The purpose of the study was to describe and examine how the constraints on urban school districts led to the establishment in 2010 of a consortium of California’s largest urban school districts that included structures of mutual accountability in response to neoliberal school reforms and top-down accountability since the implementation of No Child Left Behind. Using a qualitative case study research design and critical policy analysis as an analytical framework, this study examined how California’s CORE districts (i.e., Fresno Unified School District, Long Beach Unified School District, Los Angeles Unified School District, Oakland Unified School District, San Francisco Unified School District, and Santa Ana Unified School District) experienced, negotiated, and responded to the shifting landscape of education policy resulting from the expansion of privatization and neoliberal school reform. The expansion of the top-down high-stakes accountability and neoliberal school reform policies since No Child Left Behind has impeded the work of districts, by narrowly focusing their work on accountability and limiting their flexibility in determining how to allocate resources to support improvement. These top-down reform policies have also limited opportunities for collaboration and diminished ownership and responsibility at the district level. Urban district leaders not only in California, but in urban districts across the United States, have felt the impact of competing social, political, and economic forces, such as the high-stakes, top-down federal accountability of No Child Left Behind, neoliberalism, and privatization. To better understand the conditions that led to the creation of the CORE districts and their subsequent impact on urban school district leaders in California, the following research questions guided the study: 1. What social, political, and economic forces led to the creation of California’s CORE districts? 2. What are the governance and leadership models that characterize the CORE districts? 3. What impact have the CORE districts had on the urban education policy landscape in California? An examination of these questions not only helps us understand the circumstances that led to the establish of the CORE districts, but how their work impacted the policy landscape in California and supports the learning of other district leaders.

This dissertation consists of three essays that explore the interplay between economic shocks and local context. The first chapter studies the role of Korea's unique social fractionalization in explaining a 60% growth in agricultural productivity during the 1970s. Social fractionalization along dimensions like ethnicity or class can stunt economic development. This paper investigates how fractionalization affects a group's ability to respond to economic shocks by studying rural South Korea in the 1970s. Social groups in rural Korea were defined by one dominant characteristic: extended kin network identified by family name. Some villages displayed high homogeneity, with up to 90% of households sharing the same family name. This unique social context offers a reliable measure of social fractionalization that is otherwise difficult to measure. I combine this cross-sectional variation with the time variation in market access created by the construction of a new bridge, the Namhae bridge, in 1973. I find that homogeneous villages displayed higher agricultural investments and productivity growth than heterogeneous villages following the bridge construction. Homogeneous villages capitalized on the opportunities created by the bridge by providing complementary local public goods more effectively than heterogeneous villages. This paper highlights the critical role of social homogeneity in enhancing a community's ability to capitalize on new opportunities in the face of external shocks, such as improved market access. In the second chapter, I investigate the impact of expanding access to education on the quality of pre-existing schools, using India's Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) national secondary school construction program as a case study. I use a difference-in-differences strategy to assess the effects of new school construction on existing schools' enrollment, facilities, and the number of students taking and passing the nationally administered exam at grade ten and twelve. The analysis utilizes school-level data from the Secondary Education Management Information System (SEMIS) database, which tracks all secondary schools in India between 2009 and 2020. I find that while opening new schools increases the number of students taking and passing exams, it does not necessarily lead to improvements in the quality of education, as measured by the proportions of students taking and passing exams. This suggests that constructing new schools alone may not be enough to enhance educational quality through increased competition, and other factors or interventions may be necessary. This paper highlights the potential trade-off between expanding access to education and maintaining the quality of education provided by pre-existing schools. In the third chapter, I empirically test ``learning-by-exporting'' by examining the long-term performance of Indian IT firms after their exposure to the temporary export shock created by the Y2K bug. The Y2K bug was a computer software glitch that misinterpreted the year 2000 as 1900 due to the widespread use of two-digit date representations in computer systems at the time. As the new millennium approached, concerns grew that this programming oversight would lead to widespread system failures and potential global disruptions. This uncertainty prompted extensive efforts to identify and fix potential issues before 2000, resulting in a surge in outsourcing to Indian IT companies. However, by the year 2000, concerns proved to be largely overstated as few major problems materialized. This event represented an unexpected yet short-lived export boom for Indian IT firms. I use two exposure measures: IT firms with a history of exporting before 2000 and the Bartik instrument, which leverages regional variation in IT sector employment share. Overall, I find that exposure to the Y2K export shock had a positive and statistically significant effect on the long-term performance of Indian IT firms, supporting the concept of ``learning-by-exporting.'' Event study analysis shows that firms exposed to the Y2K shock experienced improvements in sales, export share, and total compensation paid to employees. However, the 2SLS results using the Bartik instrument reveal statistically insignificant findings, suggesting a potential weak instrument problem. This highlights the need for more accurate measures of Y2K shock exposure and further exploration of alternative estimation strategies.

This study investigated performance based accountability in Florida's system of workforce education in Florida's state colleges and school districts. In Florida, workforce education is governed by Florida State Statute (K-20 Education Code Chapter 1004). The purpose of this study was to determine the cost-effectiveness of Florida's performance accountability policy as applied to workforce education. Additionally, it analyzed the impact of performance accountability on performance by the providers of workforce education - state colleges and school districts, and the value for investment achieved by the policy over the time period. The study was guided by three questions: (a) What is the relationship between effectiveness and year? (b) Is the relationship between effectiveness and year moderated by each of the contextual variables? (c) To what extent does each of the contextual variables predict performance and effectiveness? This study utilized a non-experimental quantitative research design and a costeffectiveness analysis framework. The unit of analysis was the providers of workforce education in the State of Florida. This study was framed by the outputs and outcomes the workforce education service providers achieve and the alterable and unalterable variables which might influence the provision of workforce education. Performance was measured through two measures: quantity of outputs, and quality of outcomes. The alterable and unalterable variables included: the type of institution delivering the service, either state college or school district; the delivery model used in each delivery area, either single or dual-delivery; and population characteristics, the percentage of students economically disadvantaged, the percentage of minorities, and the percentage of males. The study used correlation and regression techniques to analyze the longitudinal impact of the performance accountability system. / by Richard G. Cunningham. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Chik Pun-shing. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 120-127). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- INTRODUCTION --- p.4 / Chapter 2 --- HISTORICAL BACKGROUND --- p.10 / Chapter 2.1 --- The provision of mass education --- p.10 / Chapter 2.2 --- Llewellyn Report --- p.13 / Chapter 2.3 --- The pursuit of quality --- p.17 / Chapter 2.4 --- Chapter summary --- p.20 / Chapter 3 --- THEORETICAL BACKGROUND --- p.22 / Chapter 3.1 --- Policy discourse --- p.22 / Chapter 3.2 --- Conceptualization of accountability --- p.26 / Chapter 3.3 --- Teacher unionism --- p.30 / Chapter 3.4 --- Chapter summary --- p.34 / Chapter 4 --- RESEARCH DESIGN --- p.36 / Chapter 4.1 --- Research aim --- p.36 / Chapter 4.2 --- Research method --- p.38 / Chapter 4.3 --- Limitations of the study --- p.44 / Chapter 4.4 --- Chapter summary --- p.46 / Chapter 5 --- CAPITALISTIC BACKLASH AGAINST EQUALITY --- p.47 / Chapter 5.1 --- no local demand for equality --- p.47 / Chapter 5.2 --- Equality policy imported --- p.48 / Chapter 5.3 --- Policy makers' disbelief in equality --- p.49 / Chapter 5.4 --- Equality for prosperity --- p.51 / Chapter 5.5 --- Unionists' quest for equality --- p.55 / Chapter 5.6 --- Redefining the rule of the game --- p.61 / Chapter 5.7 --- Chapter summary --- p.66 / Chapter 6 --- ACCOUNTABLE FOR MANAGEMENT INSTEAD OF QUALITY --- p.67 / Chapter 6.1 --- In the name of public fund --- p.67 / Chapter 6.2 --- Managerial accountability preserved --- p.70 / Chapter 6.3 --- Quid pro quo accountability --- p.71 / Chapter 6.4 --- Cultivating quality values --- p.71 / Chapter 6.5 --- Cultural re-engineering --- p.73 / Chapter 6.6 --- Quality indicators --- p.74 / Chapter 6.7 --- Negligible measures for the Unionists --- p.76 / Chapter 6.8 --- Necessary check and balance --- p.77 / Chapter 6.9 --- Grassroots quest for reform --- p.79 / Chapter 6.10 --- "Materialistic ""Pegging Salary on Effectiveness""" --- p.82 / Chapter 6.11 --- Chapter Summary --- p.85 / Chapter 7 --- DISCURSIVE AND DISCIPLINARY PROFESSIONALISM --- p.86 / Chapter 7.1 --- The state disciplines without counter-action --- p.86 / Chapter 7.2 --- Professionalism： Normalize or empower --- p.91 / Chapter 7.3 --- Professionalism for control --- p.95 / Chapter 7.4 --- """Plain"" professionalism" --- p.99 / Chapter 7.5 --- The Union road to professionalism --- p.102 / Chapter 7.6 --- The mass line --- p.103 / Chapter 7.7 --- Political struggle --- p.106 / Chapter 7.8 --- Chapter summary --- p.108 / Chapter 8 --- CONCLUSION --- p.110 / Chapter 8.1 --- Capitalistic imperative versus value addition --- p.110 / Chapter 8.2 --- State control versus the quest for autonomy --- p.112 / Chapter 8.3 --- Professional discourse versus empowerment --- p.114 / Chapter 8.4 --- Implications of this research --- p.116 / Chapter 9 --- APPENDIX --- p.119 / Chapter 9.1 --- List of abbreviations --- p.119 / Chapter 10 --- REFERENCES --- p.120

published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration