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The purpose of this study was to investigate and identify possible relationships between academic achievement, as measured by high school graduation rate and ACT composite scores of individual school districts within the state of Tennessee, and the per-pupil expenditure of each district. Research was conducted to determine whether a significant difference existed in academic achievement measures (high school graduation rate, ACT composite score) among school districts in the state of Tennessee that were classified as above average, average, and below average in relation to their per-pupil expenditure (PPE) in the 2013-2014, 2014-2015, and 2015-16 school years. Ex post facto data were collected from the Tennessee Department of Education website. All pertinent school district information reported appeared on the Tennessee State Report Card website. This publicly reported and available data were collected by accessing the Tennessee State Report Card website. The researcher recorded data related to each school district that reported data in all three of the following categories: per-pupil expenditure, graduation rates, and ACT composite scores. This study examined the relationship of graduation rates to per-pupil expenditure in the 2013-2014, 2014-2015, and 2015-2016 school years. The results indicated that the high school graduation rates during the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 school year were not significantly affected by per-pupil expenditure. However, significance was found regarding high school graduation rates in the 2015-2016 school year (p =.016). There was a significant difference in the means between the bottom-third (93.537%) and the top-third (90.422%) of per-pupil expenditure levels during the 2015-2016 school year, with the top-third having significantly higher graduation rates. This study also examined the relationship of ACT composite score to per-pupil expenditures in the 2013-2014, 2014-2015, and 2015-2016 school years. The results for all of the research questions indicated that the ACT composite score during all years was not significantly affected by per-pupil expenditure.

The problem for this study consists of a question: Is there a relationship between the financial status and the academic preparation and experience of teachers in selected secondary school districts of San Joaquin County? The purpose of this study will, therefore, be to determine the relationship between financial status of the school district and the academic preparation of employed certificated personnel in selected secondary schools of San Joaquin County.

Mentoring has been used for centuries as a way for a person to pass on knowledge, skills, or support to a less experienced person. Mentoring in the workplace, however, was not studied until the early 1980s, and then more than a decade later, mentoring was studied in the context of the K-12 teacher workforce. Mentoring has improved teacher effectiveness (Yuan, 2015; Koedel, 2009; Campbell and Malkus, 2011); increased teachers’ self-efficacy (Ingersoll & May, 2011; Saffold, 2005; Louis, 2016); and contributed to teacher retention (Ingersoll & Kralik, 2004; Cohen & Fuller, 2006). Most mentoring studies and theories, however, have been developed with a teacher population that is largely White. While about 50% of students in K-12 public schools in the U.S. are non-White, only 18% of teachers are non-White. Because teachers of color have a profound and positive impact on students, they are worth studying. The purpose of this study is to understand the mentoring experiences of teachers of color in K-12 public charter schools in New Orleans, and to explore how teachers of color benefited from mentoring in the areas of career development and psychosocial support. The researcher utilized a qualitative, phenomenological approach by interviewing ten participants and analyzing the essence of their experiences. Five themes resulted from this research: race plays a significant role in the mentoring of teachers of color; the charter school system in New Orleans has had an impact on the racial make-up of teachers; informal and formal mentoring form a winning combination; mentors provided teachers of color with validation and cultural navigation tools; and mentoring improved teaching practices and retention. This study can have an impact on mentoring theory as it relates to race and identity. This study also has practical implications for K-12 leaders in the way that teachers of color are supported.

Nongovernmental actors have long been involved in the funding of U.S. K-12 public schools. With recent cuts to state funding to public education, however, groups called school-supporting nonprofits (Nelson & Gazley, 2014) have taken on a much larger role in school funding. Nonacademic, volunteer, parent-led groups such as parent teacher associations (PTAs), parent teacher organizations (PTOs), and booster clubs, especially, have grown in number and in amount of revenues raised, and are funding core school needs and functions. This situation confuses obligations of public institutions, undermines equity, and complicates the role of educational leaders. This mixed-methods study explores the influence of school-supporting non-profit organizations (SSNPs), in the suburban districts in the Richmond, VA quad-county metropolitan area. The focus of the current study is on the intersection of student economic disadvantage and race/ethnicity with the presence and types of SSNPs, their volunteer capacity and activities, and their financial capacity and impact. This study further examines why and how SSNPs exist as they do and how educational and nonprofit leaders manage their roles. Results show meaningful differences between groups in almost every variable, showing socioeconomic and racial disparities exacerbated by parent-led SSNP organizations. SSNPs at the most affluent schools with the most White and Asian students justify their work by touting the benefits to SSNP members’ children, explaining that the raising of funds and providing of volunteer staffing is both a virtuous activity and needed for the schools they support to function. Educational leaders must share power with these groups. This phenomenon raises questions about the purpose of SSNPs as civic and nonprofit organizations, exacerbates already inequitable availability of educational opportunities and resources across schools, and threatens the public nature of public education. While many policy remedies for this problem exist, a priority is more public revenues and funding of public schools.

Submitted by Bruno Campos (brunogcampos@gmail.com) on 2017-09-27T00:08:08Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Peer_effects_and_teacher_absences.pdf: 389435 bytes, checksum: 8bd7907f92454e027a7a13f5ff6aa9a2 (MD5) / Rejected by Thais Oliveira (thais.oliveira@fgv.br), reason: Prezado Bruno, boa tarde! Para que possamos aprovar seu trabalho, é necessário que centralize a palavra "Summary". Qualquer dúvida entre em contato no mestradoprofissional@fgv.br ou ligue 3799-7764 Att, Thais Oliveira on 2017-09-27T19:46:06Z (GMT) / Submitted by Bruno Campos (brunogcampos@gmail.com) on 2017-09-27T21:04:41Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Peer_effects_and_teacher_absences.pdf: 388200 bytes, checksum: b9bc1c4b2d9ba7e165b0f675339eab9c (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Thais Oliveira (thais.oliveira@fgv.br) on 2017-09-27T21:36:30Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Peer_effects_and_teacher_absences.pdf: 388200 bytes, checksum: b9bc1c4b2d9ba7e165b0f675339eab9c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-09-28T16:43:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Peer_effects_and_teacher_absences.pdf: 388200 bytes, checksum: b9bc1c4b2d9ba7e165b0f675339eab9c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-08-29 / Teacher quality is of critical importance in student achievement. In addition to previous training, experience and teaching methodologies, teacher assiduity plays a pivotal role in pupils' development. In this paper, we investigate how teacher absences are influenced by their colleagues at work. More specifically, we try to answer if there are peer effects behind teachers’ behavior. We resort to a model of instrumental variables to isolate the causal impact from potential identification problems arising from endogenous group formation and estimate a positive, significant peer effect of teacher absences on those of their colleagues. Additionally, we explore how teachers under different contract regimes are affected, and show peer effects are not linear – what suggests the existence of an optimal allocation of teachers that minimizes collective absences. Furthermore, we show teachers exert discretion on absences, and that this kind of absences are what mainly drives our results. / A qualidade dos professores é de importância crítica para o desenvolvimento dos alunos. Além de treinamento prévio, experiência e metodologia pedagógica, a assiduidade dos professores exerce papel fundamental na aprendizagem. Neste trabalho, investigamos como o absenteísmo de professores é influenciado pelos seus colegas de trabalho. Mais especificamente, tentamos responder se há efeitos dos pares por trás do comportamento dos docentes. Recorremos a modelos de variáveis instrumentais para isolar o impacto causal de potenciais problemas de identificação, oriundos de formação endógena do quadro docente, e estimamos um impacto positivo e significante da conduta dos colegas sob os professores focais. Adicionalmente, exploramos como professores sob diferentes regimes contratuais são afetados, e mostramos que os efeitos não são lineares – o que sugere a existência de uma alocação ótima de professores com vistas a minimizar o número de faltas. Além disso, mostramos que os professores exercem algum grau de discricionariedade ao faltar, e que é desse comportamento que derivam nossos resultados.

When delivered well, education is key to addressing a host of individual and societal ills, from poverty and disease to crime and poor voter engagement. India has demonstrated considerable progress in improving various aspects of its primary education system, including infrastructure and buildings, teacher-student ratios, and school enrollment. However, student learning outcomes remain consistently low across the country. A review of the literature surrounding learning outcomes has highlighted gaps in school instruction and has shown the dire need for innovations in pedagogy and curriculum to improve student learning. This paper assesses the long-term impact of one such pedagogy, called Teaching at the Right Level (or TaRL), in the districts of five states of India via an ordered probit model and linear regressions. The quantitative model shows a positive and significant effect of TaRL exposure on learning levels and income, as hypothesized throughout this paper. Additionally, case studies of two students exposed to TaRL are explored to illustrate individual effects of the pedagogy.

In 2013 the California Legislation passed a new K-12 School accountability mandate. The Local Control Accountability Plan was sought to increase the educational equity for targeted student groups in addition to allowing school districts to mine a diverse set of local school data to develop goals in the 8 priority areas that speak to the needs of their local students. A requirement of the LCAP was that school districts include a diverse set of stakeholders to work in a collaborative manner to develop, critique, and refine local goals. Stakeholder groups are required to consist of district-level administrators, teachers, staff, students, parents, and community stakeholders. This qualitative study focused on the experiences and insights of district and community stakeholders as they participated in the development of LCAPs. To answer the questions and understand the experience of stakeholders interviews, document analysis, and observations were used. The results of the study revealed that while the intent of bringing a diverse set of stakeholders is noble there is a need to build trust amongst stakeholders. Findings also show the need to build community stakeholder understanding of the purpose, promises, and limits of the LCAP. The study revealed the need for school districts to examine and dismantle historic practices in order to fully embrace and implement the LCAP mandates.

The main purpose of this applied dissertation was to explore why a new student who is fully admitted to an academic program never proceeds to registration during their first semester. A research study addressing these instances might help college administrators improve conversion rates of admitted students. The fact that four of the six participants only applied to one university, the researcher believes, validates several prior research studies that directly linked a strong connection between a student’s positive perception of a college and the likelihood that they enroll in it. All of these participants in fact did perceive the university positively; therefore, many of them only applied to it for admission. Several of the participants mentioned that the university’s course offerings, format, and academic fit were among the reasons why they applied to it as well. However, what the study results revealed was not so much about their positive perception of the university or whether or not it was a good academic fit, but more so the lack of communication with the university during the enrollment process, difficulty in navigating the financial aid process, and their common need for a more personalized experience with their financial aid needs that led them to not enroll. The researcher was able to identify six major participant experiences and topics that were among the most commonly used by each of the participants. They included financial aid, cost, personalized experience, level of ease or difficulty relative to the enrollment, expressed need for more information, and communication. After the researcher identified each of the six most commonly mentioned participant experiences and topics within the enrollment process, three major emerging themes became apparent. The three major emerging themes were: Personalized Experience, Communication, and Financial Aid. The results of this study, such as identifying multiple consistent emerging themes of why an admitted student chooses to not enroll, can add value for any university especially one that is seeking to improve its enrollment management processes, the overall experience of its admitted prospective students within its admission system, and its admitted and enrolled conversion rate.

Previous research has indicated the majority of athlete alumni do not give charitable donations to their alma mater or athletics department. With over 4 million former National Collegiate Athletic Association student-athletes, these athlete alumni should have an inherent affinity for their athletics department. The purpose of this research study was to examine the relationship between a student-athlete career preparation program (“Career Program”) and athlete alumni affinity for the athletics department. This study uses the theoretical framework of Social Exchange Theory to examine if an athlete alumni’s affinity for their athletics department increases when they receive support for their career launch. The quantitative quasi-experimental study had two groups of athlete alumni, career program varsity athlete alumni and non-career program varsity athlete alumni, who graduated from one large, public university at the Football Championship Subdivision level. The intervention of the Career Program was provided to one group of athlete alumni. An athlete alumni affinity questionnaire was developed and administered to both groups. The questionnaire received a low response rate with 71 respondents. The Pearson chi-squared test did not show a relationship between athlete alumni affinity and the Career Program. There was no statistical difference indicated between the two groups for the five latent variables of (a) career preparedness, (b) communication, (c) connection, (d) student-athlete experience, and (e) undergraduate experience. Two athlete alumni affinity statements did show significance, and they were related to student-athletes developing a LinkedIn profile and professional resume.