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In an effort to address diverse needs in K-12 education, policymakers have proposed initiatives to increase the leadership opportunities for classroom teachers. Although teachers have undertaken leadership roles in schools throughout history, the notion of teacher leadership spurred by policy is in the emergent stages. As educators and leaders in various roles implement teacher leadership policy, learning must ensue at both an individual and collective level to adapt schools to a new model of leadership. This study examined how district-level teacher leader coordinators in one Iowa region came to understand their role as leaders. A case study approach illuminated the experience of these individuals as Iowa teacher leadership policy was initially implemented. Data were collected through the use of interviews, observations, and document reviews. Participants included district-level teacher leader coordinators and regional leaders supporting teacher leadership to gain insights from multiple levels of policy implementation. The findings of this study identified themes for sensemaking and leading within the teacher leader coordinator’s role. The study revealed that coordinators were guided in learning their new teacher leadership roles through both formal policy guidance and informal interactions with leaders and peers. Coordinators enacted their leadership roles in a bridge building capacity, linking other teacher leaders to resources and modeling leadership processes and actions.

The California State Legislature passed Assembly Bill 97 in June 2013 and Governor Brown signed it into law on July 1, 2013. The legislation created the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) and the Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP). The LCFF changed the way that school districts in California receive education funding from the state, shifting from a complex categorical program towards a per-pupil based formula. Furthermore, school districts receive “supplemental” and “concentration” funds based on the number of English learners, low-income students and foster youth in the district. The LCAP is a key component of this new funding system and requires that school districts create an accountability document showing how they intend to allocate funds and how they propose to track student outcomes. The 2014-15 academic year was the first full-year of policy implementation, and this thesis investigates how districts around the state created their LCAP. Drawing from research reports, press coverage, and a case study of Claremont Unified School District, this investigation finds that the LCAP has the potential to make the California public education system more equitable and adequate.

This research responds to the problem of minority teacher under-representation within North America’s increasingly diverse urban school systems. It weaves together what is known about educational equity, teacher education admission policy, and policy implementation to explore the research question, “How did equity-based admission policy shape candidate diversification in an urban Canadian teacher education program?” The conceptual framework grounds this study within organizational culture and describes how culture both shapes and is shaped by interactions between structure and agency. The conceptual question asks, “How did institutional norms and individual will work to support or constrain equitable candidate diversification?” Data collection occurred during private interviews with members of three organizational groups: Policymakers, policy implementers, and policy beneficiaries. Policymakers were senior administrators with several years’ experience in their respective positions. Policy implementers were admission personnel, ad hoc faculty, and field-based educators. The policy beneficiaries were candidates who self-identified as future French and Physics teachers, and as members of Aboriginal, Disabled, Gendered/Invisible, and Racialized/Visible minorities. Data analysis was an iterative process of applying demographic, thematic, and editorial coding to the interview transcripts. Discussion highlighted several themes that shaped the admission process: External admission policy context, Faculty of Education Equity Policy, admission policy instrumentation, qualification precedence and weighting, academic qualifications, non-academic identity-based and experience-based qualifications, admission policy gaps, and last-minute Policy disclosure. It also addressed admission personnel recruitment, training, and performance during candidate personal information form assessment. Significant findings emerged in the areas of preservice program partnerships, candidate support services, qualification transparency, labeling of identity-based candidate characteristics, and admission personnel training. Research applicability extends to consecutive and concurrent teacher education programs, other tertiary professional licensing programs, and multi-site qualitative research projects. Recommendations for policy and practice target teacher education admission, policy implementation, and equity policy development.

<p>Botswana's population and water demand are growing at a high rate particularly in the dry south eastern part of the country. In 1999, a Water Conservation Policy and Strategy framework document was formulated to guide a transition from a supply driven water management approach to water demand management. This study investigated whether there was a disparity between the framework policy and strategy recommendations and their actual implementation.</p>

This thesis explores the process of implementation of the FA's Charter Standard scheme in England. The football development scheme, for schools and clubs, is the first nationally led initiative to attempt instantiate structures and minimum standards of practice at the junior level of football in England. Implementation of the scheme has taken place within the context of New Labour s modernising drive for sport. Moreover, the area of grassroots football has escaped any sustained analysis in academia. Therefore, the thesis aims to provide insights into this area and re-dress the balance somewhat from the pre-occupation of analysing the elite levels of the game. The nature of implementation is complex and multi-faceted, and a primary aim of the study is to identify and analyse the dynamics of implementation in three distinct geographical areas (or clusters) of grassroots football. The study focuses on the meso level of analysis, which centres on the structures and dynamics of relationships between County FA personnel, grassroots football volunteers, teachers and sport development professionals whose responsibility it is to implement the Charter Standard. The macro level of analysis is also briefly considered, where the primary concern is to highlight how such individuals are constrained or facilitated in implementing the Charter Standard, and the relative positions of power they occupy. A qualitative methodology is utilised to elicit data in respect of implementation, generating themes and issues specific to each of the three case studies (or clusters), allowing for general comparisons. Within the case study approach, the dialectical approach to policy networks is applied to provide a framework in which to analyse and discuss theories and processes of implementation. This has proved useful in highlighting conflict and ambiguity between individuals regarding the ethos, and criteria within, FA Charter Standard criteria. Indeed, it is evident that implementing the Charter Standard is problematic for both professionals and volunteers within the context of modernisation. The study concludes by noting changes in the practice of grassroots football. Volunteers have been drawn into football development work which has altered their experience from a largely spontaneous, leisurely activity of choice, to one in which they are expected to conform to professionalised practices in order to implement, and gain Charter Standard accreditation for their club or school.

In 2013, one of the largest community college districts in the nation set forth a set of policies intended to improve the persistence and academic achievement of its sizable student population. Policies such as a new student orientation, course placement testing, and academic advising were now required of all first-time students who had their sights set on a degree or transfer to a four-year institution. One policy, however, was only applicable to those students who failed to demonstrate preparedness in the areas of reading, math, or English. For this cohort of students, an additional student success course was mandated that was intended to give these students the academic skills and confidence to persist that they were presumed to lack. While the student success course had been available in the district since the 1980s, it had never been a required course in the district even though many other higher education institutions had adopted it as such. There was no clear rationale as to why this course needed to be required starting in 2013, or why it was being required only of underprepared students. Further, little in the way of preparation occurred or resources provided to ensure the smooth and complete implementation throughout the ten-college district and there were no plans to evaluate the course's effectiveness other than measure each college's compliance to the policy. Thus the stage was set for a multi-lensed analysis of an entire policy lifecycle rather than the typical summative assessment of a policy's implementation. From formation to implementation to effectiveness, this single policy intervention in a single community college district is evaluated formatively. While each substantive formative analysis' content could stand alone, it is the intent of this dissertation to suggest and demonstrate that all are necessary for a complete evaluation of an educational policy.

Magister Administrationis - MAdmin / The generation of large volumes of solid and liquid wastes in urban and periurban areas of Ghana is a big problem for the people and government of Ghana. It contributes to the outbreak of many diseases in the country such as malaria, diarrhoea and typhoid fever. In managing the situation, a new concept called ecological sanitation (ecosan), which focuses on reuse of waste, has been introduced in the country. The objectives of the thesis were to criticise the environmental sanitation policy by analysing its content in relation to policy implementation arrangements, to discuss programmes and projects identified under the policy, to critically examine the implementation of an ecosan project as a way of achieving the goal and objectives by outlining its implementation processes, prospects and challenges, and to make appropriate recommendations. The analysis and discussion of the thesis were based on both primary and secondary data. The primary data, on one hand, were collected on the prospects and challenges that exist in the implementation of ecosan projects from Kumasi metropolis. The secondary data, on the other hand, were from books, journals and websites. From the research analysis, it emerged that the policy allows the implementation of many sanitation projects including ecosan. Secondly, stakeholders see ecosanto be a good approach to reduce waste generation in the country. However, the main challenges that exist in promoting the concept are inadequate financial support, unavailability of implementation guidelines and lack of knowledge about concept details. It is therefore argued that financial support, implementation guidelines and awareness-creation activities should be available in the implementation of ecosan in the metropolis. Government, private organisations, companies and individuals should each contribute their quota in the support and processes. / South Africa

Magister Artium - MA / Youth unemployment has become a national crisis in South Africa. The South African government has put policies in place to combat this challenge. Among the policies that have been implemented to address the problem of unemployment, is the National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS). The purpose of this study is to analyse the implementation of the NSDS by using the Department of Correctional Services (DSC) as a case study. The study explores the importance of public policy monitoring and evaluation within the DCS. This study analysed the implementation of the NSDS by looking at the Five C’s approach to implementation. The Five C’s (content, context, commitment, clients and coalitions, capacity) which also formed part of the literature review and theoretical framework. The Five C’s will form the basis of selection and assessing the implementation of the NSDS in the DCS and its subsequent monitoring and evaluation. The researcher used a triangulation approach as a research technique, which means that the researcher utilized different methods in collecting data. The research used DCS as a case study, and also made use of academic journals, government reports and policies.

Thesis advisor: Rebecca Lowenhaupt / This single case study examines how stakeholders of a local education agency (LEA) understand and implement state turnaround policy for its chronically underperforming schools. While there is ample research on how to improve chronically underperforming schools, that research becomes limited when looking at turnaround implementation actions that are in response to policy mandates. This qualitative study uses the theory frame of policy sense-making to identify how implementers come to understand turnaround policy and to explore how that sense-making impacts their implementation decisions. Focusing on school leaders as turnaround policy implementers, this research considers how school leaders come to understand their work of turning around a chronically underperforming school in the context of responding to policy mandates. Research findings, which emerged from Interviews, observations, and policy analysis, reveal that school leaders in this LEA are engaged in sense-making of turnaround policy and practice, which informs their decisions about how to implement turnaround. School leaders begin by asking questions about the policy requirements which center on decisions about how to organize staff and utilize resources. Yet, findings show that their sense-making goes beyond policy requirements to other areas of turnaround work. Namely, they also make sense of the data, which plays a prevalent role in turnaround in that it informs how school leaders diagnose the school's strengths and weaknesses. School leaders then consider the leadership practices that would effectively raise achievement in the school. Findings also show that how school leaders make sense of these areas is influenced by their communication with other stakeholders, their background knowledge and experience in turnaround, and the context of the school. These findings lead to the recommendations to increase communication that focuses on facilitation of sense-making, to communicate a transparent process about how decisions about resource distribution are made across the LEA, to build capacity around data analysis throughout the LEA, and to communicate a vision of turnaround leadership for the LEA. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.