Education policy is frequently in the crosshairs of ideological disagreement. This dissertation analyzes three controversial policies over which elected school boards often have control: charter schools, suspension bans, and ability groups. How do charter schools impact district academic growth? Researchers typically focus on large districts with many charter schools, but the most common experience is an average-sized district shifting from no charters to one. A difference-in-differences design analyzing a decade of charter expansion in California reveals that impact is contingent on charter type: locally funded charters (i.e. affiliated with the district) lead to either static or decreased growth while directly funded charters (i.e. independent of the district) lead to higher academic growth. Many policymakers have banned or limited suspensions for all but the most serious offenses. The 2013 suspension ban in Los Angeles Unified School District provides a natural experiment; it led to a substantial, 0.2 standard deviation decrease in academic growth among middle schools that had previously issued the banned suspensions. Four subsequent suspension bans – in San Francisco, Pasadena, Oakland, and (grades K-3) all of California – also appear to have harmed academic growth. Simultaneously, suspension bans have an uncertain relationship with dropout rates, the primary mechanism by which bans are meant to impact the school-to-prison pipeline. Instead of banning suspensions, policymakers should carefully test other efforts that decrease suspension and dropout rates without harming academic growth. Finally, educators have utilized between-class ability grouping – sorting students in one grade into different classes by prior ability – for over a century. Proponents rely on a previously untested mechanism: decreased classroom dispersion in prior academic ability allows teachers to target their instruction more narrowly. This final paper measures classroom dispersion directly for the same students over four trimesters. Multivariate regressions and multilevel models evaluate the relationship between classroom dispersion and academic growth while controlling for other classroom characteristics as well as student, teacher, and school effects. Analyses reveal that English classrooms with less dispersion in prior ability experience slightly less growth. However, there is a trade-off: between-class ability grouping improves equity at the expense of overall academic growth.

Recent legislation in Sweden mandates that all students beprovided access to a school library. In addition, schools areexpected to help students become independent and life-longlearners. Various national organizations stress theimportance of a school library in this process; however,reportedly independent schools use public libraries and theInternet for information activities instead. This studyexplores: 1) how independent schools in Sweden can meetboth government requirements to provide library accessand the information literacy demands of their students, and2) the function of digital libraries in this context. After acomparison of previous research, a qualitative method waschosen based on socio-cultural theoretical assumptions.Semi-structured interviews were conducted with aprincipal, a teacher, and a focus group of students from twoindependent schools. Through a process of open coding,important themes emerged concerning how libraries andinformation literacy are conceptualized. There is a strongtendency to see libraries in terms of a physical function(books on shelves) over social activities (e.g., integrationwith teachers, development of information literacies,collection management). Students rely first and foremoston Google during the information seeking process, but alsoconsult each other for help. There are also signs thatstudents are discouraged from asking their teachers for helpduring the information seeking process. The findingsindicate that current educator attitudes may hinder thedevelopment of digital school libraries. / Program: Biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap, Digitala bibliotek och informationstjänster

School reforms in New Orleans have brought sweeping changes to the way public schools are governed and managed, and to the way in which students are assigned to public schools. Non-profit charter school boards now govern over 90% of public schools, and families are able to choose the public school in which they enroll. Competition within the system of schools is expected to compel schools to differentiate themselves from each other in order to attract and retain students. School-level budgetary data provide one source of information with which to examine the priorities schools establish as they seek to differentiate themselves. There is a significant body of research comparing the resource allocation patterns in traditional public schools to those in charter schools. Often, however, these comparisons are drawn between schools that do not operate in a single educational marketplace. Rather, they compare schools within different geographic areas that may not be in direct competition with each other. Many of the studies also fail to distinguish between non-network charter schools and those run by centralized charter school networks. This quantitative case study uses the New Orleans public school marketplace as a critical case for examining how governance and management structures impact school spending. Specifically, the study aims to identify, describe, and understand whether and how school-level resource allocation patterns differ across schools of different governance and management structures, and how those patterns might be influenced by market competition. This research uses linear regression models to estimate differences in resource allocation between traditional public and charter schools in the educational marketplace, after controlling for student and school-level characteristics. School expenditures are examined over a variety of expense categories and human resource indicators. Data from New Orleans suggest that privatization and decentralization have a significant impact on how resources are allocated at the school level. Importantly, however, no significant spending differences emerge when data are aggregated to the level of the local education agency. In other words, spending in the traditional public school district, charter management organizations, and single site charter schools appear similar, irrespective of governance and management structure of those organizations.

The complex and thorny relationship between school-district leaders, sub-city political and community figures and teachers’ unions on the subject of charter schools- an interaction fraught with racially charged language and tactics steeped in civil rights-era mobilization - elicits skepticism about the motives of education reformers and their view of minority populations. In this study I unpack the local politics around tacit and overt racial appeals in support of New York City charter schools with particular attention to Harlem, New York and periods when the sustainability of these schools, and long-term education reforms, were endangered by changes in the political and legislative landscape. This dissertation answers two key questions: How did the Bloomberg-era governing coalition and charter advocates in New York City use their political influence and resources to expand and sustain charter schools as a sector; and how does a community with strong historic and cultural narratives around race, education and political activism, respond to attempts to enshrine externally organized school reforms? To answer these questions, I employ a case study analysis and rely on Regime Theory to tell the story of the Mayoral administration of Michael Bloomberg and the cadre of charter leaders, philanthropies and wealthy donors whose collective activity created a climate for growth of the sector. I then construct a lens through which we may view African American leadership as having varied temporal and philosophical associations to the civil rights movement, shedding light on how some, with stronger ties to the business community, may be amenable to school choice policies. Results show that a pro-charter regime in New York City rapidly expanded the sector using colocation and through attempts to elect charter-friendly members of the state legislature, through direct campaign donations and targeted parent organizing. While the latter largely failed as a means to obtain electoral influence, a shift in tactics enabled charter leaders to keep pro-union Democrats from dominating the charter policy debate. In Harlem, the community’s response was mixed. While demand for seats increased, so did the tension as activists and elected officials expressed concern over loss of traditional public-school spaces which doubled as community-based institutions, and encroachment on their long-held view of self-deterministic education policy. Much of the pushback by the community may also be a proxy for the effects of rapid gentrification occurring in the neighborhood, exacerbating tensions over external influence in local communities and a disruption of social capital. Finally, I show that through the loss of political allies at City Hall, in the State legislature, and a reduction in the political theater around parent mobilization, the charter sector locally and nationally may experience slowed growth in terms of charter authorization, public support and applications by potential students.

This dissertation examines the problems associated with the restrictive interpretation of Article 2(4) of the Charter of the United Nations (hereinafter referred to as UN Charter) to the threat or use of force. This restrictive approach appears no longer helpful in furthering the maintenance of international peace and security. Equally, it does not adequately protect the entire territory of States for the following two reasons. Firstly, the UN member States shelter in the first limb of Article 2(4) to engage in conducts that violate the territory of other States while claiming subservience to the provision of Article 2(4). This occurs through mere frontier incidents, covert and overt support of the activities of the non-State actors. However, the State practice shows that such conducts are always resisted by the victim State no matter how insignificant the breach might be. Secondly, the UN member States have asserted their jurisdiction in cyberspace by adopting appropriate legislation to regulate the cyberspace activities and to curb cybercrimes. To legislate is an exercise of the sovereign power which is by nature, territorial. Thus, it is difficult to equate the non-kinetic character of the cyberspace activities to physical armed attack if Article 2(4) were narrowly construed. Because of these developments, this dissertation advocates for a broad interpretation of Article 2(4), which is respect for the inviolability of State territory. The fact that State practice is repugnant to mere frontier incidents indicates that the restrictive approach is unacceptable. Moreover, Article 2(7) of the UN Charter which prohibits intervention in the internal affairs of a State supports a broad approach. This dissertation adds to the scholarly debate as to whether Article 2(4) applies in cyberspace. It answers in the affirmative if the international community accepts the broad interpretation it proposes. Otherwise, the answer would be negative given the non-kinetic nature of the cyberspace activities.

In 2009 the oldest documents concerning the place Greiz in Eastern Thuringia were published by a historian. This article now provides a linguistic approach to that publication and its interpretation of the mentioned area in Medieval times. The results may be considered as a contribution to a book of reference for place names of Eastern Thuringia. In this respect some questions have been asked, e. g. whether the region along the river Weiße Elster between the places Weida and Plauen had really been an unsettled area until the 12th century. There is hard evidence that the historian’s assumptions are wrong because of the obvious Slavonic names of settlements in this area dating from the 8th until the 10th centuries. Based on a document from 1209 – respectively its copy from 1510 – as well as on a document from 1225 several facts are discussed in detail with consequences for toponymy and history of settlement with the help of historical linguistics. Thus it becomes evident that it is necessary to exchange ideas and to communicate for representatives of history as well as linguistics. At the same time it is obvious that the publication of documents and their analysis by historians will always be very helpful for linguistic exploitation. As a result the prospective edition of a historical dictionary of place names in Thuringia or of Eastern Thuringia respectively has been asserted as dependent on the continuous co-operation between historians and linguists.

Recent charter school enrollment trends suggest that a growing number of parents have opted to transfer their children from neighborhood public schools into charter schools, despite data indicating public school achievement equal to or above charter schools. This trend encourages school leaders to examine parent choice. The purpose of this qualitative study was to gather perspectives from parents in the study community who chose to enroll their children in charter schools instead of public schools and identify reasons parents chose charter schools. The humanistic theories of Maslow and Rogers, which emphasized the importance of choice, creativity, values, and self-realization as considerations for parent choice, formed the conceptual framework. Qualitative data were collected through an electronic questionnaire from 84 parents who have chosen 1 of 2 charter schools, designed to gather demographic information as well as perceptions about the processes and determinant factors involved in making school enrollment choices. Individual semi-structured interviews using a purposeful sample were conducted with 7 parents to determine their perceptions about choosing charter schools instead of traditional public schools. Data analysis included open coding and identification of emergent themes. The findings suggested criteria that parents considered in addition to standardized accountability measures as part of the school choice process. The resulting project included a professional development seminar for public educators in the local community to understand the public school choice marketplace, a marketing plan for their school, and follow-up implementation coaching. This study may contribute to social change through educators' increased understanding of competition in public education and the development of best practices to improve public schools and student enrollments.

The inefficient use and knowledge of direct, on-demand air taxi/air charter flights in the United States was the topic of this dissertation. The general problem studied was the inefficient use of air transportation options by business travelers in the United States. The specific problem was how business travelers in the United States learn of and thereby elect to embrace a newer air travel option. Using Rogers's diffusion of innovations theory as the framework, the dissemination of air travel choices made by business travelers using ImagineAir air taxi service in the United States was explored via a qualitative case study research design methodology. Thirty-five semistructured interviews and matching customer database information provided data for the study, Data were later analyzed for emergent themes and codes using MAXQDA software. Key research questions included communication of the innovation, business travelers' perceptions of the innovation, timeframe of innovation adoption, business environment enabling the innovation adoption, and the Rogers self-described adopter type. The results showed that compatibility, relative advantage, risk, and complexity influence the perception of business travelers about air taxi services. Based on the research, the course of action suggests that business travelers will most rapidly embrace air taxi service via internet dissemination of this new option. With continued success in dissemination, positive social change will come in the form of efficiencies as business travelers use more than 5,000 virtually idle airports and over 7,000 on-demand air taxi aircraft as highlighted by U.S. government studies further bolstered by this research.

The purpose of this study was to explore school principals' accountability with student academic performance. Charter and public-school principals are responsible for the learning process and academic development. Previously published literature did not reveal a clear understanding of the policies and practices that contributed in obtaining the desired student academic outcomes. Parsons's theory of action served as the foundation for analyzing principals' decisions to achieve accountability and comply with the policies established by the regulating authorities. A snowball sampling of school principals included a public charter school principal and 5 traditional public-school principals in the state of New Jersey. A multiple case study approach with semi structured interviews and open-ended questions was used to collect data, which was then transcribed, coded, and processed in Dedoose software program. Gaining insight may prove beneficial to the accountability of principals' duties disposed by school policies and practices. The study findings helped identify accountability standards common for both types of educational establishments. The study found that academic accountability goes beyond school principals and that school principals spend the least amount of time as instructional leaders. Finding contributes to positive social change by highlighting the need for regulatory agencies to identify and set clear guidelines of accountability, implement effective monitoring and measuring tools of accountability, and hold all stakeholders accountable for promoting student academic performance and achievement.

In the United States, children that require mental health supports will most likely receive them in their school. However, there is a serious discrepancy between youth that require and those that receive psychological supports in public schools. This reality is even more pronounced in urban settings and with youth of color. Untreated mental health issues impact a multitude of life domains—only one of which is school achievement. For decades, the public school system at federal and state levels has focused reform efforts on a single developmental competency (i.e., academic skill) to the detriment and underdevelopment of other interdependent competencies (e.g., social-emotional skills [self-awareness, self-management and regulation, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making]). Social and emotional skills are considered both a universal prevention against future psychological disturbances as well as core components in the treatment of many psychological disorders. Promoting social-emotional skills, however, requires the purposive establishment of a school climate that fosters such skills. The present study aimed to impact social-emotional factors and school climate by encouraging the participation of local stakeholders (i.e., teachers, parents, administrators, and students themselves) in problem solving and decision-making about how best to ensure school conditions foster the development of social and emotional competence. Analyses focused on both the creation of a plan for school climate reform as well as local perceptions of the facilitating and inhibiting factors of engaging in this process in an urban public school. / acase@tulane.edu