<p> This embedded mixed method study addresses the problems teachers have reported in believing themselves capable to implement the Common Core State Standards with students in special education. This study examines the effect professional development on implementing the Common Core State Standards had on the participating teachers' self-efficacy beliefs. The participants (N=21) in this study were drawn from a 20-day professional development for teachers based on implementing the Common Core State Standards. The instrument used in the study was the Teacher Efficacy Beliefs System-Self. Data were subject to both statistical and qualitative analysis. </p><p> The results of this study provide insight into the self-efficacy beliefs of the participants during and shortly after professional development about implementing the Common Core State Standards with students in special education. The Wilcoxon test of signed ranks revealed a significant increase in the TEB-S subscale areas of Accommodating Individual Differences and Managing Learning Routines, but not in Positive Classroom Climate. Qualitative analysis of data found both support for the statistical findings and also contradicted the statistical findings. Further qualitative analysis showed that practices presented in the professional development such as using the arts, formative assessment, and technology were effective in maintaining their teachers' self-efficacy beliefs after professional development. Factors unrelated to the professional development, such as support from administrators and colleagues and poorly working technology were not supportive in carrying over the increase in teachers' self-efficacy beliefs in implementing the Common Core State Standards with students in special education. </p><p> The study is framed by Social Cognitive Theory and organized into 5 parts. Chapter I provides an overview of the study. Chapter II includes a review of literature related to teachers' self-efficacy belief's Common Core State Standards, and professional development. Chapter III describes the methodology of the study. Chapter IV presents the results of the analysis of data. Chapter IV reports the findings of the study and presents the conclusions of the study and ideas for future research.</p>

<p> Improving the educational system has been a focus in the United States, but these reform efforts have not been as effective as intended. Educational transformation is the focus in one North Texas school district. The design of school facilities and impact of school design on reform efforts have not been extensively investigated. The current study examines and describes the process used by one school district to design an innovative elementary school and how components of the design impacted a change in behavior. Interviews were conducted with 19 members of the design committee, which included the design team, district administrators, and architects. Data collected from the interviews, as well as archival data, was entered into NVivo for Mac. The analysis revealed four overarching themes: collaboration, flexibility, sustainability, and school as a tool. These themes were evident in the design process, and in the design of the school. Data was also collected to describe the process used by the district to design the building, develop the curriculum and pedagogy used, and hire the administrators and educators for the campus. The process used design thinking to develop the design for the building. The result of the process was an award-winning innovative school building.</p><p>

<p>A teacher?s working conditions can affect his or her performance, satisfaction, how long he or she stays at a particular school site, and how long he or she stays in the profession. In order to attract and retain highly qualified teachers, working conditions need to be as optimal as possible. As demands placed upon teachers continue to increase, more needs to be studied about what constitutes optimal working conditions. The purpose of this hermeneutic, phenomenological study was to investigate the working conditions and professional beliefs of eight Southern California secondary (6th-12th grade) school teachers who had two years of teaching experience in the same content area or grade level in both a public school and a district charter school, with at least five years of consecutive full-time teaching experience, to learn more about what constituted ideal working conditions for secondary teachers. More specifically, this study, via in-depth individual interviews, invited participants to (a) describe the work conditions they experienced in a traditional setting, (b) describe the work conditions they experienced in a charter setting, (c) compare the traditional and charter school work conditions that they experienced, and (d) describe what they believe to be the ideal school work conditions for secondary teachers. This study had three conclusions related to working conditions in both traditional public and district charter secondary school settings. The first was that teaching at the secondary level is professionally challenging, in all types of environments. The second was that teachers prefer a blend of traditional public and district charter school environments. The last was that teachers like to have autonomy with opportunities to collaborate and build relationships with colleagues.

<p> This multimethod, multiphase study was designed to determine the impact of charter school reform on achievement in North Carolina. The study was designed to be an analysis of the relationship between classroom climate, interactions, and student achievement, through a complexity systems context. This methodology allowed for combined qualitative, quantitative, network analysis, and agent-based modeling to capture the simple, complicated, complex, and chaotic interactions in classrooms. The data for the study were drawn from eighth-grade mathematics teachers and students at four charter schools in a North Carolina urban area (<i>n</i> = 300). Through the analysis of data, a more detailed and nuanced picture of the relationship between classroom climate, interactions, and charter school achievement emerged. The findings suggest that teacher control and second-semester math grades are statistically significant; the higher the level of control teachers exercise, the higher students score on common core achievement. According to the findings of this study, North Carolina charter schools have served as a successful reform strategy to address the achievement gap problem in North Carolina, with school-specific strategies including high teacher support, students&rsquo; teaching students, IAP/tutoring/online supplemental program, and small classrooms. All schools, on average, scored 30.9% to 56.8% higher on grade-level proficiency (GLP) than the North Carolina 2014&ndash;2015 average. The network analysis showed how classrooms can be more or less complex in different ways with instructional, emotional support, and behavior management interactions that fit into network structures of teacher to one-student, teacher to whole class, whole class to teacher, and student to student or students. The predictive ABM, based on achievement scores over time, school achievement strategy, classroom climate, high teacher control, and second-semester math grades, demonstrated accuracy. The ABM captured macroclassroom and microstudent outcomes, along with climate changes based on interactions that either increased or reduced positive climate. This is important because a teacher has limited resources and must deal with uncontrollable influences from outside the classroom. Teachers have the power to create a positive or negative climate by their verbal and nonverbal interactions. Teachers&rsquo; interactions have consequences that impact students&rsquo; achievement and students&rsquo; lives. Consequently, every interaction matters.</p>

<p> Beginning teacher attrition is a problem that exacerbates the inequity of opportunities for all students, especially for those in schools that are already challenged by poverty. This study makes use of the <i>Beginning Teacher Longitudinal Survey</i> (covering the period between 2008 and 2012) and U.S. Census data to identify which teachers leave and to explain why. Beyond that, it also offers a look into the characteristics of those teachers who stay at the same school for five years. The empirical investigation is embedded in a conceptual framework that draws from motivation and identity theories and brings in insights about the importance of geography and of neighborhood effects from works on poverty and education.</p><p> The study utilizes a dataset with survey responses from approximately 1,800 full-time teachers from a sample designed to represent the overall population of beginning teachers in the United States. By combining individual-level longitudinal data with information about communities, it makes an important contribution to the study of new teacher placement, attrition, and retention. The evidence is presented using a variety of descriptive and inferential statistics, and the analysis includes factor analysis and logistic regression models. </p><p> The results show that indicators of leaving the profession before the fifth year become apparent early on, as factors measured at the end of year one have significant effects on early career outcomes. Most prominently, higher degrees of burnout reported by teachers, which includes factors such as decreased enthusiasm and increased fatigue, are associated with increased risks for leaving the profession without the prospect to return to it and with transferring to a different school district. Several other factors on the individual and school-level emerge as relevant to career outcomes. Teachers who have Highly Qualified Teacher credentials and report a supportive school climate are at less risk to leave the profession. On the other hand, teachers with alternative certification and master&rsquo;s degrees are more likely to move to a different school or districts in the first five years.</p><p> In terms of socio-geographic factors that help explain teacher retention and attrition, the only significant variable in the regression models used in the analysis is the percentage of White residents at the Census tract of the Year 1 school. When everything else is held constant, decreasing this percentage from 100 to 0 increases the predicted probability of leaving the profession by approximately 20%. Considering that a vast majority of beginning teachers both in the sample and in the overall population are White, this findings fits in with theories about &ldquo;the pull of home&rdquo; and cultural habitus. The magnitude and significance of this finding suggest that it warrants further exploration, as racial composition of the communities is likely a measurement proxy for complex processes of inequality.</p>

<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> 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>

<p> This mixed methods, case study research examined the teacher education program at Illinois State University (ISU-Normal, Illinois) as related to the views and assessment practices of the dispositions of its teacher candidates. Five years of quantitative and qualitative data from ISU&rsquo;s Disposition Concern form was collected and analyzed currently and formulated the basis for a sequential qualitative study through interviews in order to gain a more holistic picture of dispositions and the dispositional process at this university. In teacher education, content knowledge and pedagogical skills are easier to teach and assess than the subjective nature of dispositions. This grounded theory study found that the very system that views and assess dispositions of teacher candidates may augment the subjectivity of dispositions and its essentials for &ldquo;responsive&rdquo; (Thornton, 2006) teaching which systematically should include clear definitions, assessment practices, communication, and support for both faculty/staff and students.</p>

<p> Required experiential learning within the context of higher education is on the rise. This dissertation endeavors to expand current understandings of resistance to required experiential learning including root causes, implications, and opportunities to address and alleviate resistance. The debate regarding the merits of required service, service-learning, study abroad, and other experiential learning opportunities is examined. In addition, access to such opportunities, causes and effects of resistance that develops for some participants, and ways of addressing this phenomenon are identified. To this end, an exploration of existing literature related to required experiential learning and reluctant participation is offered. In addition to a case study of Susquehanna University&rsquo;s Global Opportunities program, data for this study was gathered through research methods including focus groups and semi-structured, open-ended interview. Findings reveal a variety of causes of resistance, why resistance manifests for some students prior to required study away, and strategies that practitioners in the field of experiential education employ to address such resistance.</p>