“Creating Community in Isolation: The History of Corpus Christi’s Molina Addition, 1954-1970” examines the history of the Molina Addition in Corpus Christi, Nueces County, Texas, and its serving district, the West Oso Independent School District, from 1954 to 1970. Specifically, this essay begins with an analysis of the elite-driven campaign to annex the blighted Molina Addition in September and October 1954. The city intended to raze the neighborhood and develop middle-class homes in place of the newly annexed neighborhood. Following the annexation of the Molina Addition, African American and ethnic Mexican residents initiated protracted struggles to desegregate and integrate schools that served their area, the West Oso Independent School District, as detailed in the chapter, “The West Oso School Board Revolution.” The chapter examines the electoral “revolution” in which Anglo rural elites were unseated from their positions on the school board and replaced by African American and ethnic Mexican Molina Addition residents. The third chapter, “Building Mo-Town, Texas,” focuses on residents’ struggle to install indoor plumbing, eliminate pit privies, construct paved roads, and introduce War on Poverty grants to rehabilitate the neighborhood. This chapter also offers a glimpse into the social life of Molina youth during the 1960s.

A pre–post case study was conducted to examine how target revenue funding from Texas House Bill 1 (2006) has impacted the school districts within the Texas Education Service Center Region X area. Forced by the courts, the Texas Legislature was required to fix the Texas school finance system because of a de facto statewide property tax it had created by capping school district’s maintenance & operations tax rate at $1.50. Texas Governor Rick Perry used this opportunity to reduce school district M&O taxes by one-third. The Texas Legislature passed House Bill 1 (2006), the Public School Finance and Property Tax Relief Act, in response to the courts and to address a continuous decline in state funding support for public education. The Public School Finance and Property Tax Relief Act reduced local school districts’ property tax rates and revenue with the assurance that these funds would be exchanged for state aid. Local school property taxes were reduced over two years, 2006–2007 and 2007-2008, by 33%. In order for the State of Texas to meet the state aid funding guarantee from House Bill 1 (2006), each school district was frozen to its 2005–2006 revenue per weighted student, which was called a district’s revenue target. This study examined the impact target revenue has had on these school districts by analyzing and comparing revenues and expenditures prior to and following the law’s implementation. Specifically, changes in per-student revenue, per-student expenditures, and district fund balances were assessed.

"The purpose of this study is to determine the present status of the McKinney school system in regard to the financial ability, the school plant, the teaching staff, and the pupils by making a profound comparison with general practices and statndards set up by accepted authorities and offering constructive criticism and recommendations that are needed, as obviously shown by comparison."--leaf 2

School leaders often contemplate implementing measures that will increase community and parent involvement in schools. There is a shortage of research that concisely takes school leadership through a process that details how to integrate parent and community input in a school transformation initiative and careful analysis of student outcomes. Within this study, I provide an in-depth look at one school district’s efforts to engage its community through strategic planning and mission and vision redesign. This process includes community involvement at every phase. For the purpose of this study, community refers to both community members who do not have children in the school system and parents of current students. In this study, I outline the inception of the transformation effort, the ongoing efforts to include community input in decision-making and campus implementation, and finally a review of the overarching impact on leadership, staff, students and community. Data collection analyzed in this study include assessment data, survey data, discipline data and walk through data collected by the school district.

School choice is a fast growing alternative to traditional public school education across the nation. According to the Florida Department of Education, school choice policies and laws are rapidly moving Florida away from more traditional forms of schooling toward an increasingly evolving school choice state landscape. The purpose of this study was to examine school choice in Florida by investigating the school choice policies enacted by the Florida legislature leading to the school choice environment in Florida today. Specifically, this investigation was limited to legislation in Florida between 1997 and 2014 and further limited to charter schools, home schooling, virtual education, and two choice options specific to Florida in which public dollars follow students to private schools, the Tax Credit and McKay Scholarship programs. These particular school choice options were chosen as the focus of this study because they change the where of education outside of tradit ional public schools. Other choice options such as magnet schools, inter-district choice, and intra-district choice simply move students among traditional public schools but keep them enrolled in traditional public schools. Ultimately the study hoped to provide a possible road map for the future of school choice policies in Florida. This study utilized a qualitative methodology utilizing document reviews and interviews. This study found that school choice policies in Florida have continued to expand and evolve over the years to increase the liberty available to families to choose the education of their children. This study also found that the Florida legislature has laid the groundwork for Florida school districts, through a focus on equality, to take advantage of a portfolio management model to increase student achievement. Although a focus on equality led to the enactment of various school choice options, some of these options have moved away from their original intent to financially benefit specific organizations and groups. Finally, as reported by Holme, Frankenberg, Diem, and Welton (2013), Florida's charter school, virtual education, and home education policies have been enacted as race-neutral policies that have no regard for diversity, which could lead to resegregation. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This study examined the data use of central office administrators working in the Curriculum and Instruction Department of a school district. The purpose of this work was to broaden the knowledge base of data use and of the integral role the central office plays in the district-wide use of data to improve teaching and learning. Two research questions guided the study: (a) How do central office personnel involved in curriculum and instruction use data to support district goals of improved student achievement, and (b) how do central office personnel involved in curriculum and instruction use data to support campus goals of improved student achievement? A qualitative and quantitative data collection process with a single-case study approach included focus groups, individual interviews, and a survey instrument. The data from these components were coded, analyzed, and translated into themes and findings using a 9-step constant-comparative process. This process provided rich description and a comprehensive evaluation of findings to answer the research questions. Findings regarding the use of data within the department of curriculum and instruction at the central office revealed that administrators most often took on the role of data provider. The central office provided reports both to campuses and to comply with federal and state regulations and funding requirements; provided professional development to principals, teachers, and instructional specialists; provided information about student achievement to parents and the greater community; and encouraged the use of data and highlighted the value of data use to inform instructional choices. Further analysis of the data revealed barriers that inhibit the systemic use of data and the ability of school districts to become truly data informed: lack of a common vision for data use, creation of data silos that reduce the ability to collaborate and make cooperative data-based decisions, too much data for consideration, and fragmented implementation of the goal-setting process. These findings contribute to the current literature by demonstrating the importance of the central office in data use. In conclusion, what central office administrators do with data matters, and how the central office uses data to support teacher and principal quality is critical in a district focused on improving teaching and student learning. / text

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This study addressed superintendents' value perceptions of nineteen component parts of P.L. 94-142, The Education For All Handicapped Children Act of 1975. In addition, the study sought to determine whether relationships existed between superintendents' value perceptions of P.L. 94-142 and (1) school district size and (2) total years experience as a superintendent. As a result of this research, twenty-one conclusions were drawn, consisting of Texas superintendents' perceptions of several aspects of P.L. 94-142 such as: its effectiveness, appropriateness, process hearing costs, funding, time/cost efficiency, feasibility, and ultimate goal. Additionally, there was no significant relationship between the total number years served as a superintendent, or the size of school districts served, and the superintendents' value perceptions concerning P.L. 94-142. In summary, twenty-one conclusions were reached regarding superintendents' value perceptions of P.L. 94-142. A total of seven implications were drawn from the conclusions. Finally, seven recommendations for future study were made.

過去已有諸多研究證實位於明星國中學區之住宅相較於普通學區之住宅擁有較高的價格。然而，我國於103 年(2014 年)起實施十二年國教政策，其最大變革即是提供免試入學，則該政策是否會動搖明星國中之優勢，進而衝擊明星國中學區的房價應有探討之必要。本文取自實價登錄資料庫之資料，並以2012年8月至2016年底台北市明星學區及其周遭普通學區為地理範圍，建立特徵價格理論之傳統迴歸模型、空間迴歸模型與分量迴歸模型，探討以額滿學校與高升學率之不同定義下明星國中學區對房價之影響，再結合差異中之差異法，觀察十二年國教實施後是否會打破臺北市明星學區的溢價迷思。 根據實證結果顯示，額滿學校與高升學率學校將分別使學區住宅每坪價格上升1.9%-5.3%與5.3%-14.2%，顯示消費者對於高升學率學校有較高之偏好。然而，隨著住宅價格上升，明星學區的溢價卻隨之下降。而十二年國教實施後，僅對位於明星學區2 的住宅產生顯著負面影響，每坪價格下跌1.6%-2.4%；而對明星學區1 之住宅價格則未有顯著影響。本研究推測原因應為十二年國教對於高中職入學篩選標準之改變對高升學率學校有較大之影響，而額滿學校因多數為完全中學國中部，有特殊之直升管道，故受政策影響不大。此外，本研究也發現使用升學率高低作為明星學校之標準比是否為額滿學校更符合消費者之認知且與國外定義較相近。 / In the past, many studies have confirmed that the house in the popular school district has a higher price than the ordinary school district. However, since the implementation of the 12-Year Compulsory Education Policy in 2014, it provided the exam-free admission, and whether the policy will impact the housing prices of the popular schools districts should be discussed. In this paper, we use the full-school and the high enrolment rate school as the popular school, and analysis the popular school district of housing price by using hedonic price theory OLS, spatial and quantile regression as model, and selecting the sale price of real estate in Taipei city from August 2012 to December 2016 as sample. Besides, we also applied Difference-in-Differences method with spatial regression to analyze whether the 12-Year Compulsory Education Policy will reduce the Popular School premium of Taipei. According to the empirical results, housing price in the full-school district has 1.9%-5.3% premium per floor, and high enrolment rate school has 5.3% -14.2% premium per floor, showing that consumers prefer high enrolment rate school. However, with the rise in housing prices, the premium of the popular school district has fallen. In addition, after the implementation of the 12-Year Compulsory Education, only a significant negative impact on the housing price in the school district of high enrolment rate school, the price fell 1.6% -2.4% per floor; and the housing prices of full-school district were not significantly affected. We speculate that the reason should be 12-Year Compulsory Education of entrance examination of high school changes, resulting high enrolment rate schools have a greater impact. On the contrary, the majority of the full-school is affiliated junior high school, it has a special way to enter a higher school, so little impact on the policy.

The result of this project is a sustainability assessment questionnaire for the high school setting. The questionnaire fills a gap in the literature pertaining to assessing direct and indirect environmental impacts on high schools.