The move towards greater democracy and participation in our education system is legislated quite succinctly in our South African Schools Act. The Act furthermore, and more importantly for this case study, posits that decision-making should be democratic in nature and our schools should eventually become governed in a collaborative and co-operative manner. Other policy texts such as the Labour Relations Act and the South African Constitution canonise the demand for a democratic South African society. This study investigates how democratic decision-making practices are taking place in an East London Secondary School namely Ebenezer Majombozi High. Even though distinct links exist between management and governance arms of schools, this study concentrates predominantly on decision-making within the school governing body and touches briefly on management thinking trends as a theoretical background to the kind of management at the school. What makes the school interesting as a case study is its rich history and its location in a deprived and impoverished township environment. The school was also part of the ex-Department of Education and Training, the black educational department of the past apartheid state. The kind of research undertaken was in the form of unstructured personal :interviews with influential stakeholders at the school. Some of these stakeholders fonn part of the school governing body and the questions asked probed forms of governance at the school and how decision-making impacted on the overall school governance. The research fmdings acknowledges that decision-making does occur democratically at the school but that the practical implementation of positive consensual decisions are rarely realized. The school governing body only meets to deal with crises underpinned by a lack of learning and teaching and has not even debated the policies within the South African Schools Act. The study also argues that only by building capacity within the school and empowering the stakeholders, can constructive participation by all become a reality.

No description available.

Since 1994, the educational landscape in South Africa has been subjected to on-going policy changes. The national Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) which has been promulgated recently, is the third version of a post-apartheid national school curriculum. Teachers, in particular, fulfil critical roles as change agents during a process of educational transformation, as they need to facilitate the change by implementing the new national school curriculum. This study aimed to ascertain teacher experiences of continuous curriculum change, by focusing in particular on the views of selected FET teachers. Focus group interviews were conducted with teachers employed at secondary schools in an urban township in the Eastern Cape. The data revealed that the teachers‟ responses could be categorised into four broad themes, namely CAPS itself, the learners in relation to CAPS, the teacher in relation to CAPS and the Department of Education in relation to CAPS. Despite several frustrations and uncertainties, it was clear that the teachers wanted to assume agency as they expressed a commitment towards change and a willingness to implement CAPS to the best of their ability. This study however concludes that the FET teachers who participated struggled to assume full agency, due to restrictive and disabling conditions which are mostly beyond their control.

The purpose of this study is to present a historical account of the Dallas County Community College District and to analyze and interpret the role of the political process in the District's relations with governmental agencies and civic groups. On May 25, 1965, the voters approved a $41.5 million bond issue, established a county-wide junior college district, and appointed a seven-member Board of Trustees. Secondary accounts were consulted, but the emphasis was on such primary sources as official documents of the District, publications of the District, newspaper accounts, interviews, and relevant materials from the Office of Public Information. It may be concluded that the Dallas District is a recognized leader in the community college movement. A key to its success is that it is student- and community centered. The district has experienced a rapid and tranquil growth but there may be a greater diversity of views expressed with the change in the composition of the Board.

Tracking, or ability grouping, separates students often based on perceived academic ability based on subjective rather than objective criteria. State policies mandating objective placement criteria could increase access to advanced coursework and reduce the harmful effects of tracking. In 2018 and 2019, North Carolina enacted legislation mandating advanced mathematics placement for top-scoring students. Despite a turbulent 2019 legislative session, the policy passed unanimously in 2019. This qualitative case study draws on interviews, legislative documents, local news articles, and publicly available reports and data to explore how race and the politics of tracking influenced the legislation at key stages of the policy process. The research is intended to inform both scholarly literature in the fields of political science and public policy and provide practical insights into the educational policymaking process. Findings underscore the importance of the framing and messaging of an issue, bipartisan political relationships, and the role of the local media. Additionally, by examining the use of a race-neutral framing in the political messaging and policy formulation, the study sheds light on the tension between incremental progress through meritocratic ideals of promotion and access rather than directly addressing systemic educational inequality inherent in systems of tracking.

Over the last four decades, there has been a significant increase in public-private education partnerships (PPPs). However, rather than reflecting the traditional PPP model where the private sector contributes resources to fulfill public policy agendas, businesses and philanthropies are partnering with urban schools to pursue their goals for reforming public education policy. With billions of dollars being spent by organizations like Microsoft, Meta, the Broad Foundation, and Bloomberg philanthropies on major initiatives to reform public education through teacher training and core curricular Changes, there has been surprisingly little research on the public-private partnership model itself and its impact on education policy. This dissertation intends to address this research gap by considering how public-private partnerships have been traditionally defined and explained in public policy and political science; what has Changed in the structure and purpose of public-private partnerships in education; how do we define and understand an educational public-private partnership in the current context; how do we determine what makes public-private partnerships successful; and based on this new definition, how do we understand their impact on educational public policy priorities? The dissertation aims to accomplish the following: 1) Discuss the existing public policy and political science literature on public-private partnerships. 2) Use anecdotal evidence, research literature, and news reporting to propose a framework for what public-private partnerships in education entail now and what their outcomes appear to be. 3) Identify key performance indicators (KPIs) of success from that literature and test their relevance to the success of current educational PPPs – towards formalizing a new theoretical definition and future guide for applied research. 4) Use both quantitative and qualitative research methods on a sample of partnerships which have already been documented either through original research or third party analytical and narrative reports to analyze and define those key performance indicators which are relevant to current educational PPPs. 5) Through analysis of the intended and actual outcomes of those PPP cases used in previous analysis, demonstrate how current educational PPPs are now both formulating and implementing policy. The importance of this finding is related to debates about the purpose of public education, the definition of public goods, and democratic accountability. 6) Identify the gap between the existing theoretical definition of PPPs and the derived newly proposed framework and the implications for theory, practice and policy. 7) Through a synthesis of the above items, construct an original method and tool for how to form and assess these partnerships for successful outcomes, as well as effective policy.  Applied Qualitative Research The third paper utilizes data from the quantitative research of paper 2 and builds and expands on the findings by using a qualitative methodology to analyze cases which have a more robust narrative. The cases I consider are Bloomberg philanthropies Global Scholars and Mark Zuckerberg’s Newark public schools. I document the functional, political, and financial differences between the cases, as well as how the PPPs were implemented. This applied research considers the indicators which proved relevant in the prior quantitative research through a qualitative analysis of materials, reports, and interviews. Applied Quantitative Research This second paper is applied quantitative research and serves as the bridge between the literature and theory to current applications and directs the focus of the subsequent applied qualitative research in this dissertation. I take the elements identified as standard KPIs from literature and prior research studies and using the documentation from the united way portfolio I test the relevance of those existing KPIs to the current theoretical framework. The Detroit cases are ideal for this portion of the research as those cases were created as PPPs and concluded (at least as far as an initial MOU agreement) within a specific timeframe. I collected all the documentation on those partnerships and their elements using a measurement system I developed. I use a quantitative method of binary logic regression to consider, given the documented outcomes of those cases, whether there is simple significance of an indicator as it relates to a quantitative definition of success. My metric is whether more than 50% of the objectives outlined in the MOUs were successfully completed. The quantitative methodology is important, because it allows us to determine which indicators remain relevant and warrant further study. At the end of this paper the advantages and limitations of quantitative analysis will be discussed, as well as thoughts about how qualitative analysis may help further the research going forward. This serves as a bridge to the next section/chapter. The purpose of this paper is to move beyond simply identifying components of the PPPs, as was done in the second paper, to more fully articulate and define them. I also identify the variance in PPP outcomes which may come from leadership structure, organizational occupation (for profit, nonprofit, public) and other operational and political variables. This section draws heavily on my research which uses a qualitative comparative frame to analyze the BP and Zuckerberg cases. The importance of these findings, as well as the advantages and limitations of this methodology are also be discussed. Toward a Theoretical Framework for PPPs & a New Tool for Evaluation Research The third paper of the dissertation synthesizes the analysis from the previous two papers in order to integrate both sets of findings and limitations in order to better define and understand current educational PPPs. This will lead to a new proposed theory of PPPs in education, to be followed by an analytic discussion, which will rely on research I have already done. The new proposed theory will be compared to the existing theory. The empirical evidence will make clear that new forms of PPPs have been implemented that are not accounted for in the existing theory. The implications of these findings will be important for both public and private actors who will need to think about and formulate PPPs in different ways than they have been doing. Once this is explicated, I consider the implications of substituting PPPs for the traditional policymaking process, and what can reasonably be anticipated as outcomes for public goods and democratic accountability. PPPs must be understood as an alternative pathway to policymaking which most often will not include traditional policy makers, and by virtue of financial and operational conditions, will fast track educational reforms. This increase in speed and coherence of reform is likely to be accompanied by a decline in democratic accountability, which particularly as it concerns public K-12 education, may fundamentally change the nature of that specific public good, and may even extend to a larger reconceptualization in the country of the concept of public goods. The last section of the third paper moves from the theoretical to the applied. This section discusses how the research gathered and synthesized in the previous two papers contributes to an applied framework for formulating and assessing educational PPPs for rates of success. This is especially important as we can expect that there will not be a decline in educational PPPs, but rather an ever-growing prevalence of them in American public education systems. I then make the case specifically for the use of comparative-qualitative analysis as an appropriate analytic frame for an evaluation tool. The section then goes on to detail the development of this tool, which relies on the methods and findings of the previous applied research sections in the dissertation. I provide a methodology for documenting the qualitative elements to be observed through an interview protocol, as well as the methodology by which that qualitative data can be converted to a quantitative value using previously discussed key variables and then cross-assessed with other related variables, weighted, and inputted into a prescribed algorithm (using analytics frames from educational performance evaluations, quantitative regression, and machine learning prediction principles). This will produce a predictive outcome of success and a meta frame to compare and contrast different educational PPPs going forward. This aspect of the research is important, as it provides practitioners, educators, policymakers, and public and private leadership a better understanding of what in fact they are doing when attempting to formulate and implement a public private partnership; what elements they should seek to build into their partnership in order to create increased conditions for successful outcomes; and finally how as researchers, we might, in the future, have a tool to observe, track, and evaluate these partnerships to further our theoretical and applied understanding of educational policy.

Paper 1: Beyond Educational Attainment: Exploring Education Policy Predictors of Youth Voter Turnout. Individuals with higher levels of educational attainment are more likely to vote. Though this associational relationship is one of the most cited in political science, research has only recently confirmed that educational attainment increases voting. However, we still know little about which specific aspects of education matter—beyond years of formal schooling or degrees held. To advance beyond these measures, this paper explores whether state education policy variation in approaches to civics education, academic achievement, social and emotional learning, educational differentiation, and teacher resources can shed light on youth voter turnout (18 to 25 years-olds). Using state-level youth turnout data for national elections between 2010 and 2022 matched with a series of lagged education policy measures, this paper employs a series of two-way fixed effect regression models to explore whether state education policy can shape youth civic engagement. Results show that educational attainment predicts turnout at the state level, though not for young voters. Further, while most lagged measures for civic education, academic achievement, and educational differentiation exhibit no relationship with youth turnout, states with higher policy measures for social and emotional learning and education funding are consistently positively associated with higher turnout rates for youth. These findings illuminate the important dynamics of education that may shape voter turnout. Paper 2: Explaining the Gender Gap in Voting: Civic Returns to Education.In recent decades in the United States, women have outpaced men both at the ballot box and in educational attainment. Since education is closely tied to political participation, this paper considers these two trends in tandem and assesses how much of the gender gap in voting is attributable to educational differences, differential returns to education, or other, non-education related elements. Using comprehensive educational data from Massachusetts students matched with voter records, this paper employs a Blinder-Oaxaca-Kitagawa decomposition to understand how educational attainment and other educational experiences contribute to gender voting differentials. In the sample, women outvote men by 3.85 percentage points in the first possible presidential election that young people can vote in after allowing time to complete college. Results demonstrate that two-thirds of this gap in voting is due to differences in educational attainment by gender, with only some of the remaining third of variation explained by either gendered differences in educational experiences or gendered returns to these educational characteristics. These findings broadly suggest that the gender gap in voting can be explained by a rise in women’s education and that if men reached the educational levels of women, they would vote at similar rates. Paper 3: Navigating the Administrative Burdens of Voting: The Role of Education. The multitude of state election laws enacted in recent years implies a widespread acknowledgement that the “direct costs” of voting matter. Recent studies have affirmed that the costs of voting, such as those imposed by changes in election laws requiring voter identification, can reduce turnout particularly among certain groups. Other work has demonstrated laws that reduce the costs of voting do not always increase turnout. Amidst these conflicting findings, I argue that the impact of changes in the cost of voting are best understood in aggregate, as the process of voting in each state is governed by a web of overlapping laws and requirements. I further argue that increases to the direct costs of voting disproportionately impact areas with less-educated populations. Using two-way fixed effects models for county-level voter turnout in the six presidential elections between 2000 and 2020, I estimate that a standard deviation increase in the aggregate “costs of voting” decrease turnout in U.S. counties by roughly 1.3 percentage points. Additionally, interacting county education rates with changes in costs of voting show that the impacts are concentrated among counties with lower education levels—a one standard deviation increase in the cost of voting only decreases turnout by 0.86 percentage points in highly-educated counties of each state. Echoing work that shows such administrative burdens disproportionately affect less educated individuals, these findings offer suggestive evidence that increases in the costs of voting push less educated individuals out of the electorate.

This study investigated the influence of three variables on current political attitudes of secondary school adolescents at two suburban-rural high schools in the northern Virginia area. Ability, grade level, and sex were examined to determine their influence on attitude measures essential to the develoµnent of citizenship within the social studies curriculum. The Freedans Scale, Law Scale and Dogmatism Field Scale were administered to a random sample of 180 ninth and twelfth grade adolescents which was equally divided between male and female subjects. The sample was further divided by ability levels (low, average, and high) which were selected by SRA subtest scores in reading, math, language arts, and educational ability. Significant findings were discerned using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), and chi-square analysis. Group and individual differences were examined for each of the independent variables studied as they affected the dependent measures of political attitudes. One three-way and three two-way interactions were tested using the MANOVA. Only one interaction (ability by grade) was significant at the .05 level on the Dogmatism Scale. It was concluded that an increase in grade and ability levels effect lower scores on the Dogmatism Field Scale. Lower dogmatism scores effect an increase in support for the fundamental freedoms embodied in the Freedoms Scale. Sex, as a variable, was the only main effect that did not interact with ability level or grade. The mean scores of the females in the study were slightly higher than the mean scores of the males on both the Freedoms Scale and the Law Scale. These results indicated a greater support for the fundamental freedoms embodied in the Freedoms Scale and a greater respect for the law and government officials for females over males. Separate chi-square analysis of the individual responses to the questions on the Freedoms Scale and the Iaw Scale indicated a total of 21 items from the scales significantly related to ability and 17 items significantly related to grade or sex. No identifiable pattern was discernable which could be generalized into a group description of adolescent support or non-support for combinations of the various items. Curricular approaches were suggested to improve citizenship instruction in the area of political socialization and recommendations were made for future research. / Ed. D.

Summaries in Afrikaans and English / In hierdie proefskrif word die verband wat daar tussen politiek en onderwys bestaan vanuit 'n histories-pedagogiese oogpunt belig sodat daar tot grondige gevolgtrekkings gekom kan word ten opsigte van die onderwysbedeling in Suid-Afrika. Daar word aangedui dat politiek en onderwys vanaf die vroegste tye 'n vervlegting toon. Onderwys en politiek is mede-afhanklik van mekaar en het ook sekere verwagtings van mekaar. Onderwys en politiek is menslike skeppinge en as sodanig moet dit mekaar beYnvloed. In Suid-Afrika bet die onderwys vir n geruime tyd 'n krisis beleef. Sekere bevolkingsgroepe was nie tevrede met die onderwys wat bulle ontvang bet nie, terwyl ~n ander groep die onderwys doelbewus gemanipuleer bet tot voordeel van homself. Die gevolg hiervan was dat die onderwys in Suid-Afrika ernstig verpolitiseerd geraak bet en sodoende die onderwys nadelig beYnvloed bet. Om die Heropbou- en ontwikkelingsprogram van die suidAfrikaanse regering te laat slaag, is dit noodsaaklik dat daar 'n gesonde wisselwerking tussen die politiek en onderwys moet wees. Alle groepe behoort inspraak in die onderwysbelange te he en waar moontlik moet die kultuur van die betrokke groep in die onderwys eerbiedig word. Dit is egter noodsaaklik om te besef dat alle groepe deel vorm van 'n verenigde Suid-Afrika en dat die kinders onderrig moet word om tot hulle volle potensiaal te ontwikkel en tot voordeel van die staat. Die staat moet ook toesien dat onderwys ongehinderd aan al sy burgers verskaf word sonder dat party politieke belange op die voorgrond tree. / In this study the relationship that exists between education and politics is highlighted from a historical-pedagogical point of view, so that conclusions can be made regarding a future educational system for South Africa. It has been shown that politics and education are closely linked. Education and politics are dependant on one another and have certain expectations of one another. Education and politics are created by man and as such must influence each other. Education in South Africa has for some time been in a crisis. Some population groups were not satisfied with the education they received, while another group manipulated education to its own advantage. The consequence of this was that education in South Africa became politicised. This has had a negative effect on education. For the Redevelopment Program to succeed it is necessary that there is a balance between politics and education in South Africa. Each population group must have a say in its own affairs and, where possible, each group's culture must be respected. It is, however, necessary to realize that all the population groups are part of a united South Africa and that all the children must be educated to the best of their abilities and to the advantage of the state. The state, however, must ensure that education can take place without hindrance to all its people and that no political party may use education to its own benefit. / Educational Studies / D.Ed. (History of Education)

Summaries in Afrikaans and English / In hierdie proefskrif word die verband wat daar tussen politiek en onderwys bestaan vanuit 'n histories-pedagogiese oogpunt belig sodat daar tot grondige gevolgtrekkings gekom kan word ten opsigte van die onderwysbedeling in Suid-Afrika. Daar word aangedui dat politiek en onderwys vanaf die vroegste tye 'n vervlegting toon. Onderwys en politiek is mede-afhanklik van mekaar en het ook sekere verwagtings van mekaar. Onderwys en politiek is menslike skeppinge en as sodanig moet dit mekaar beYnvloed. In Suid-Afrika bet die onderwys vir n geruime tyd 'n krisis beleef. Sekere bevolkingsgroepe was nie tevrede met die onderwys wat bulle ontvang bet nie, terwyl ~n ander groep die onderwys doelbewus gemanipuleer bet tot voordeel van homself. Die gevolg hiervan was dat die onderwys in Suid-Afrika ernstig verpolitiseerd geraak bet en sodoende die onderwys nadelig beYnvloed bet. Om die Heropbou- en ontwikkelingsprogram van die suidAfrikaanse regering te laat slaag, is dit noodsaaklik dat daar 'n gesonde wisselwerking tussen die politiek en onderwys moet wees. Alle groepe behoort inspraak in die onderwysbelange te he en waar moontlik moet die kultuur van die betrokke groep in die onderwys eerbiedig word. Dit is egter noodsaaklik om te besef dat alle groepe deel vorm van 'n verenigde Suid-Afrika en dat die kinders onderrig moet word om tot hulle volle potensiaal te ontwikkel en tot voordeel van die staat. Die staat moet ook toesien dat onderwys ongehinderd aan al sy burgers verskaf word sonder dat party politieke belange op die voorgrond tree. / In this study the relationship that exists between education and politics is highlighted from a historical-pedagogical point of view, so that conclusions can be made regarding a future educational system for South Africa. It has been shown that politics and education are closely linked. Education and politics are dependant on one another and have certain expectations of one another. Education and politics are created by man and as such must influence each other. Education in South Africa has for some time been in a crisis. Some population groups were not satisfied with the education they received, while another group manipulated education to its own advantage. The consequence of this was that education in South Africa became politicised. This has had a negative effect on education. For the Redevelopment Program to succeed it is necessary that there is a balance between politics and education in South Africa. Each population group must have a say in its own affairs and, where possible, each group's culture must be respected. It is, however, necessary to realize that all the population groups are part of a united South Africa and that all the children must be educated to the best of their abilities and to the advantage of the state. The state, however, must ensure that education can take place without hindrance to all its people and that no political party may use education to its own benefit. / Educational Studies / D.Ed. (History of Education)