<p>Federal, state, and local school policies since the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 have increased the focus on student achievement. Subjects such as physical education have become less of a priority. At the same time, childhood obesity is a serious public health problem. Virginia schools provide an opportunity for student to learn about the importance of being physical activity and knowledge to lead an active life through physical education class. The purpose of the study was to explore elementary physical education teachers' in the Bergling School Division (a pseudonym) in the Commonwealth of Virginia implementation of the physical education curriculum, and their knowledge of the state and local school division physical education policies. In addition, the study examined their perceptions of factors to implementing the curriculum. A survey was administered to a population of elementary physical education teachers in the Bergling School Division. Part one of the survey included factors to curriculum implementation. Part two of the survey included items related to the teachers' application of the curriculum and understanding of policies. The results were analyzed using quantitative methods to determine if relationships exist between factors to curriculum implementation and specified teacher demographics, setting, and perception of policy. Findings from the survey data show teachers are using the physical education curriculum to teach, but lack competence in the policies that guide how the subject is implemented. Furthermore, teachers sight lack of time with students, class size, and low priority for physical education as factors to curriculum implementation.

<p> When searching for pluralistic models of bilingual education, looking globally for examples is beneficial. The overarching global perspective toward bilingual and multilingual education supports literacy in the student's first, second, and including the possibility of a third or more languages to attain socio-political pluralism. This dissertation project will specifically examine the voices of stakeholders in the local community of Flowers Bay, Roatan, Honduras where the mission of bilingual education is a pluralistic society. The goal of the research study is to examine the perspectives and experiences around language learning within the lens of language as a problem, a right, and a resource of stakeholders in their local community. Chapter I of this dissertation includes the problem statement of the research project, a historical and contextual explanation of the land, people, and social movement toward multilingual education on the Bay Islands of Honduras. Chapter II is a review of the literature surrounding the two frameworks in the research project. The first framework I utilize is the public sphere to describe who is or is not included in the conversations of multilingual education within the community of Flowers Bay, Roatan, Honduras. The second framework I utilize is language as a problem, a right, and a resource to describe and analyze the data collected from national policies, field observations, and stakeholders. Chapter III is an in-depth description of the research design, the demographics of the stakeholders in Flowers Bay, the method data collected and analysis of the data. Chapter IV features the findings from the data analysis using the two frameworks outlined in Chapter II. Chapter V offers a discussion of the frameworks and further research projects inspired by this dissertation project. Three themes emerged from framework of language as a right and resource of stakeholder voices from Flowers Bay, Roatan, Honduras: <i>access, economy,</i> and <i>identity.</i> Two themes emerged from the stakeholder voices not represented in the frameworks: <i>resources needed </i> and <i>parent engagement.</i></p>

<p> School district calendars built around a four-day week have been in existence for decades. Early research cited savings in energy and transportation costs prompting the increase in schools adopting the four-day week. In recent years, studies have focused on the instructional benefits of making the switch from a five-day to four-day school week. Effective use of time as an instructional resource plays a meaningful role in educational leadership activities of school district superintendents. </p><p> This multisite case study sought to describe the perceptions of 10 South Dakota superintendents employed in school districts using a four-day calendar regarding the quality of their professional development programs. Data were collected using a semi-structured interview based on the McREL Professional Development Audit. Additional data gathered by the researcher included school district demographics, professional development planning documents, school calendars, and district websites. </p><p> Superintendents believed the four-day school week calendar provided the time to make a positive impact on the vision and goals, planning, design, resources, and evaluation components of a high quality professional development program. The study supported current research that district planners should provide professional development time that is organized, structured, and purposefully driven. Common themes among respondents included (a) articulate and set as a strategic goal during the calendar adoption process the importance of implementing a high quality professional development program for teachers and set specific dates within the calendar assigned for professional development (b) incorporate student remedial activities into the calendar (c) provide fiscal resources to support the professional development program, and (d) demonstrate effective administrative leadership to ensure fidelity in the design and implementation of the district's professional development program.</p>

<p> This dissertation study documents in-depth the exploration of the Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) between the Dayton Regional STEM School (DRSS) and their industry partners as well as the establishment of a framework for evaluating and assessing PPPs. The public-private partnership agreements were studied in order to answer the over-arching research question: How is an effective public-private partnership established, assessed, and evaluated in education? A descriptive case study methodology was used to study DRSS' public-private partnership agreements to determine if goals and objectives were established and whether or not the partnerships met those goals and objectives. This case study also included the development and testing of a proposed evaluation framework that will allow for consistent, systematic inquiry that can produce defensible assertions regarding the assessment and evaluation of public-private partnerships in education. </p><p> Results of the case study support the findings that utilization of an evaluation framework can serve to make public-private partnerships more successful. Results also indicated that establishment of goals and objectives enable effective evaluation for informal partnerships but could not be definitively stated for formal partnerships due to the lack of data points. The data from this case study revealed many emergent themes that should be considered in the development of future public-private partnerships. Overall this study contributes to the growing body of knowledge for public-private partnerships in education. </p>

<p> School Wide Positive Behavior Support (SW-PBS) is a current framework for schools to model their discipline strategies. SW-PBS has a framework built on identifying behaviors and predictors of their occurrence, routines to correct and prevent these problems, and implementation of these routines school wide to collect information to evaluate these strategies. Office discipline referrals were reviewed in the secondary school of Rural District 10 in Missouri from 2004-2013 to determine the significance between implementation of SW-PBS and the number of office discipline referrals. School climate was also studied in Rural District 10 as well as other secondary schools around the state of Missouri. A survey was sent to students, teachers and administrators from Rural District 10 and teachers and administrators from other districts around the state that have implemented SW-PBS for at least two years. The data revealed no statistically significance difference between the number of office discipline referrals before and during implementation of SW-PBS in Rural District 10. Based on the perceptions from the questions on the survey, teachers and administrators in Rural District 10 felt as though the climate and culture of the building overall was better compared to the perceptions of students in Rural District 10. Comparing Rural District 10 to other districts, Rural District 10 teachers and administrators felt as though the climate and culture of their secondary school was better, overall, as compared to other districts around the state of Missouri that have implemented SW-PBS for at least two years.</p>

<p> Educational leaders and experts claim that teachers are the number one classroom factor in the educational success of students (Marzano, 2007; Wong, 2009). This study determined there was not a significant correlation between the two teacher characteristics of advanced degree completion and years of experience. These are two of the more quantifiable and highly regarded teacher characteristics in the profession. The typical teacher salary is a major component of education that places high value on these two characteristics. There are many other policies and legislation, such as the No Child Left Behind Act, teacher tenure, hiring practices, and staff reduction policies that place the focus primarily on experience, degree completion, or a combination of the two. Data for the study were requested from rural school superintendents and elementary principals. These data were degree level completion and experience for third and fifth grade teachers, as well as the class mean scores for the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) tests in communication arts and mathematics for those teachers. These numbers were analyzed using the Pearson <i> r</i> and multiple regression to determine whether the two teacher characteristics had a statistically significant effect on student scores. The study found no significant correlation between the two characteristics, advanced degree completion and years of experience, and the scores on the class standardized tests. These results question the effectiveness of using these two characteristics to distinguish teacher quality, and the high priority given to these characteristics. </p>

<p> "Efforts to improve our school system must start with equity" (Department of Education's Equity and Excellence Commission, 2012). This study is a statistical analysis of the 2003-2012 Minnesota K-12 pubic school general education (foundation) formula in regard to fiscal equality and wealth neutrality. The analysis utilizes a longitudinal approach to compare the findings of previous equity studies to current relatable data as it pertains to the State of Minnesota. A number of modifications have been imposed on the original Minnesota funding formula over the past decade. This study tests the equity level of a selected number of revenue sources and reviews previous studies to determine how equity has or has not been improved as a result of the modifications. </p><p> Fiscal neutrality is described as the wealth of the school district and should be a function of the wealth of the state as a whole, not of the wealth of the local school district. This study analyzed the fiscal neutrality of 333 public school districts in Minnesota in terms of variance, permissible variance, coefficient of variation, and Gini Coefficient. The analysis was based upon three research questions: 1. Based on an analysis of the 2003 to 2012 general education formula, what were the fiscal equality and wealth neutrality characteristics of Minnesota's school districts? 2. Based on an examination of like data elements from the four major Minnesota fiscal equality and wealth neutrality studies, what trends can be observed? 3. Based on the recommendations of previous studies, what legislative impact did they have? </p><p> The findings of the research show that overall the disbursements of revenue through the Minnesota funding formula do meet the standards of wealth neutrality. However, there are categories of the formula that remain inequitable and the reliance of local taxpayers on the referendum revenue source has increased over the years studied.</p>

<p> The purpose of the current study was to understand if there are any longitudinal behavioral or academic effects for boys who are the youngest in their class, who have birthdays near or at the cutoff date for starting school and enter school at the beginning of the succeeding semester. The current study compares retention rates, behavioral records, and grade averages of boys who were born in the months of June, July, or August and are the youngest in their class in a state where the cutoff date for school enrollment is September first to those same variables in boys whose birthdates are in all other months of the year. The current study addresses whether boys who began school at a younger age ultimately struggle with academics or behavior once they are in high school, ninth through twelfth grade. The current study adds to the body of knowledge that currently exists regarding the practice of holding students back a year, known as academic redshirting. The current study employed non-experimental quantitative research methods using <i>ex post facto </i> analysis of existing data. The results of the current study show no significant longitudinal behavioral effects for boys who are the youngest in their class; however, there may be longitudinal academic effects for boys who are the youngest in their class. The results of the current study show non-summer born boys had a statistically significantly higher mean overall grade average than the summer born boys. Since the academic effects found in the current study were slight, the results of the current study support the argument that the phenomenon known as academic redshirting is not necessarily a useful practice when the decision to hold the child back is based solely on the student's summer birthdate.</p>

<p> The purpose of this quantitative study was to provide insight to the perspectives of leaders and individuals in authority within the Archdiocese of Los Angeles system of Catholic parochial schools regarding current models of governance, levels of authority, and decision-making processes. There is a lack of clearly-defined levels of decision-making authority from the bishops to the Archdiocesan Department of Catholic Schools down to the individual schools. </p><p> The pastors, principals, and Department of Catholic Schools personnel shared their perspectives of current governance structures and elements of three emerging alternative governance models. Data were analyzed through a factor analysis of the survey items to explore the strength of the three categories of the governance models represented by the three groups of questions. Next, the descriptive statistics of the specific questions relating to each of the three governance models and community voice were compiled. A Cronbach's alpha was calculated for each group of questions to measure internal consistency. </p><p> In order to explore relationships between perceptions among the three independent variable groups (pastors, principals, and Department of Catholic Schools personnel), a Chi-square analysis was run for each of the questions on an ordinal scale. </p><p> The study showed significant differences in participant responses between the three groups surveyed. However, there was agreement that community voice must be incorporated into governance, but only in a consultative manner. There was also agreement that a strong governing presence at the central office would be beneficial.</p>

<p> Both nationally and at the state level, educational reform is focusing on the improvement of classroom instruction. Recently, Washington State enacted the Teacher/Principal Evaluation Pilot (TPEP) to define evaluation criteria intended to measure effective professional practices, including classroom instruction. This exploratory survey study sought to describe the perceptions of Washington State elementary principals regarding their professional development needs for implementation of the new evaluation criteria. The survey consisted of 5 parts totaling 25 questions and was disseminated to 1,897 elementary principals with a return rate of 354. While the state effectively disseminated initial information about the evaluation criteria through local Educational Service Districts (ESDs), some policy inconsistency appears to have developed between the school district and building level in terms of implementation support for principal leadership activities, learning behaviors, and preferred learning topics. Responses indicated that principals rarely engage in social learning activities that would prepare them as a group to consistently and reliably interpret the criteria on the evaluation. Also, few principals identified a strong desire to learn about collaborative structures within their school, which increases concerns about the sustainability of the TPEP policy, because of the need to develop shared understandings of the language and the expectations. Fostering such an understanding may comprise the next phase of development.</p>