<p> The effects of Tennessee&rsquo;s Response to Instruction and Intervention (RTI²) framework were evaluated to determine the impact on one middle Tennessee public school district. General education teacher&rsquo;s beliefs, student achievement, and special education referral and eligibility data was assessed before, during, and after implementation. Results indicate that teacher&rsquo;s beliefs were mixed and varied according to the time participants were surveyed. Significant achievement differences were found on TVAAS math fifth grade, TVAAS reading fourth grade, and STAR reading and math scores. Practical significance was noted for students referred and made eligible for special education. A recommendation that RTI&sup2; supports student achievement and decrease special education services was derived, while teacher&rsquo;s indicated a greater need for implementation support.</p>

<p> Human capital, financial support, and other resources are often provided to schools by private organizations such as corporations, community organizations, universities, and governments. There is a wealth of research on the benefits of public school-external partnerships (Barnett, Hall, Berg, &amp; Macarena, 2010; Gardner, 2011; Norman, 2009, Semke &amp; Sheridan, 2012), however, there is little information on the sustainability of public school&rsquo;s external partnerships. Beabout (2010) argued that external relationships can be difficult for school leaders to establish and maintain. Since partnerships are essential to offset school shortage and provide opportunities for students, it is crucial to expand our understanding of how schools maintain their external partnerships. </p><p> This qualitative study involving interviews of 23 partnership organizers examined how schools maintained their long-term partnerships. This study explored institutional theory as a theoretical framework to examine how schools and organizations function as institutions. Powell and DiMaggio (1991) and Selznick (1957) stated that as an organization is &ldquo;institutionalized&rdquo; it tends to take on a special character and to achieve a distinctive competence, in other words, a trained or built-in incapacity. The study drew on Bolman and Deal&rsquo;s (2003) four frames for how people view the world: structural, human resource, political, and symbolic.</p><p> Partnership organizers described effective communication as an important factor in maintaining partnerships. Key factors in effective communication were establishing points of contact for both the school and the partner, understanding each other&rsquo;s roles, and having clear expectations. Partnership organizers shared that collaboration that moves the partnerships forward were key. That kind of collaboration involved understanding and respecting the school culture and procedures as well as building buy-in for the school and the organization stakeholders and it offered real world experiences to students. Participants cited a commitment to working through barriers with a focus on commitment, flexibility, and dedication as key factor.</p><p> Based on the partnership organizers experiences, this study offers a deeper understanding of the factors that contribute to maintaining public school-external partnerships, with implications for existing and future school partnerships. This study also offers implications for policy on school partnerships.</p>

<p> The current qualitative study focused on understanding the process of learning to teach. Using interviews of teacher educators, the study explored the importance of a set of teaching activities developed as part of the Teacher Self Efficacy Survey (Tschannen-Moran &amp; Woolfolk Hoy, 2001) as well as the inclusion of instructional and assessment strategies for the teaching activities and the quality of beginning teacher performance of the activities. </p><p> Data were collected from interviews of 15 teacher educators. A process of open, axial, and substantive coding was applied to the data to inductively identify and categorize data relevant to the purpose of the study and to allow comparisons among and between categories. </p><p> Findings suggested that teaching activities are critically important to and a comprehensive description of effective teaching, and that beginning teachers struggle with differentiation and applying their learning to their practice. Further, findings suggested that the source of beginning teacher struggles was found within the teacher education program, within school contexts, and between the two institutions. In addition, findings suggested that beginning teachers perform the student engagement activities and those related to instructional strategies more proficiently than classroom management activities, and that all three teaching activity categories were included in the curriculum, but to different degrees and not all as part of curriculum design. A variety of pedagogies were used to prepare preservice teachers; however, there was no reported knowledge of assessment instruments used to measure preservice teachers&rsquo; readiness for teaching and to obtain data on the performance of their graduates. Lastly, this study revealed that teacher education program leaders were reluctant to participate in a study that sought to draw direct connections between the skills taught in the program and how well beginning teachers perform them. </p><p> Based on the findings, the researcher recommends further studies to determine the viability of the teaching activities as a comprehensive and accurate definition of effective teaching. Further the researcher recommends that teacher education programs and school districts adopt the teaching activities as a consistent framework for providing preservice education, for setting school district expectations, and for conducting teacher evaluations.</p>

<p> Despite rapid expansion of charter schools since the first enabling legislation was passed in 1991 there remains little understanding of the relationship between charter school law components and their relation to the percent charter school enrollment. This study focuses on the twenty charter school law components identified by the National Alliance of Public Carter Schools as being necessary for a strong charter school law and their correlation to charter school enrollment. Results suggest that, of the twenty components, Multiple Authorizers and Equitable Access to Capital Funding are most strongly correlated with an increase in the percentage of charter school enrollment. An additional five components, Equitable Operational Funding, Access to Retirement Systems, Adequate Authorizer Funding, Automatic Exemptions from State and District Rules and Regulations and Multi-school Charter Contracts Allowed, had a moderate correlation to the percentage of charter school enrollment. Additionally, one component, Authorizer and Program Accountability, shows a negative correlation to the percent of charter school enrollment. These findings suggest that if policymakers desire to increase the percentage of charter school enrollment they should carefully consider inclusion of these components in state law.</p>

Doctor of Education / Department of Educational Leadership / Kakali Bhattacharya / David C. Thompson / Mary H. Tolar / This qualitative discourse analysis examines discourse related to performance-based measures such as, state of the state speeches, policy documents, reports, and other discourse to explore the purpose(s) higher education has in Kansas, as manifested in discourse from 1997 to 2015. The research explores discourse produced by elected and appointed state level officials’ related to higher education policy, purpose, and governance, with a specific focus on performance-based measures in Kansas. The purpose of this research was to understand more fully how discourse shapes and reflects understanding of the role and purpose of higher education in the state of Kansas. This study explored the power of discourse to shape a narrative in a state and influence policy and governance. Using discourse analysis as the methodological framework, this qualitative study included analysis of policy documents, speeches, reports, budgets, and other discourse related to performance-measures in Kansas. Discourse analysis, informed by political and critical discourse analysis were the primary approach to this research. Using a multiperspective approach to data analysis and coding, data was examined for themes of power, social, economic, and political influences. The study has implications for higher education policy and for policymakers, administrators, and other actors in higher education in Kansas.

This thesis begins by exploring the notion of ‘The Big Society’ promoted by David Cameron at the time of the UK general election in May 2010 and arguably one of the most significant ideological themes to have emerged from the British Conservative Party in recent years. This conceptual analysis then explores the intellectual antecedents which inform Big Society ideology, arguing that the eclectic nature of Conservative Party thinking draws on liberal, conservative, radical and socialist models of community, civil society and the role of the state in relation to these. Theoretical models such as Lévi Strauss’s (1962) model of bricolage, Hall’s (1998) agency of political ideas and Vidovich’s (2007) ‘hybridised model’ help uncover the contradictions and limitations in Big Society policy-making and implementation. The thesis argues that there is a distinct silence in relation to the role of capitalism, either in the historical narratives or its place in the new political order that makes up the Big Society. Absent also, is any clear notion of the role and contribution of education in this context. Analysis of Secretary of State Michael Gove’s education policy 2010-2014, demonstrates that an education system constructed on notions of freedom, responsibility and fairness may have radically changed the education landscape in England but has ultimately failed to stem the tide of neo-liberal hegemony, the effects of which the Big Society attempted to ameliorate.

The education of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) practitioners within Higher Education (HE) is controversial, and has attracted criticism from various quarters, yet little is known about the impact of such courses upon CAM practitioners or upon the CAM profession. A programme of online MSc courses for CAM practitioners delivered by the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) offered an opportunity to explore this topic further. A case study approach using focus group and semi-structured interviews with teaching staff and graduates from the courses facilitated the generation of rich, thick data describing how CAM practitioners’ professional lives were influenced by their studies, their experience of the course and achievement of a master’s degree. Three key aspects of professional lives were selected as analytic categories, namely: professional identity, practice, and the wider CAM community of practice. This research contributes to an understanding of the impact of the dominant critical discourse relating to the use of CAM therapies and the provision of HE courses in CAM, in addition to providing valuable insights into qualified CAM practitioners’ negotiation of their professional identity in the contested CAM landscape. All participants had been affected by criticisms of CAM, leading in several cases to a devaluation and stigmatisation of their professional identity. Yet graduate participants perceived the influence of their studies and achievement of a recognised academic qualification as immensely beneficial leading to both personal and professional validation. The overall finding from this research is that study and subsequent qualification at MSc level in international online cohorts may be seen to have had a profound influence upon the CAM professionals participating in this study. There is evidence of an impact on MSc graduate participants’ frames of reference, identity, professional identity, practice, and participation in their community of practice; in addition to the acquisition of knowledge and skills in critical thinking and research. For the graduate participants in this research the experience of their MSc studies has been a transformative one. The concept of transformative learning (TL) was developed by Jack Mezirow in 1978 and has been further expanded upon by Knud Illeris. Mezirow defines TL as learning which transforms the meaning perspectives or frames of reference by which we understand the world, while Illeris proposes that TL also has an impact on identity. A contribution to the pedagogy of TL may be found in the formulation and utilisation of the analytic categories of professional identity, practice, and community of practice, which offer a new approach for researching TL in professional and/or vocational groups. This study also demonstrates that e-learning programmes can offer opportunities for transformative learning and adds to the call for an appreciation of the potential of e-learning to deliver profound and meaningful learning experiences.

The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 (Public Law 78-346), generally referred to as the GI Bill, provided any veteran, who had served for at least 90 days from the time period of September 1940 to July 1947, paid full-time education. The original Act also called for the creation of a central agency dedicated to the administration of all veterans' benefits, which ultimately became the Veterans' Administration (VA). The GI Bill has been revamped five more times since its initial inception, with the most recent iteration, the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008, being hailed to be potentially as powerful a social policy groundbreaking as the original GI Bill.;The purpose of this research was to conduct a study and evaluate the data regarding the use of the benefits of the Post-9/11 GI Bill by veterans and active duty military college students. The overarching research question was: What are the Tidewater Community College (TCC) veteran and current active-duty military member/reservist perceptions of the Post-9/11 GI Bill and does their usage of benefits align with the federal policy goals of recruitment, retention, and rewarding our military members for their service?;An analysis of the results of the online survey showed that of the three federal policy goals, retention of quality personnel and the feeling of reward for military service were being met through the perception of TCC student veterans. While the Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits were not a primary recruitment reason for the majority of respondents, most felt that the Act would aid in future military recruitment. This research also found that Post-9/11 GI Bill users were using their benefits primarily for degree attainment and increased job opportunities. Military students appeared to be positively using educational swirl in order to alleviate the 36-month time limits and to continue receiving their living stipend. Specifically, they were attending more than one institution concurrently and/or in series because they were driven to complete their degree as efficiently as possible.;Dissatisfaction exists, mainly with the implementation of the policy, time limitations on usage, and changes to the living stipend payments. This dissatisfaction may be the main reasons those eligible are not using the Post-9/11 GI Bill. Other reasons for current non-use that should be explored further include the possibilities that students are waiting to use their Post-9/11 benefits after other federal monies have been used, and they may have already depleted their GI Bill benefits. Modifications to alleviate students' perceived issues could ultimately increase the attainment of the Post-9/11 federal policy goals of recruitment, retention, and rewarding military members for their service.

PhD / When the problem of young people using illegal drugs for recreation emerged in New South Wales in the 1960s drug education was promoted by governments and experts as a humane alternative to policing. It developed during the 1970s and 1980s as the main hope for preventing drug problems amongst young people in the future. By the 1990s drug policy experts, like their temperance forbears, had become disillusioned with drug education, turning to legislative action for the prevention of alcohol and other drug problems. However, politicians and the community still believed that education was the best solution. Education Departments, reluctant to expose schools to public controversy, met minimal requirements. This thesis examines the ideas about drugs, education and youth that influenced the construction and implementation of policies about drug education in New South Wales between 1965 and 1999. It also explores the processes that resulted in the defining of drug problems and beliefs about solutions, identifying their contribution to policy and the way in which this policy was implemented. The thesis argues that the development of drug education over the last fifty years has been marked by three main cycles of moral panic about youth drug use. It finds that each panic was triggered by the discovery of the use of a new illegal substance by a youth subculture. Panics continued, however, because of the tension between two competing notions of young people’s drug use. In the traditional dominant view ‘drug’ meant illegal drugs, young people’s recreational drug use was considered to be qualitatively different to that of adults, and illegal drugs were the most serious and concerning problem. In the newer alternative ‘public health’ view which began developing in the 1960s, illicit drug use was constructed as part of normal experimentation, alcohol, tobacco and prescribed medicines were all drugs, and those who developed problems with their use were sick, not bad. These public health principles were formulated in policy documents on many occasions. The cycles of drug panic were often an expression of anxiety about the new approach and they had the effect of reasserting the dominant view. The thesis also finds that the most significant difference between the two discourses lies in the way that alcohol is defined, either as a relatively harmless beverage or as a drug that is a major cause of harm. Public health experts have concluded that alcohol poses a much greater threat to the health and safety of young people than illegal drugs. However, parents, many politicians and members of the general community have believed for the last fifty years that alcohol is relatively safe. Successive governments have been influenced by the economic power of the alcohol industry to support the latter view. Thus the role of alcohol and its importance to the economy in Australian society is a significant hindrance in reconciling opposing views of the drug problem and developing effective drug education. The thesis concludes that well justified drug education programs have not been implemented fully because the rational approaches to drug education developed by experts have not been supported by the dominant discourse about the drug problem. Politicians have used drug education as a populist strategy to placate fear but the actual programs that have been developed attempt to inform young people and the community about the harms and benefits of all drugs. When young people take up the use of a new mood altering drug, the rational approach developed by public health experts provokes intense anxiety in the community and the idea that legal substances such as alcohol, tobacco and prescribed drugs can cause serious harm to young people is rejected in favour of an approach that emphasizes the danger of illegal drug use.

<p> In public schools, student expression commonly calls for the attention of school staff in one form or another. Educators have a practical interest in understanding the boundaries of student freedom of speech rights and are often directed to the four student speech cases decided to date by the Supreme Court (<i>Tinker v Des Moines</i> (1969), <i>Bethel v Fraser </i> (1986), <i>Hazelwood v Kuhlmeier</i> (1988), and <i> Morse v Frederick</i> (2007)). Sources about these cases abound, but most focus on legal reform issues such as the political arguments of opposing preferences for more student freedom or more school district control or the lack of clear guidance for handling violations </p><p> I propose an alternative approach to understanding the Supreme Court&rsquo;s student speech jurisprudence focusing not on its correctness but on cultural influences which have worked and continue to work on the Court both from without and within. This approach may lead to a new understanding of Court decisions as legally binding on educators and an appreciation of the necessary rhetorical artistry of the Justices who write them. Not intended in any way as an apologetic of the Court&rsquo;s decisions on student speech, this study is based particularly on the work of Strauber (1987), Kahn (1999) and Mautner (2011). It takes the form of a cultural history going back to the Fourteenth Amendment&rsquo;s influence on individual rights from its ratification in 1868 to its application in Tinker in 1969 and beyond. </p><p> Seen as cultural process which begins with the Amendment&rsquo;s initial almost complete ineffectiveness in restricting state abridgment of fundamental rights including speech to its eventual arrival, fully empowered, at the schoolhouse gate, this study attempts to make student speech rights more accessible to educators and others. The tensions between the popular culture which espouses the will of the people and the internal legal culture of the Court itself and its most outspoken and articulate Justices resolve into decisions which become the law of the land, at least for the moment. The study also offers implications for administrators together with suggestions on how to stay current with free speech case law applicable to the schools.</p>