of relevant university documents, as well as a review of funding patterns of state allocations retrieved from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). Data from the three sources were triangulated and a two-layered coding strategy was used for further analysis. Findings from this data analysis were then used to address the five research questions presented in this study. The findings revealed that fluctuating shifts in state allocated funding has created a complex environment for HBCUs. Key HBCU administrators held similar perspectives, that in the midst of such a complex environment, emergent institutional response strategies have been put into place to maintain HBCU institutional effectiveness within the context of the historic HBCU mission.</p>