Thesis advisor: Marilyn Cochran-Smith / This dissertation explores the many, complex changes to educational policy making in recent years. I conduct a critical policy analysis of a Massachusetts law that limits seniority-based job protections for public K-12 teachers. Garnering considerable controversy, the law was the result of private negotiations between the state's largest teachers' union and Stand for Children, a national Education Reform Advocacy Organization (ERAO). I use data from interviews with policy stakeholders, observations of public meetings and policy artifacts to explore struggles over public engagement in what unfolded as a highly undemocratic policy development process. My theoretical framework combines Stephen Ball's "policy cycle" (Ball, 1993; Bowe, Ball & Gold, 1992) with deliberative democratic theory. Aligned with Ball's work, I explore the ways that political discourses shaped struggles in various "contexts" of the policy development process. I demonstrate that policy development was a messy, non-linear process that involved complicated argumentation about teachers' unions, ERAOs, and community organizing. Informed by deliberative democratic theory, I focus on concrete efforts taken to include, or exclude, the public from the policy debate, and I highlight discourses that appeared to justify these political decisions. I argue that the case is indicative of what I am calling "neo-democratic" decision making, in which high-level interest group conflict leads to narrow forms of democratic engagement. I trace changes in each organization's political identity over the course of the conflict, and I demonstrate that identity was connected in important ways to underlying beliefs about policy making and public engagement. Fueled by interest group conflict, both Stand for Children and the Massachusetts Teachers' Association sought to promote the organizational identity that best suited their political interests. In the process, each organization pursued narrow forms of democratic engagement that clashed with their own organizational mission statements. I use findings from the case to offer suggestions for moving beyond the "neo-democratic" era and towards a system of policy making that aspires to higher democratic ideals. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

In 2011, Oregon was one of many states in the U.S. consolidating their education governance around an early learning, K-12, and postsecondary hub. This study uses legislator-voting data to investigate the relationship between this consolidated model and endogenous policy formulation processes. This study employs a separable temporal exponential random graph model (STERGM) to investigate how an education governance shift toward consolidated authority relates to bipartisan outcomes for education-related bills over time. Oregon legislator voting networks were analyzed for cohesion, centrality, and community detection measures, as well as by legislator attributes (e.g. gender, party, and title) to test the association they had on the likelihood of forming ties with other legislators. Finally, to study the relationship of bipartisanship with legislators’ likelihood to vote commonly, I added the legislators’ political party attributes within dyads to analyze the association that having different political parties had on legislators’ common votes. The results highlight evidence of legislator networks that were very dense at each time point included in the study, with a high likelihood of forming ties. However, when Oregon shifted to centralized education governance model their legislator networks became more distributed and cohesive when compared to other years included in the longitudinal study. It is possible that such a shift prompted collaboration among legislators resulting in mutuality that increased the likelihood for underrepresented groups of legislators (e.g. females and republicans) to vote commonly with their colleagues. Aligned with previous research, this study found that centralized governing bodies reinforced by political legislation provided collaborative initiatives for the legislative community. Attending to bipartisan voting patterns dynamically through a governance shift is a valuable investigation that will provide nuanced inferences about education governance and policymaking for states making similar consolidated governance shifts in the future.

Esta pesquisa aborda a relação da escola pública com a geografia dos lugares. Analisa os nexos entre a urbanização e as políticas educacionais em São Paulo. A questão consiste em compreender a situação das escolas centrais, que pertenceram aos antigos bairros, diante das adequações funcionais e do desinteresse das camadas médias e altas. As localidades centrais foram tradicionalmente compreendidas como espaços da cidade-bairro, da cidade subúrbio. Na dinâmica da urbanização difusa, e de ampliação das fronteiras periféricas, estas localidades centrais vivenciaram o esvaziamento generalizado e o fechamento de dezenas de suas escolas. Paradoxalmente, isto tem ocorrido onde as escolas públicas apresentam melhor desempenho. O fechamento destas escolas restringe as possibilidades dos moradores locais e inviabiliza o uso dos alunos que vêm das periferias urbanas. Neste contexto o terreno destas antigas escolas ficou na mira do mercado imobiliário e das estratégias administrativas do Estado. O estudo de caso da EE Prof. Antonio Alves Cruz permitiu apreender a metamorfose da escola de bairro, e seu dilema para sobreviver no centro da cidade. Encontrou solução na ampliação do seu raio de ação, atingindo pontos distintos da metrópole; no seu momento mais dramático incorporou uma Organização Não Governamental para realizar atividades que seriam difíceis com a estrutura da rede oficial; adequou-se a diversas modalidades de ensino; aceitou diversas formas de uso. Em alguns momentos seus personagens se encontram, porém, o que ressalta é o quadro preocupante de desintegração da comunidade escolar, que a deixa vulnerável perante os ajustes dos órgãos superiores de ensino. / This research addresses the relationship of public schools with the geography of places and analyzes the links between urbanization and educational policies in São Paulo. We aim to understand the situation of so-called central schools, which are schools that are embedded in the social milieu of the old city, given their current functional inadequateness and the lack of interest of middle and high classes. The central locations, which have traditionally been understood as places where life itself took place, experienced widespread evacuation and closings of dozens of schools in the context of diffuse urbanization and explosive expansion of urban boundaries. Paradoxically these closures often occurred where public schools had better performances. These closures restrict the possibilities of local residents and make it impractical for those living in distant suburbs to attend the school. In this context, the land of these old schools has become interesting for the real estate sector and the management strategies of the State. The case study of the public school Antonio Alves Cruz allowed us to understand the transformation of this school, which was once influenced by community interests, and its dilemma to survive in the city centre. The school has enlarged its range of action and has incorporated a Non-Government Organization in its most critical moment to accomplish activities which would be difficult to implement exclusively with the official structure. It has adapted to several modalities of teaching and it has been used in several ways. At some moments, all its characters meet. However, our concern regards the disintegration of the school community, and its vulnerability in the presence of policies of the bodies of higher education.

Qual o papel a ser desempenhado pela Filosofia no Ensino Médio? Partindo desta questão, tendo como base a Teoria Crítica da Escola de Frankfurt, este trabalho defende a tese de que a principal contribuição da filosofia para a educação reside em seu caráter eminentemente político. O seu ensino deve contribuir para a formação política dos estudantes, proporcionando um esclarecimento sobre as forças que pretendem guiá-los de forma heterônoma, para que eles possam construir a sua própria autonomia, tornando-se plenamente cidadãos, responsáveis por si e por toda a sociedade. O esclarecimento é entendido, à maneira de Kant, como a saída do homem de sua auto-inculpável menoridade. Para que a educação proporcione uma formação para a maioridade, o professor de Filosofia precisa articular-se com os demais educadores para a construção de uma educação crítica que reconheça a sua essência política. As principais forças da heteronomia, nas sociedades modernas, são representadas pela indústria cultural e pela racionalidade instrumental, que determinam de forma direta e indireta todo o processo educativo tradicional. Por isso, a disciplina de Filosofia precisa refletir, filosofando com os estudantes, sobre o caráter reacionário que a cultura pode assumir, quando fabricada pela indústria cultural. Ela precisa ser uma filosofia para a contradição e para a resistência às forças da heteronomia, para proporcionar aos estudantes as possibilidades concretas de emancipação, não apenas individual, mas de toda a humanidade. / What´s the High School Philosophy role? From this question, based on Frankfurt School Critical Theory, this work suppports the thesis that the main Philosophy contribution to education is in its eminently political character. Its teaching must contribute to the students political development providing elucidation about the strengths which intend to guide them by heteronomy way, so that they are able to build their own autonomy becoming citizens responsible for themselves and all society. The elucidation is understood through Kant´s ideas like man´s leaving from his self-culpable minority. In order to the education provides a development to the majority, the Philosophy Professor has to articulate with the other educators in a critical education building which recognizes its political essence. The main heteronomy strengths, in modern societies, are represented by culture industry and instrumental rationality which determine the direct and indirect ways of all traditional education process. Therefore, the Philosophy subject needs to be thought to philosophize with the students about the reactionary character that the culture may take over when manufactured by cultural industry. It needs to be a philosophy for the contradiction and for the resistance to the heteronomy strengths, to provide the possibilities of concrete emancipation to the students, not only individual but all humanity.

Thesis advisor: Dennis L. Shirley / Over the past fifteen years there has been a growing scholarly interest in education issues among community based organizations (CBOs). Education organizing is the mobilization of parents and community members for the purpose of transforming schools and CBOs have already demonstrated their ability to impact both student outcomes and educational policy (Shirley, 1997). The Annenberg Institute found that "successful organizing strategies contributed to increased student attendance, improved standardized test score performance, higher graduation rates and college-going aspirations" (Mediratta, Shah, & McAlister, 2008 ). While an increasing number of researchers are exploring this phenomenon, we know little about the experiences of CBOs members who are engaged in this work. Utilizing a qualitative case study approach and a conceptual framework that draws from situated learning, social capital, and networking theory, this study explored the following questions as they relate to the experiences of members in three different CBOs: * What motivates families to participate in CBOs involved in education organizing? * How do members learn the work of education organizing? What skills (if any) are acquired as both individuals and as a collective, and how are they developed? * What impact (both material and personal) does participation have on CBO members' lives? Findings from this study revealed that participation in the process of education organizing has the potential to not only transform schools, but the participants themselves. Initial understandings of self-interest evolved to include broader social concerns. Members reported increases in confidence, desire, and ability to fully participate in democratic processes. The findings also indicated that the effectiveness of a CBO is related to its organizational structure, its members' capacity for learning, the types of issues that members are trying to address, and the strength of their relationships within local civic ecologies. Those groups that were able to operate in diverse networks while developing the necessary technological, political, and cultural knowledge generally met with the most success. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

Thesis advisor: Marilyn Cochran-Smith / A new phenomenon in teacher education, referred to as new graduate schools of education, or nGSEs (Cochran-Smith, et al., 2016), is gaining traction in the U.S. Profoundly different in program structures and arrangements from most university programs, these non-university affiliated teacher education programs have emerged during the current era of standards- and accountability-based reform. However, limited empirical research has examined how nGSEs conceptualize and enact teaching and learning and how these programs might signal a shift in the field of teacher education. This dissertation attempts to address this empirical lacuna through an in-depth qualitative case study of the first such program, located within High Tech High (HTH), a charter school network. The purpose of this study is to understand the HTH program’s core beliefs and behaviors, as well as the organization’s relationship with its institutional environment (i.e. the broader educational policy, funding, and field-level contexts). Utilizing institutional analysis and sensemaking theory, I argue that teacher education programming at HTH drew on a core logic of constructivism, which informed the school’s instructional work of teaching and learning and its organizational design. Through this constructivist approach, teacher education faculty and students were able to “practice with theory,” bridging the theory-practice dichotomy and informing a relational and actionable conception of knowledge. Finally, HTH took an active stance towards its institutional environment, developing organizational networks to both retain organizational fidelity to its mission and also enact change in accordance with this mission. My analysis has implications for teacher education, organizational analysis, and education policy. Because constructivism dually informed instruction and organizational structures, HTH offers new possibilities for the design of education organizations. The centrality of constructivist logics allowed for both remarkable consistency in values, beliefs, and goals across the organization as well as considerable agency for individual actors. The agency of HTH personnel, paired with the program’s “active stance” towards environmental forces, such as funders and field-level partners, informed how education leaders’ design choices simultaneously supported individual agency and organizational mission as well as ground-up approaches to change. Lastly, the case of HTH indicates that the nGSE phenomenon models new organizational approaches to teacher education, which can challenge and expand the ways in which we understand teaching and learning for educators. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

Esta tese trata da formação política e da participação política dos conselheiros de escola que atuaram no município de Suzano São Paulo, no período de 2005 a 2009, particularmente no que diz respeito aos familiares das crianças. Procuramos analisar em que medida esse tipo de formação contribui para a luta pela democratização da gestão da escola e para a elaboração de propostas de formação política por parte do poder público. O estudo foi organizado de modo a abordar no primeiro capítulo a questão da formação e da participação política. A partir de um conceito amplo de educação, ressaltamos a educação não formal e popular desenvolvida no mundo da vida, em diferentes processos participativos como campo privilegiado para a formação política preocupada com a tomada de decisões e com a democratização das relações. No segundo capítulo, privilegiamos o tema da institucionalização dos espaços de participação, tecendo considerações sobre a escola e sobre o Conselho de Escola, entendendo que não basta a criação de espaços democráticos de participação para que se garantam direitos legalmente firmados. Na sequência, apresentamos o contexto desta pesquisa, expondo, além das características do município de Suzano, as diversas ações voltadas à democratização da gestão da escola ali desenvolvidas e os participantes desta investigação. No último capítulo, à luz da teoria apresentada, identificamos e analisamos as concepções elaboradas pelos conselheiros de escola, participantes desta pesquisa, sobre formação, participação, representação, direito, escola e Conselho de Escola. Os dados foram obtidos por intermédio de: 1. consulta e análise de vários documentos da SME referentes às ações democratizantes elaboradas pelo município de Suzano/SP, no período entre 2005 e 2009; 2. entrevistas com doze conselheiros de escola, familiares das crianças, que atuaram no mesmo período. Nas conclusões, apresentamos, a partir do mapeamento realizado, aspectos de natureza temática, estratégica e estrutural que consideramos importantes para a elaboração de políticas públicas voltadas à formação política do conselheiro de escola com vistas à transformação da escola e da sociedade. / This thesis deals with the political formation of the school counselor, specifically the parents segment, who worked in the city of Suzano - São Paulo (2005-2009). Our goal was to analyze to which extent this kind political formation helps in the struggle for democratizing the school management and in the creation of political formation proposals made by the government.The study was organized to address, in the first chapter, the issue of political education and participation. From a broad concept of education, we emphasize the non-formal and popular education developed in the world of life, in different participatory processes, as a privileged field for the political education concerned with participation in decision-making as well as the democratization of relations. On the second chapter, we focus the question of institutionalization of spaces involvement with considerations about the school and the School Council, understanding that just the creation of democratic spaces of participation such as the School Council is not enough to ensure that the relationships there stabilished will guarantee the existence of rights legally signed, being democratic practices and relationships necessary for this warranty to become a reality. Following, we present the research context of the city of Suzano bringing characteristics of the various actions aimed at the democratization of school management developed there. In the last chapter, in light of the theory presented, we plot the concepts developed by school counselors on formation, participation, representation, law, school and the school council. To conduct the study, the data was obtained by: 1) SME documents that were organized, consulted and analyzed, related to democratizing actions developed for that municipality in the period between 2005 and 2009. 2) Interviews with twelve school counselors, from the parents segment, who acted in the same period. In conclusion, we return to the conceptions developed by the counselors, from the mapping done, thematic, strategic and structural aspects that we consider important for the elaboration of public policies for formation of school counselors with emphasis on transforming the school and society.

Cette thèse s'inscrit dans une dynamique et une perspective plurielles car elle interroge essentiellement les sciences du langage, les sciences de l'éducation, mais emprunte également à l'économie de l'éducation, la sociologie de l'éducation, et la docimologie. Le point de départ de ce travail s'enracine dans notre questionnement permanent sur les faiblesses des systèmes éducatifs d'Afrique subsaharienne. Le cœur de notre travail interroge le bilinguisme officiel français-anglais à l'Éducation de base et les raisons pour lesquels le Cameroun ne parvient pas à atteindre ce bilinguisme scolaire. L'analyse à visée évaluative de la politique linguistique éducative montre in fine que le bilinguisme officiel au Cameroun est un bilinguisme de façade et les raisons essentielles de ce constat sont identifiées.Sur le plan méthodologique, les observables relèvent de techniques qualitatives courantes en sciences humaines (enquêtes de terrain fondées sur des entretiens semi-directifs, observations de classes, méta-analyses) et de techniques quantitatives issues principalement du domaine de l'économie de l'éducation.La perspective retenue dans la formulation des recommandations relève d'une approche aussi systémique que le permettait le cadre de notre étude et d'une tentative de pont entre le Nord et le Sud. Cette démarche nous a notamment conduit à nous appuyer, en particulier, sur les travaux sur le plurilinguisme du Conseil de l'Europe. Certes le terrain de recherche qui est le nôtre, l'Afrique subsaharienne francophone, est totalement différent du contexte européen, en apparence. Mais des points de convergence existent et il est certainement possible de dégager matière à réflexion de ces recherches axées uniquement sur l'Europe. S'il ne s'agit pas de plaquer les résultats obtenus dans ces recherches sur un terrain aussi différent que le Cameroun, il nous a semblé cependant qu'une contextualisation pourrait permettre, dans une perspective de mutualisation des bonnes pratiques, des évolutions intéressantes du bilinguisme scolaire au Cameroun.L'originalité de ce travail repose sur la thématique choisie, une contribution à l'analyse de la politique linguistique éducative dans une perspective évaluative, et sur l'introduction de méthodes issues du monde des consultants en éducation pour l'examen de cette politique. / This thesis is part of a dynamic and pluralistic perspective because it essentially asks the language sciences, science education, but also borrows from the economics of education, sociology of education, and docimology. The starting point of this work is rooted in our constant questioning about the weaknesses of sub-Saharan Africa education systems. The heart of our work questions the official French -English bilingualism in basic education and the reasons for which the Cameroon fails to reach this school bilingualism. The analysis referred to evaluative language education policy ultimately shows that official bilingualism in Cameroon is a bilingual facade and the main reasons for this situation are identified.On the methodological level, observable within current qualitative techniques in the social sciences (field surveys based on semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, meta-analyzes) and quantitative techniques mainly from the field of economics of education.The perspective adopted in the formulation of recommendations is part of a systemic approach also permitted the scope of this study and an attempt to bridge between North and South. This approach has led us to support us including, in particular, the work on multilingualism of the Council of Europe. While the field of research that is ours, Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa is totally different from the European context, apparently. But the points of convergence exist and it is certainly possible to identify to think of this research focused only on Europe. If it is not to flatten the results obtained in this research one as different as Cameroon ground, it seemed, however, that contextualization could afford, with a view to sharing best practices, interesting developments bilingual school in Cameroon.The originality of this work is based on the chosen theme, a contribution to the analysis of language education policy in an evaluative perspective, and the introduction of methods from the worlds of education consultants for review of this policy.

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.

La lutte contre les inégalités scolaires est l’un des fondements de l’éducation en France. La mise enoeuvre de l’égalité des chances, la lutte contre les inégalités sociales et territoriales à l’école sont inscrites dans le premier article du code de l’éducation. Cependant, les inégalités scolaires persistent et tendent à s’accroître ces dernières années. À l’aide de troisessais mobilisant trois bases de données (PISA, Cedre et TALIS) d’évaluations internationales et nationales, cette thèse souhaite apporter un regard nouveau sur la compensation des inégalités pour les élèves scolarisés dans le secondaire en France. / The fight against educational inequality is one of the foundational principles of education in France. Implementing equal opportunity and the fight against social and geographical inequality are inscribed in the first article in the Code of Education. However, educational inequality persists and has continued to increase these past years. Using data sets from threedifferent international and national evaluations (PISA, Cedre, and TALIS), this dissertation seeks to bring a new perspective on the reduction of inequality for students enrolled in secondary education in France.