This dissertation uses survey data and administrative data to explore persistent barriers in access to education. The first chapter explores how constraints on credit supply can impact the level and distribution of higher education, including access to selective and 4-year colleges. I exploit a 2003 Texas constitutional amendment that provided plausibly exogenous variation in access to home lending markets for Texas homeowners, without affecting credit access for renters, or homeowners in other states. By comparing outcomes between groups, I show that this led Texas homeowners to send their children to more selective colleges and spend $4,500 more in tuition (net-of-aid) per line of credit. In the presence of college supply constraints, homeowners’ increased demand for institutions higher in the college selectivity hierarchy forced some renters to attend less selective colleges, and others to forgo college altogether instead of attending less selective colleges. In addition, selective colleges capture some of the private credit supply shock through price-discrimination, raising tuition and shifting aid towards remaining renters. On net, the availability of home equity financing reinforced gaps in access to higher education. These results inform our understanding of how inequality in college access is generated and transmitted from parent to child: the availability of home equity credit reinforces gaps between homeowning and renting families, and it does so through two distinct mechanisms. First, constraints in credit access are relaxed for homeowners, allowing them to ascend the college quality hierarchy. Second, due to college supply constraints, the gains to homeowners crowd out some renters from making otherwise privately optimal investments. By documenting important distributional effects on renters, this paper informs our interpretation of previous research: increases in college choice for one group may come in part at the expense of another group. The results of the first chapter also demonstrate how the more selective colleges are able to capture some of the gains from cheaper credit by price-discriminating by homeownership status. The net effects of subsidized home lending markets and federal aid policy on college access are not immediately clear: on one hand, homeowners are sending their children to better colleges, but they are paying higher net prices at these colleges than they would in the absence of the private credit supply shock. On the other hand, tuition increases for renters who remain enrolled at selective colleges are offset by increases in institutional aid, but some renters are pushed down the college quality hierarchy and displaced from college altogether. The relationship between housing markets and access to higher education is also explored in chapter three, which examines the effect of metropolitan house price shocks on college enrollment patterns across cities. This chapter begins by presenting a simple theoretical model to illustrate the mechanisms through which parental housing wealth can ease educational borrowing constraints for their children. The model highlights how house price growth can reinforce inequality in future generations: increases in the value of parental housing collateral can ease educational borrowing constraints for children, but the indivisibility in owner-occupied housing limits exposure to this externality to higher-income families. The second part of this chapter presents estimates of the relationship between house price shocks and changes in college enrollment at the MSA level. The empirical results confirm that house price growth leads to higher college enrollment rates (and vice versa for declining house prices), but these effects are concentrated in metropolitan areas with lower house price levels. There is only weak evidence that house price growth leads to increases in housing-related employment among college-aged individuals. The second chapter of this dissertation examines the effect of policies used to reclassify non-native English speakers (English Learners, or ELs) in the Oakland Unified School District into mainstream classes. Despite a heightened policy debate surrounding appropriate instructional policies for the large and growing number of non-native English speaking students nationwide, policymakers have limited causal research available on the effects of reclassification policy. This paper addresses some of the gaps in the empirical literature on reclassification by exploiting exogenous variation in the probability of reclassification introduced by the multiple criteria students must meet to be eligible for reclassification. It begins with a conventional regression discontinuity (RD) design that estimates the short and long-term effects of reclassification for non-native English speakers who have met all reclassification criteria except potentially one. These students exhibit large jumps in the probability of reclassification around relevant test score cutoffs. The RD estimates suggest that reclassification has very limited effects on students at the margin, but that the timing of reclassification may indeed matter, though not necessarily through effects on student learning. There is some suggestive evidence of increases in SAT-taking and four-year college enrollment, but limited statistical power prevents definitive conclusions regarding small changes in long-term outcomes. Motivated by the limitations inherent to RD designs that estimate treatment effects for students at relevant cutoffs, chapter two also presents an extension to the conventional RD design in order to draw conclusions about the effects of reclassification for students whose reclassification scores place them well above the cutoff. The framework we present exploits the fact that some students who meet the first cutoff will remain untreated due to being below the cutoff for a second running variable. These untreated students provide additional information on the relationship between reclassification test scores and outcomes, which can then be used to inform our expectation of counterfactual outcomes for reclassified students in the absence of reclassification. More specifically, we can use this information for EL students who were not reclassified to estimate outcomes for reclassified students in the absence of reclassification under a straightforward separability assumption that can be examined in the data. We show this assumption holds in the data, before estimating the relationship between outcomes and reclassification test scores for non-reclassified students and then using these estimates to predict outcomes for reclassified students in the absence of reclassification. Estimates of the effect of reclassification for any score above the cutoff can then be obtained by comparing the prediction to the observed value for reclassified students. Beyond the immediate application to reclassification policy in Oakland Unified, the framework we introduce for estimating treatment effects above the cutoff can apply to any setting where treatment status is based on multiple criteria. The resulting estimates imply that for all students in elementary school who were above the cutoffs, the average effect of reclassification into mainstream classes on English language arts (ELA) scores is a 0.182 standard deviation increase in their ELA score in the following year. These results imply that the CST ELA cutoff should not be raised for students in grades 3 through 5, as benefits accrue to students above the current cutoffs and in mainstream classrooms. Without knowing how students below the current cutoff are impacted by reclassification, however, we cannot say whether policymakers should consider lowering the criteria.

This dissertation examines philanthropic foundation grant making for early childhood and K-12 education policy in the period 1988 to 2005, focusing on how grant making changed as a result of the Charlottesville Summit in 1989 and the passage of No Child Left Behind in 2001. Using a rational choice frame, I specifically ask if foundations responded to changes in the education policy environment that resulted from those 2 events by changing the levels of government that they target in their education policy grant making. Then, using an institutional frame, I ask if foundation capacity, as measured by their asset size and board size, increases the likelihood of being a foundation that focuses on policy grant making for education and increases the speed of response to changes in the field of foundations and the broader policy environment. Lastly, I employ the organizational ecology frame to ask if foundations have responded to changes in the organizational field of foundations, as the result of the entrance of new foundations that are influenced by broad changes in the business world, to focus their grant making increasingly on advocacy and other policy work. I find that there are a number of foundation characteristics that are associated with the odds of being a policy foundation and with the proportion of grants that policy foundations make for policy activities. I find that overall, following the Charlottesville Summit state targeted grantmaking decreased while nationally (affecting many if not all states) and federally targeted grantmaking rose. And, following the implementation of No Child Left Behind, locally targeted, state targeted and federally targeted grantmaking all increased as a percentage of total policy grantmaking, while nationally targeted grantmaking declined. However, these overall trends obscure important differences between the largest and non-largest foundations. Lastly, I find that grant recipient types also varied by foundation asset size. I conclude that while there is evidence to suggest that foundations behave as rational actors, to some degree, they are less responsive to isomorphic pressures from within the field of foundations than I would have expected. Additionally, rather than seeing tremendous change among the older foundations, the entrance of new foundations into the field of education philanthropy seems to be responsible for the perception that the field has changed dramatically.

This project uses a mixed methods approach to analyze the communication of metaphors about educational equity and adequacy, between co-equal state supreme courts in education finance litigation (1971-present). Evidence demonstrates that a number of pervasive metaphors about students and educational opportunities (“sound basic education,” “marketplace of ideas,” students as “competitors in the global economy”) have been shared and conventionalized within judicial networks, with significant implications for how courts interpret educational rights under state constitutions. The project first conducts a qualitative discourse analysis of education finance litigation in New York State (four cases) using Pragglejaz Group’s (2007) Metaphor Identification Procedure, to identify micro-level examples of metaphor usage in actual judicial discourse. Then, it performs quantitative and qualitative social network analysis of the entire education finance judicial network for state supreme courts (65 cases), to analyze two different “relations” between this set of actors: shared citation (formal relation) and shared metaphor (informal relation). Data analysis shows that there exist both formal and informal channels of judicial communication—communication we can “see,” and communication we can’t—and commonalities in discursive strategies (informal ties) are, in some ways, potentially more cohesive than direct, formal ties. The project also finds that courts looking to break with existing state precedent are more likely to turn to inter-court metaphors to validate their holdings. This project seeks to describe how metaphors become diffuse within judicial networks, and more generally seeks to enhance understanding of the ways in which political viewpoints on public benefits and rights are communicated through elite channels.

The issue of low community college retention and completion rates has become an important concern in recent years. The lack of persistence among college students has led to a variety of institutional initiatives including first-year experience courses, intrusive advising, and other innovative approaches. Among these approaches, First-Year Experience (FYE) courses are consistently supported as a promising retention strategy. To that end, the purpose of this mixed-method study was to investigate the motivation and first-year experience of students who participated in a Grit and Growth Mindset themed FYE course and persisted beyond the first year. Survey data were collected from 122 students and focus group interviews were conducted with 10 students at a large community college in southeast Florida. The survey data analyses using Independent Samples T-test, ANOVA, and Correlation showed that female students and older students reported a higher level of motivation than male and younger students, but there was no statistically significant difference in their motivation level by race/ethnicity. The focus group interviews revealed that students found three aspects of the FYE course influential to their motivation: (1) short-term and long-term goal setting, (2) self-reflection, and (3) support and resources. They also reported that time management strategies and supports from professors, peers, and family helped them overcome their challenges associated with balancing jobs and coursework, as well as anxiety and nervousness about their ability to complete college. An important implication of this study is for community colleges to continue emphasizing FYE courses to ensure that incoming students feel confident about their ability to achieve success during the first year and persist by overcoming obstacles. In addition, colleges should continue to equip students with practical tools and resources, such as time-management and the SMART goal framework, that support their competence and autonomy in charting their path to success. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education. / Spring Semester 2019. / March 14, 2019. / Community Colleges, First-Year Experience, Grit, Growth Mindset, Motivation, Retention / Includes bibliographical references. / Motoko Akiba, Professor Directing Dissertation; Stephen D. McDowell, University Representative; Ayesha Khurshid, Committee Member; Stephanie Simmons Zuilkowski, Committee Member.

Thesis (M.Ed. (Education Management and Policy Studies))-University of Pretoria, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2007. / Title from title screen (site viewed Dec. 5, 2007). PDF text: 151 p. ; 7 Mb. UMI publication number: AAT 3275078. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on December 13, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 1984. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 176-185). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center.

The purpose of the study was to compare the school climate in three secondary schools whose personnel had gone through a formalized group planning process with the school climate in three secondary schools whose personnel had not participated in a formalized group planning process. The certificated staffs of the three secondary schools which had completed the formalized group planning process were identified as the intervention group. The certificated staffs of the three secondary schools which had not participated in the formalized group planning process were identified as the control group. The intervention group and control group were chosen on the basis of similar student populations.The certificated staffs of the six schools responded to the abridged Discipline Context Inventory. Data from the instrument provided an overall school climate score as well as scores for eight subfactors within school climate.Nine null hypotheses were formulated. The null hypothesis regarding overall school climate was tested using the Hotelling T2 statistic. Eight null hypotheses relating to each of the subfactors of the instrument were tested using a t-test statistic. All tests used the .05 level of significance. The null hypothesis for the overall school climate was rejected. There was a significant difference in overall school climate between the two groups. The control group had the higher overall school climate score. No significant difference existed between the two groups on five subfactors: problem-solving and decision-making; distribution of authority and status; student belongingness; curriculum and instructional practices; dealing with personal problems. The hypotheses for three subfactors were rejected. The control group scored significantly higher in the subfactor developing and implementing rules. The intervention group scored significantly higher in the subfactors relationships with parents and other community members and physical environment.

The purpose of the study was to examine the existing similarities and differences in the organizational and operational structure among the eight school study councils currently in operation in the state of Indiana. The operational structure for the eight school study councils was described by means of personal interviews and a search of existing study council files.The first School Study Council in Indiana was founded in 1961; the most recent became operational in 1977. Presently, eight councils are operational in Indiana. Six study councils are headquartered at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana; the remaining two are headquartered at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.The School Study Councils in Indiana claimed a combined membership of 135 public school corporations and represented slightly over 44.5 percent of all the public school corporations in the state. The smallest study council consisted of 10 school corporations whereas the largest study council was composed of 27 school corporations. Decisions made in a School Study Council setting in Indiana potentially affect over 549,000 students and more than 23,700 teachers.Membership in a School Study Council in Indiana was determined by one of three factors: (l)-geographical proximity of member schools; (2) student enrollment of the applying school corporation; or (3) a combination thereof.Yearly operational needs of school study councils were largely subsidized by the school corporations annual dues. Annual school corporation membership dues for Indiana councilsvaried from $200.00 to $500.00 a year. The most popular means for determining membership assessment was the flat assessment fee.Each School Study Council in Indiana functioned according to an established constitution and a formal set of by-laws. The major components contained in each constitution were: (1) Name; (2) Purpose; (3) Membership; (4) Officers and Executive Committee; (5) Nominations, Elections, and Appointments; (6) Finances; (7) Amendments and/or Revisions; and (8) Effective Date.The constitutions were more uniform than the by-laws; however, the majority of the study councils accepted the following articles: (1) Duties of Officers; (2) Terms of Office; (3) Vacancies in Office; (4) Executive Committee; (5) General Meetings; (6) Quorum; (7) Committees; (8) Publications; (9) Rules of Order; and (10) Amendments and Revisions.Ball State University and Indiana University agreed to support school study councils by providing, without cost to the councils, the following services: (1) an Executive Secretary;(2) required stenographic services; (3) one part-time graduate assistant or doctoral fellow; and (4) office facilities.The responsibilities of the Executive Secretary was a major difference between Ball State University and Indiana University. A professor serving as Executive Secretary at Ball State University received a one-third reduction from the normal teaching responsibility. No such reduction was agreed upon at Indiana University.At both universities, a graduate assistant or doctoral fellow was assigned to work with the Executive Secretary. The graduate assistant or doctoral fellow served in the following capacity: (1) assisting the Executive Secretary in planning and implementing school study council programs; (2) conducting necessary research as requested by the study council membership; (3) correspondence on behalf of the study council; and (4) the preparation of reports and minutes of the council business meetings. The stipend received by the doctoral fellow or graduate assistant was approximately $3,000 for an academic year.Conclusions drawn from the study are:1. The basic purpose for the establishment of School Study Councils in Indiana was the improvement of education in member school systems by providing an opportunity to: (1) share and pool vital information; (2) discuss approaches to sound educational management; (3) participate in professional growth through in-service workshops.2. The support and affiliation offered to the School Study Councils by the universities were judged to be the most crucial consideration affecting the overall development of the councils.Recommendations for further research are:1. Consideration should be given to evaluating and researching the variables of success in school study councils as viewed by: school administrators; teachers; and students.2. Research should be conducted to investigate the impact school study councils have upon educational programs and curriculum of member school corporations.