This dissertation project is concerned with corruption in higher education as a newly emerging topic in the field of education research. In this study, I defined corruption in higher education and developed a conceptual ground for further methodological developments and empirical research focused on different aspects of corruption in higher education and the development of measurements and indicators of its prevalence in higher education. Based on the analysis of media reports, legal cases, and other records, I compared corruption in higher education sectors in the Russian Federation and the United States of America, identified differences, and predicted future possible partial convergence in forms of corruption. I disclosed positive role of the state in developing and sustaining corruption in higher education. I identified three major organizational structures with corruption, including the vertical structure, the horizontal structure, and the vertical hierarchy. Finally, I presented cellular automation as a new methodology to study misconduct in large educational organizations, and used simulation to model behavior of educators, including factors that influence their decision-making.

This project uses a large multi-state dataset to address three aspects of the relationship between tracking and student achievement that have been understudied. Chapter II establishes that rigorous instruction is substantially more common in high track classes. Rigorous instruction is defined as teaching that emphasizes justification and reasoning, and thus this gap between track levels represents a rationing of high status knowledge. However, this type of instruction only mediates a small proportion of the relationship between track level and achievement on state achievement tests. Chapter III finds that a developmental view of ability is significantly associated with student achievement. This conception of ability sees all students as capable of rigorous mathematics with the correct supports. Students in untracked settings whose teachers describe continuing to include low-achieving students in rigorous mathematics are predicted to out-score tracked students. Chapter IV shows that one support for low-achieving students outside the regular classroom, double dose instruction, can actually negatively impact their achievement, depending on the characteristics of the program. While some characteristics were associated with positive student achievement, only four schools employed these characteristics. In conclusion, I argue that each of these analyses provides a small window into policy and research direction for the future. If schools wish to support all students to succeed, they must emphasize rigorous mathematics not just among the highest-achieving, advocate for a developmental view of ability that sees all students as capable of success in this type of mathematics, and consider how the implementation of supports for students can be as important as the adoption of the supports as policy.

The gaps in achievement and attainment between races and classes have long vexed our educational system, with the former remaining stubbornly stable and the latter growing in recent decades. Researchers consistently conclude that these gaps mostly form before school and during the summer as the result of a vast array of out-of-school influences, but policy has primarily aimed to change what happens inside schools. I argue that aiming instead to mitigate the effects of factors/conditions experienced outside of school may offer a better solution. I review and evaluate the evidence linking 21 different factors/conditions disproportionately experienced by those living in urban poverty with academic performance. Overall, strong evidence supports the theory that policy could alter 12 of the factors/conditions in ways that would subsequently improve the academic performance of students living in urban poverty and narrow the achievement gap. In all, 19 are supported by at least moderately strong evidence. I select two of those --homeownership and stress - for comprehensive synthesis and in-depth review. The literature bases of both offer compelling cases that increasing homeownership and reducing stressors can narrow the achievement gap, but empirical evidence is mixed for the former and scattered for the latter. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

The study examines the determining factors that drive states to adopt and terminate performance funding policies for public higher education. I use four theoretical frameworksthe Electoral Connection, Political Environment, Policy Diffusion, and Principal-agent framesto study the entire performance funding policy lifecycle across 47 states from 1979-2009. I employ the Cox proportional hazards model modified to account for multiple repeatable events. I find that the following state-level factors determine the evolution of performance funding: increases in public enrollment; the extent of the Republican presence in the state legislature; the number of, and distance to, sustainable policy examples in other states; the type of state governance arrangements for higher education; and the mode of the policy initiation.

This dissertation reports results of five studies designed to assess the validity of the VaNTH Observation System (VOS), which was developed to assess the implementation of How People Learn (HPL) (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999) framework innovations within the VaNTH Engineering Research Center. The content, convergent, and criterion-related validity of the Classroom Interaction Observation (CIO) and the content validity of the Global Ratings (GR) portions of the VOS were examined. For the CIO content validity study, the percent agreement between eleven educational experts and VOS observers classification of four individual HPL dimensions within twenty vignettes ranged from 68.2% to 78.6% at the least stringent level of analysis and was lower (25%) for HPL dimension combinations embedded in the vignettes. The GR content validity study revealed that content coverage is incomplete within the current GR. Data from the same eleven experts suggested that thirteen GR indicators could be grouped into subscales representing (1) knowledge-centeredness (Alpha = 0.59), (2) knowledge- and learner-centeredness (Alpha = 0.75), (3) knowledge-, learner-, and assessment-centeredness (Alpha = 0.91), and (4) learner- and assessment-centeredness (Alpha = 0.74). Two studies assessed the convergent validity of alternative methods of scoring and gathering CIO-based data. In the first convergent validity study, an HPL Index that used entire CIO code strings to calculate the amount of HPL instruction in classes was developed. The results from the Index were compared to the results derived by summing the percentage of instruction devoted to the four HPL dimensions (i.e., the current CIO assessment method). The comparison revealed that both indices index the degree of HPLness in a class (r = 0.79). The HPL Index, however, provides a more meaningful summary of the amount of HPL instruction in a class than the current method. In the second convergent validity study, an alternate CIO data gathering method showed similar instructional profiles, suggesting that the current method of data gathering accurately reflects the amount and type of interactions that transpire in a class. The final study confirms that the HPL Index distinguishes pedagogy in known HPL and non-HPL (traditional) courses. Implications of the findings are discussed.

As states continue to implement merit-based financial aid programs, despite the well reported social ills of such programs, the research literature is surprisingly void of any systematic consideration of how states determine eligibility criteria for these scholarships. The purpose of this dissertation is to deepen the descriptive and conceptual understanding of the process by which states determine merit aid scholarship criteria. Three theories of the public policy processadvocacy coalition framework (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1993), multiple streams (Kingdon, 1995; Zahariadis, 2003), and electoral connection (Fenno, 1978; Mayhew, 1974)guide this comparative case study of three states adoption of broad-based merit aid programs: New Mexico, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Data collected from archival sources and from interviews with fifty-six key policy actors are analyzed by employing deductive pattern matching techniques and by testing theoretical propositions through an inductive analytical framework. A revised multiple streams model of scholarship criteria determination is presented based on the studys seven key findings: (1) multiple streams offers the highest explanatory power of the three frameworks; (2) state government and higher education system organizational structures affect the policy process through which policy alternatives are considered and adopted; (3) the availability of technical information increases temporally as a result of the diffusion of policy alternatives; (4) non-elected issue experts can have a stabilizing effect on the policy process; (5) the electoral connection of legislators and governors guides their policy preferences; (6) individual policy actors exert overwhelming influence over the policy process; and, (7) ambiguity and serendipity characterize the eligibility criteria determination process. The implications for future research and for policy-practitioners include conceptual and theoretical considerations for the political dynamics of the policy process and the rising trend of higher education interests entering the political fray of the policymaking process.

This study uses a theoretical model of education finance adequacy that combines the concept of qualitative and quantitative adequacy described by Ladd and Hansen with the concept of differing student needs addressed by Wise. It also employs three measures of judicial beliefs or predispositions regarding schools role in society, student entitlements and resources. In the nine cases subject to this analysis, there was a consistent relationship between judicial beliefs and adequacy remedies. Judges with higher belief scores ordered larger education finance adequacy remedies. This study confirms suspicions expressed by Thro, and it expands on studies of education finance litigation conducted by Lundberg and Swenson. That judicial beliefs, rather than constitutional wording, precedent, or history, are consistently related to the outcomes of education finance cases has important implications for American representative democracy.

This study examines the social contexts of school zones over time and their influence on student participation and engagement in schools. As one Southeastern school district transitioned from court-ordered busing to unitary status, schools were rezoned with an emphasis on sending children to schools that were closer to their homes. As a result, many schools became more racially and socioeconomically homogeneous than they were during the desegregation era. In this dissertation I explore the impacts of these ever-changing social contexts on student outcomes. I find that the social contexts of school attendance zones are influential in predicting student participation and engagement in schools. I also find that these effects are mediated by full service schools designed to assist students living in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods.

This paper makes use of an investment-style portfolio model to prospectively evaluate different options for Tennessees state tax system. Tax reform plans proposed by the Tennessee Tax Structure Study Commission are analyzed, along with the current system, to see how well they balance the competing goals of revenue growth and revenue stability. Using an optimization model, the different tax systems are evaluated by comparing them to systems using the same tax options that exhibit minimal deviations of actual revenue around expected revenue while maintaining the largest possible growth rates. These results are further analyzed on the basis of equity, efficiency, competitiveness, and simplicity to create overall policy recommendations.

This thesis explores the usefulness of micropolitical theory to explain and predict teacher reaction to performance pay incentives. Drawing from the research traditions of rationalism, culturalism and structuralism, a micropolitical approach to analyzing education reform focuses attention on the ability of individuals (in this case, teachers) to respond rationally to incentives within a school context marked by certain structural and cultural constraints. Exploring the theoretical base for this educational reform shines light on the value of the micropolitical perspective while explaining how rational, cultural and structural elements of schooling interact to shape teacher behavior in pay-for-performance programs. Teacher response to performance pay incentives are first analyzed through rational, cultural and structural lenses. Then, the theory of teacher motivation is presented as an amalgamation of these three research traditions and thus, as an example of a micropolitical perspective. The case is made that this hybrid theoretical approach to understanding teacher behavior within pay-for-performance programs is stronger, and ultimately more useful, than the application of any one theory in isolation.