This study examined the current case law on school voucher programs for students with disabilities and legal protections under IDEA. The idea of school vouchers can be traced back to the 1950s but have taken a new form in the past 13 years. There have been several court challenges to the constitutionality of school voucher programs with mixed results which will lead to court challenges in the future on a state by state basis based on the state’s constitution. School vouchers have been developed to target specific populations of students including students with disabilities. But with very little accountability for the private schools accepting the school vouchers, parents are left to make choices about their child’s education with the limited information provided to them. Parents of student with disabilities who participate in school voucher programs in order to attend a private school may lose many protections under IDEA, if not all of them. The focus of the study was on the five states with school voucher programs for students with disabilities: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Ohio and Utah. The review of case law in regards to school voucher programs for students with disabilities demonstrated difference and similarities depending on the state’s constitution. This will lead to future case law for school voucher programs for disabilities to be determined on a case by case basis. The legislators developing new school voucher programs for student with disabilities will need to analyze the state’s constitution in order to determine if any legal challenges would occur. Federal legislators need to revisit the protections under IDEA for parentally placed private school students with the mindset that more and more school voucher programs for students with disabilities will be developed in years to come. In the iv reauthorization of IDEA, federal legislators need to determine if more protections need to be provided to parentally placed private school students attending a private school on a school voucher program. Without more protections for students with disabilities, parents may have limited options when participating in a school voucher program and the students may not receive the appropriate special education and related services.

The publication of A Nation at Risk in 1983 has prompted a series of attempts to revise the educational system's outcomes. Legislative and executive reform bills have resulted in Educational Vouchers being a prime source of reform. A case study of the perceptions of public high school principals in Florida that are at Voucher Eligible high schools to those perceptions of principals at schools graded 'A' as of the 2002-03 academic school year was the focus of this study. Four public high school principals from two Florida districts were used in this study. Two schools were identified as Voucher Eligible and graded "F" and two were examples of best practices or graded "A" or "B". Analyzed data identified recurring patterns between the four schools.Both advocates and detractors view of vouchers would be given a full historical review. Included in the research were the four major educational criteria of educational vouchers that were used in voucher development policy. The three major components of Florida's Voucher Programs, along with the No Child Left Behind Act were examined along with accountability measures and parent/student rights. The data revealed that there was a positive relationship between the minority rate of a school and the school's grade. Data also revealed that it would be beneficial for all schools and communities to work together to address the reading level issue as these programs have shown a positive relationship between the overall reading level and the school's grade.

This dissertation addresses the critical role of landlords in implementing the Housing Choice Voucher program. Housing choice vouchers provide tenant-based rental assistance to low-income families so that they can have greater opportunities to select apartments and locations than under other rental housing assistance programs. Vouchers provide a renter with more location, quality and housing type options than project-based subsidized housing. The program's ability to increase choice depends heavily on the decisions of private landlords to accept voucher tenants. This research examines the factors influencing housing choice voucher acceptance by owners, or their agents, specifically property profitability, owner strategies, and perceived majority tenant prejudices. One previous study attempted to identify the factors that affect landlords' acceptance of vouchers, and was restricted to landlords participating in the voucher program. This dissertation expands our understanding of landlords' decisions to accept voucher tenants in two key ways: empirical modeling of voucher acceptance using a national sample of rental properties; and qualitative studies of landlords within a single market area. This research has implications for improving the future performance of the voucher program and the housing quality of low-income renters. By understanding the factors influencing voucher acceptance, public policy makers can utilize this information and direct their efforts to successfully market the program, expand voucher knowledge, and increase non-participating owners' acceptance of vouchers. Furthermore, policy makers can determine if additional legislation is needed to enhance the protection of voucher holder's rights and maintain the supply of eligible units. Such efforts will enhance the effectiveness of housing agencies and thus, help achieve the goal of providing low-income renters with better housing options. / Ph. D.

This dissertation broadly focuses on how to improve equity in education. The first chapter focuses on education at the primary level and analyzes whether progressive vouchers in education can serve as a tool to decrease socioeconomic stratification at the school level and increase educational outcomes for low-income students. I use the Chilean setting, where a universal voucher system has been in place for over three decades, and analyze the impact of a major reform were voucher amounts were increased by 50 percent for students in the lowest 40 percent of the income distribution. Progressive vouchers were implemented in Chile to help low-income students benefit from school choice; increasing the revenues that schools receive for serving low-income students and lowering the relative prices of private voucher schools for eligible parents. I use a national dataset to implement a regression discontinuity design exploiting that eligibility is a discontinuous function of a socioeconomic ranking. Results reject that eligible students chose schools with higher test scores or average SES, and that they are doing better than non-eligible students in math and language test scores. Findings, I argue, are partly a consequence of the multiple barriers that low-income students face when choosing a school, including lack of information, the complexity associated with evaluating a substantial number of options, and issues of social belonging that prevent them from attending better performing schools. The second chapter focuses on education at the tertiary level and analyses whether loans for higher education can help to increase tertiary education for low-income low-performing students. I use data from Chile and exploit the fact that access to loans for universities and technical institutions is a discontinuous function of students’ academic performance. The latter allows me to implement a regression discontinuity design to look at the causal impact of different types of loans on higher education access, persistence and graduation. Results show that loans for universities induce low-performing students away from technical institutions and towards higher quality university alternatives, where they have little chances of succeeding. This increases the total amount of time and money that students spend without substantially increasing, or even decreasing, their graduation rates and expected incomes. Loans for technical institutions are better in that they keep students away from alternatives that are too expensive or academically demanding. Results point to the unintended costs of offering university loans to low-performing students, steaming from a potential mismatch between low-performing students and higher quality university alternatives. The third chapter, joint with Juan Matta, analyzes the role of social interaction in higher education choices. In particular, we analyze spillovers from older to younger siblings in the choice of college and major. We use data from Chile and exploit discontinuous admission rules generated by Chile’s centralized system of admission to postsecondary education. Our findings reveal strong sibling spillovers in the choice of major/institutions. Having an older sibling enrolling in a given major within an institution, as opposed to just applying, increases by 87% the likelihood of enrolling in that same major/institution combination, and it increases by 51% the probability of enrolling in any major within that same institution. An analysis of potential mechanisms suggests that spillovers are present even when siblings are far apart in age and are unlikely to attend college together, and even in cases where they are likely to be well informed about the program. Results provide an explanation as to why low-income students may be underrepresented in some high quality educational alternatives.

Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 77 pages. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: Looking back at the past twelve years, many would say that it appears Russia has lost the battle for liberal democratic reform. Among Russia watchers, the following question has been circulated: "Who lost Russia?" This debate has polarized most scholars into one of two camps: those who feel the reforms failed (the critics) and those who feel the reforms were a success (the supporters). This paper will explain why the Russian reforms failed. By filling in the holes left by current research, the author will demonstrate that the truth may lie somewhere in between the two opposing sides. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

This research aims to determine whether the voucher scheme in Hong Kong would really increase professional development of Hong Kong early childhood teachers, and to see how the teachers will react to this change. Few studies have been conducted on how the voucher system affects the teachers. A qualitative approach was employed where a total of twelve teachers and four principals from the four kindergarten schools were asked to participate in the study. The results of the study show that teachers from the different kindergartens were having more convergent views about the pre-primary education voucher scheme among the teachers from these schools. Many of them believe that the voucher scheme is in fact a fair policy and that it could effectively improve teachers‟ quality, though the apprehension of old generation teachers over the influx of the younger and relatively more qualified teachers is a concern that needs to be addressed. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Almost all 3- to 6-year-olds attend preschool programmes in Hong Kong, yet until recently early childhood education (ECE) was excluded from the boundaries of formal government policy and the sector received minimal financial support from the government. The eventual introduction in 2007 of the Pre-primary Education Voucher Scheme (PEVS) — a HK$2 billion government package to subsidise ECE, instead of bringing the early childhood predicament to an end, generated considerable controversy due to its unique nature. Unlike other education voucher programmes, which promote and rely on the “free” market to regulate the quality of education provision, the PEVS limits the vouchers to a restricted sector of the ECE market and ties financial assistance with official quality assessments. Against this background, the purpose of this study was to examine the evolution and the continuous development of this atypical education voucher scheme in the policy context of Hong Kong. The PEVS is conceptualised as both product and process, constantly shaped and reshaped by policymakers as well as parents and ECE providers. To adequately capture the evolving and emergent nature of the policy process and reflect the divergent voices of these stakeholders, a mixed-method approach was employed, and a historical approach is used to analyse and discuss the findings. Focusing on the context of policy text production, in the first two time periods, namely Pre-voucher (Pre-2006) and Announcement and Amendments (2006 – 2009), the rationale for the development and the modifications of the policy text was explored through documentary analyses. In the following time period, After Amendments (2009 – 2010), a survey of 628 parents, kindergarten principals, and teachers, and in-depth interviews with 16 kindergarten principals and teachers were conducted to determine the opportunities for parents and ECE providers to reform and reinterpret the policy text in different contexts of practice. In the final time period, the Official Review and Further Re-modification of the Policy Text (2010 onwards), the results obtained were compared with that of a critical analysis of the official government review of the PEVS and the resulting package of enhancement measures endorsed by the government to understand how parents and ECE providers in the context of practice might in return affect the production of the policy text. Taken together, the results illustrate a full depiction of the policy process. They also show the intertwining relationship among the government, parents, and ECE providers, as well as between the two contexts of policymaking. The illumination of these previously unexplored subjects has important theoretical and practical implications for educational change and policymaking in ECE, and lays the foundation for future research in related areas. / published_or_final_version / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Florida State University, 2005. / Advisor: Dr. Carolyn D. Herrington, Florida State University, College of Education, Dept. of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed June 16, 2005). Document formatted into pages; contains xv, 238 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis examines the effect of various factors on the sale of vouchers of group buying deals. The data for the analysis were collected from the website Slevomat for four weeks. The observation was performed daily at 8 a.m., 4 p.m., 12 a.m. Based on the existing literature and theoretical considerations, six hypotheses were formulated, three of which turned out to be consistent with the data. It was confirmed, that the decrease in time remaining till the end of the offer induces bigger amount of vouchers sold per time period. Positive reviews and the fact that the offer is displayed on the main page of Slevomat also positively influence the number of sold vouchers. The influence of the amount of earlier sold vouchers on the present purchases ("bandwagon effect") and of the size of the relative or absolute discount was not found. The "Monday effect", according to which sales should be lower at the beginning of the week, was also disproved.