This study was designed to investigate the sustainable academic benefits of a full time kindergarten experience beyond the kindergarten year with additional consideration of the relationship between productive learning behaviors and ongoing academic advantage. The study was conducted across four elementary schools that housed both alternating full day and daily full day kindergarten programs. The initial sample consisted of 321 students enrolled in either daily full day or alternating full day kindergarten during the 2001-2002 school year, which decreased, through attrition, to a total of 198 students enrolled in fourth grade during the 2005-2006 school year. Student academic achievement was measured using a combination of criterion referenced skill assessments, standardized test measures, and a teacher-rated social behavior scale. Hypotheses were tested at the .05 level of significance using chi square analyses, multivariate and univariate analyses of variance, and correlation and regression analyses.The findings indicated that by the end of the kindergarten year, full day kindergarten students outperformed their alternating day peers in both reading and mathematics. However, as measured at the beginning of the second grade year, the academic gains realized during the kindergarten year had dissipated. By the beginning of the fourth grade year, there was no difference in achievement across program types in mathematics, while a significant achievement difference was found in English/language arts, with alternating full day students outperforming their daily full day peers. Further, during the third and fourth grade years, there was a significant interaction between gender and student achievement for the cohort, with significant differences by gender and the combined effect of gender/kindergarten type on social learning behaviors. While the data established a significant, positive relationship between competent social behavior and academic achievement regardless of gender for students from both program types, boys who attended daily full day kindergarten demonstrated significantly less productive social behavior than did boys from the alternating day program and girls from the daily full day program. For those who attended daily full day kindergarten, lower social behavior ratings predicted depressed academic achievement in English/language arts well beyond the kindergarten year. / Department of Educational Leadership

<p>Education has become increasingly important in today’s society. In the three essays of this dissertation, I analyze the impacts of government education policies on elementary and high school students in Ontario.</p> <p>The first two essays measure the costs and benefits of programs that allow students to choose from a wider range of high schools. Theoretically, increased choice could benefit students since schools might compete for students by improving their productivity. The third essay of this dissertation, coauthored with Jean Eid and Christine Neill, examines the impacts on students of a switch from half-day to full-day kindergarten.</p> <p>In the first essay (Chapter 2), I document that students living in areas with more choice are more likely to apply to university. These outcomes seem to be due to competition between Public and Catholic school boards. I find that students attending public schools are more likely to apply to university when they are surrounded by more Catholic schools (and vice versa).</p> <p>In Chapter 3, I examine a potentially negative outcome of increased choice. I find that it is the brightest students (as measured by their standardized test scores) who are the most likely to take up the choice and opt in to a different school. These bright students move to what are perceived to be the better schools, leaving behind weaker students at poorer schools. If peer effects are important, this has the potential to be harmful for weaker students.</p> <p>In Chapter 4, my coauthors and I measure the impact of full-day kindergarten on standardized test scores once the students are in grades 3 and 6. We find that this universal program had no effect on the overall likelihood that a student passes these standard tests; however, we do observe some small improvements for students living in low-income and low-education neighbourhoods.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This project begins by looking at kindergarten from a historical perspective. It reviews research relating to all-day kindergarten and half-day kindergarten programs. It demonstrates that increased instructional time is beneficial especially for those low-achieving or disadvantaged students.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether any differences in academic achievement existed between full-day and half-day kindergarten students at the end of their kindergarten and first-grade school years. Two public schools considered comparable in size, philosophy, and socioeconomic levels of a large school district in Texas participated in the study. One of the schools provided a full-day kindergarten program; the other school provided a half-day kindergarten program. Kindergarten students from each of the two schools were match-paired according to birthday and sex. The total sample size was fifty students. All students were tested in December, 1985, with the Metropolitan Achievement Test. Preprimer Level, and in May, 1986, the end of the kindergarten year, with the Primer Level of the Metropolitan Achievement Test. The Metropolitan Achievement Test. Primary I Level, was additionally administered to the subjects in April, 1987, at the end of their first-grade school year. During each testing period, the subjects were administered the Reading, Language, and Math subtests of the Metropolitan Achievement Test. The following supplemental data also were gathered on the students: The Metropolitan Readiness Test II scores and the TEAMS test scores. The data obtained from the testing batteries were statistically analyzed using the .05 level of significance to test each hypothesis. In analyzing the data of all of the academic achievement testing batteries, statistical conclusions revealed that there was no significant difference in the mean scores of children (boys or girls) attending the fullday kindergarten program and children attending the half-day kindergarten program in academic achievement at the end of the kindergarten year or at the end of the first-grade year. It is recommended that continued studies be conducted to investigate the academic achievement of students attending full-day and half-day kindergarten programs. It is also recommended that other variables rather than academic achievement be studied to determine their effects on full-day and half-day kindergarten students.

Submitted by Renata Lopes (renatasil82@gmail.com) on 2016-04-01T12:26:24Z No. of bitstreams: 1 paulofernandodevasconcelosdutra.pdf: 663199 bytes, checksum: 8a87faab024eed1c01b7fa571eff5722 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Adriana Oliveira (adriana.oliveira@ufjf.edu.br) on 2016-04-24T03:14:09Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 paulofernandodevasconcelosdutra.pdf: 663199 bytes, checksum: 8a87faab024eed1c01b7fa571eff5722 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-24T03:14:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 paulofernandodevasconcelosdutra.pdf: 663199 bytes, checksum: 8a87faab024eed1c01b7fa571eff5722 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-11-18 / O presente estudo analisou a implementação da Política Pública de Ensino Médio Integral em duas escolas estaduais de Pernambuco, sob o ponto de vista da gestão escolar e apresentou um Plano de Ação Educacional que poderá contribuir com a qualificação da referida política. Justifica-se a investigação considerando a experiência do autor no Programa de Educação Integral da Secretaria de Educação de Pernambuco, desde o início da sua implantação, em 2008, até o momento de realização desta pesquisa. Para o desenvolvimento da pesquisa, utilizou-se dentro da metodologia qualitativa o método de estudo de caso em duas escolas selecionadas para esta pesquisa. Foram realizadas entrevistas semiestruturadas com os gestores e três professores de cada escola, além da análise documental da Política Pública e de revisão bibliográfica sobre o Ensino Médio. Este trabalho tem a sua fundamentação teórica em autores como: Condé (2011) e Mainardes (2006), que fazem a discussão a respeito da implementação de Políticas Públicas; Costa (2000, 2008), Gadotti (2009), Cavaliere (2009) e Mota (2006), com referências sobre a Educação Integral; Lima (2011) acerca do planejamento estratégico desenvolvido; Lück (2009, 2010) sobre gestão escolar. Observou-se na análise que os resultados obtidos pelas escolas têm relação com a permanência de um único gestor durante o ciclo completo do Ensino Médio e com a transformação da unidade escolar em escola integral, necessitando de um processo de formação continuada permanente. Ao final, foi apresentado um Plano de Ação Educacional com propostas de direcionamentos que poderão ser adotados pela Secretaria de Educação e pelas escolas, em prol da qualificação da política em questão. / This paper analyzed the implementation of public policies for full day High Schools in two state institutions in Pernambuco under the point of view of school management and presented an Education Action Plan that will contribute for the qualification of this specific policy. The investigation is justified considering the experience of the author in the full day schooling program of the Education Secretary of Pernambuco from the beginning of its settling, in 2008, to the moment of this research. It was used for the development of the research, according to the qualitative methodology, the method of case study in two chosen schools. Semi-structured interviews were made with principals and three teachers of each institution, besides the documental analysis of the public policies and High School bibliographic review. This paper has its theoretical fundaments on authors such as Condé (2011) and Mainardes (2006) who discuss the implementation of public policies; Costa (2000, 2008), Gadotti (2009), Cavalieri (2009) and Mota (2006), on their reflections about full day education; Lima (2011) referring to the developed strategic planning and Lück (2009, 2010) on school management. It was observed in the analysis that the results obtained by the schools are related to the keeping of an only principal during the complete High School cycle and to the transformation of the school in full day, with the need of continuous and permanent training. In the end it was shown an Education Action Plan of guidance proposals that may be adopted by the Education Secretary and schools towards the qualification of this specific policy.

L’éducation a connu des progrès remarquables au Vietnam au cours des deux dernières décennies. Cependant, l'inégalité des chances en matière d'éducation aggrave les disparités chez les enfants et menace les progrès en termes de productivité du travail. Pourtant, les mécanismes de transmission des inégalités et le rôle des compétences dans ce processus restent encore largement méconnus. L’objectif de cette thèse est d’apporter un nouvel éclairage sur ces questions. Plus précisément, elle vise à étudier comment les compétences interagissent avec les facteurs environnementaux dans l’atteinte des résultats scolaires et l’insertion sur le marché du travail au Vietnam. Le premier chapitre de cette thèse examine dans quelle mesure les compétences prédisent l'abandon scolaire. Le chapitre 2 analyse l’effet du passage au temps complet d’enseignement au primaire sur les inégalités scolaires. Enfin, le chapitre 3 étudie l'importance relative des compétences dans l’insertion des jeunes sur le marché du travail. À cette fin, diverses approches quantitatives sont menées à partir des données de Young Lives. Les contributions de la thèse à la littérature existante sont de prendre en compte les compétences non cognitives dans l’analyse, de considérer l'interaction entre le milieu social et l'environnement scolaire et enfin de traiter les erreurs de mesures des compétences au Vietnam. La thèse montre que les efforts en vue de plus d’égalité d’opportunités scolaires doivent être poursuivis. Elle montre également l’importance d'améliorer les compétences non cognitives pour améliorer le bien-être individuel et la croissance économique. / Vietnam has attained outstanding performance in education during the past two decades. However, inequality in educational opportunities aggravates disparities among children and threaten the improvement of labour productivity. The underlying mechanism for transmitting inequality and role of skills in the process remaining unclear motivates this thesis. It aims to study how skills interact with environmental factors to determine outcomes on education and livelihoods in Vietnam. Firstly, Chapter 1 examines how skills predict dropping out Then Chapter 2 inspects whether full-day schooling reduces educational inequality. Finally, Chapter 3 investigates the relative importance of skills in determining labour market outcomes. To this end, the research applies diversified quantitative approaches using data from the Young Lives in Vietnam. The contributions of the thesis are threefold, namely taking into consideration the non-cognitive skill in the analysis, addressing the interaction between social background and school environment, and the measurement errors accompanied poor proxies for skills in Vietnam. The thesis hints at further levelling educational opportunities of children and enhancement of non-cognitive skills for greater outcomes in life and economic growth

[pt] O prolongamento do tempo escolar é uma política atraente que os países de renda média vêm adotando. No entanto, apesar de um número crescente de trabalhos analisando o impacto do aumento do tempo de instrução no desempenho dos alunos, pouco se sabe sobre o spillover que esse tipo de política gera, apesar de seu alto custo para alunos pobres de países em desenvolvimento. Assim, avaliamos o impacto das escolas de período integral nas escolas públicas regulares (meio período). Para isso, analisamos o Programa de Ensino Integral (PEI) do estado de São Paulo para o ensino médio em um conjunto de dados com geolocalizações de escolas. Usamos uma estratégia dinâmica de diferença-em-diferenças para mostrar que as escolas de período integral alteram a composição de alunos e professores das escolas regulares vizinhas e afetam negativamente seu desempenho e evasão. Além disso, estimamos o impacto do PEI nas escolas tratadas removendo o viés de spillover e confirmamos que os spillovers são relativamente pequenos em comparação com os ganhos do programa. / [en] Lengthening school time is an attractive policy that middle-income countries have been adopting. However, regardless of an increasing number of works analyzing the impact of increasing instructional time on students achievement, little is known about the spillover that this kind of policy generates, despite its high cost for poor students from developing countries. Therefore, we evaluate the impact of full-day schools on regular public schools (part-time). To do so, we analyze the Programa de Ensino Integral (PEI) of São Paulo state for secondary education in a dataset with schools geolocations. We use a dynamic difference-in-differences strategy to show that full-day schools change students and teachers composition of nearby regular schools and negatively affect their achievement and drop-out. Furthermore, we estimate PEI impact on treated schools removing spillover bias and confirm that the spillovers are relatively small compared with the program s gains.

No description available.

This qualitative study explored the reasons why suburban district leaders opted for full-day or half-day kindergarten programming in a sample of four local suburban districts operating such programs in Southeastern, Pennsylvania. The primary data source was interviews with key district leaders including school board members, superintendents, assistant superintendents, directors of elementary education, and directors of curriculum. Review of district documents as well as informal observations in the field were used to supplement the interview data. Suburban district leaders' perceptions, values, and opinions were examined in this study to determine how decisions for kindergarten programming were made. District leaders, especially superintendents, are charged with the enormous responsibility to program appropriately for the needs of their district. This study sought to reveal how such a critical but complex decision pertaining to kindergarten programming was reached in suburban communities. "Full-day kindergarten reappeared first in the 1960's as an intervention designed to help disadvantaged children catch up to their peers through additional schooling" (DeCicca, 2007, p. 67). Presently, full-day kindergarten appears to be gaining increasing momentum as more and more mothers are working to provide additional income for their families. The era of middle class stay at home moms has been on a decline due to the unstable economy, rising cost of living, single parent households, a greater need to supplement family income, to further their own self-development, and an opportunity for women to contribute to the workforce. Educators, on the other hand, remain divided on the issue of full-day kindergarten versus half-day kindergarten primarily due to funding issues, equivocal evidence of academic gains, and resource allocations. "Given the additional expense of full-day kindergarten, information regarding the size and duration of gains should be of great interest to policymakers" (DeCicca, 2007, p. 67). The recent push for full-day kindergarten has occurred at the state level. Whether the participation in a full-day program is associated with improved outcomes has been the focus of intense inquiry (Le, Kirby, Barney, Setodji & Gershwin, 2006). Kindergarten programming in the United States has changed considerably in the last 50 years as a result of state and local standards enforced in districts across the country. All that children needed to do in a traditional kindergarten was to play and adjust themselves to a social setting (Nelson, 2000). Now, kindergarten has evolved into another grade of academics where rigorous curricula have been implemented along with higher expectations placed on schools to succeed. The controversy arises over the inconsistencies with kindergarten programming, especially for suburban children. Suburban districts are continually challenged to meet the needs of all kindergarten learners as a result of the growing changes in demographics across the county. Due to the increased populations of English Language Learners and Economically Disadvantaged Learners, the challenge to program effectively for kindergarten students can be concerning to district leadership due to old mores that are no longer appropriate to program sufficiently. The intent of this study was to inform the reader about how complex decisions such as kindergarten programming were reached. Another intent of this study was to delve deeper into the perceptions, values, and opinions of those decision makers to gain a better understanding of the reasons why and how decision makers selected half-day or full-day kindergarten for their district. The methodology utilized in this qualitative study was a case study design. The researcher collected data through interviews with district leaders including school boards members, superintendents, assistant superintendents, directors of elementary education, and directors of curriculum. Observations in the field were conducted along with a review of key district documents such as strategic plans, school improvement plans, curriculum, and achievement data. The potential impact of this study was to inform the reader about the processes used by district leaders when making informed decisions about kindergarten programming. Suburban areas may benefit from this study because the results provided rich descriptive reports that can be utilized by parents, educators, policymakers, and the general public to gain a deeper understanding of suburban kindergarten in one state. / Educational Administration

This collective case study examined the factors affecting the collaborative relationship between teachers and early childhood educators (ECEs) teaching together in elementary schools as Early Learning Teams in the first year of implementation of full-time kindergarten in Ontario. There are six major adjustments required concurrently by the Ontario government’s new policy in all kindergarten classrooms: team-teaching (sharing instruction, not just classroom management); supporting ECEs as new staff; changing from theme-based to inquiry-based; balancing the School District’s literacy goals with provincial play-based curriculum; double the instructional time, and the increased number of children in the classroom (up from 19 to 24-30). Two of the four classrooms studied in a rural Ontario school district were full-day, every day kindergartens (FDK) for 4 and 5 year olds and the other two were alternate full-days. Data were collected through classroom observations and interviews with principals, kindergarten teachers and ECEs. Case study theory guided the collection and analysis of data with open coding of transcripts, active code notes and memos to help answer the question of how to best implement FDK programs in Ontario. Results indicated that the FDK Team relationship itself enabled and constrained classroom instructional strategies, which would in turn have an impact on student outcomes. Collaborative practice involved a process that was affected by both internal factors (such as teacher foreknowledge of ECE skills), and thirteen external factors which arose from government and school district mandates, as well as practices of the school principal. Examples are: planning time, pay differential, hiring practices and adjusting to the new curriculum at the same time as the team adjusts to team teaching. The collaboration of more than 9,500 teacher and ECE teams is key to the success of Ontario’s new full-time early learning program. The education sector needs to adopt the long-established business practice of supporting team development through recognizing progressive teaming stages, such as those identified by Tuckman (1965). Recommendations are made for principals, school districts offices, government policy, FDK teachers, ECEs, and colleges that provide ECE training. A mnemonic for the four attributes evident in high-functioning collaborative integrated teaching teams (RISE) is proposed.