Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 212-216).

This dissertation examines three labor market issues regarding public school administrators in Texas using personnel records from the 1994-95 school year until the 2003-04 school year. The first essay explores promotion rates of men and women to school principal, a position that requires certification. I find ignoring gender differences in desire for promotion yields results similar to the existing literature: men hold an advantage in the promotion process. However, restricting the analysis to only those individuals who have expressed interest in an administrative position, those who became trained and certified as a principal, I find men and women face no statistically significant difference in the probability of promotion. Duration analysis shows that although men are most often promoted four years after they become certified and women are most often promoted six to seven years after becoming certified, women face a much higher hazard of promotion than men. This cannot be explained by a higher exit rate from the education sector by men. The second essay examines the effect of restrictive licensing on the quality of the entrants into a profession. Theory suggests that requiring minimum competency standards truncates the low end of the quality distribution, however, increased costs of entry encourage talented potential entrants to pursue outside opportunities. Using the public school principal profession in Texas and measuring teacher quality by changes in student achievement, I find evidence that lower entry costs increase the quality of entrants. As a robustness check, I categorize observations geographically into control and treatment groups to ensure the estimated effect is a result of reduced entry costs and not unobserved factors. The third essay examines the effect of increased school choice on the earnings and abilities of school administrators. I find an overall positive effect of competition on administrators' earnings suggesting that productivity gains from hiring talented managers outweigh the pressure to reduce costs by cutting salaries. However, the results are sensitive to the level of competition, the type of labor market, and the administrators' position. I control for possible endogeneity both mechanically and with outside instruments and my conclusions are largely unchanged.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-104).

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the use of discursive practice in the media public sphere as part of the educational policymaking process. The theory of definitional advantage suggests that powerful policy players have preferred access to media accounts of educational issues. Links between educational policy research and media research suggest that this definitional advantage translates into educational policy settlement. My research begins from the premise that this theory requires further clarification as recent evidence suggests definitional advantage and links to settlement are context specific and more complex than initially envisioned. This study focuses on policy player representations in newspaper accounts of educational choice issues in Edmonton and Calgary, Alberta from 1990 to 2005, with attention to who was saying what, when, and with what authority. A fifteen year timeline was chosen in order to illuminate periods of policy crisis and settlement, and contrasting case study sites were chosen due to key differences in school board resistance and local policy implementation. While newspaper accounts shifted overtime in response to local conditions, main narrative issue themes focused on charter approval challenges, administrative issues, and monitoring and support needs. Policy players also weighed in on the school choice debate by articulating claims related to equity, quality, and the need for diversity of educational opportunities. Charter school, school board, and government players were best able to articulate their positions in the public sphere as evidenced by measures of access, recognition, responsiveness, and intertextuality. Teachers’ union representations were surprisingly limited in both newspapers. Differences across local sites reveal strategies for effective counter-hegemonic work in the public sphere. By reinforcing their position of accommodation, connecting to local conditions, and limiting their assertions, the Edmonton board stopped the spread of charter schools early in the policymaking process. In contrast, the Calgary school board took an aggressive position of resistance that reinforced public perceptions of self-interest and mediocrity. Educational policy players should be encouraged that power is not a prerequisite for definitional advantage. Rather, connecting to local conditions, avoiding blame, and targeting assertions are effective policymaking strategies to be used in the public sphere.

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the use of discursive practice in the media public sphere as part of the educational policymaking process. The theory of definitional advantage suggests that powerful policy players have preferred access to media accounts of educational issues. Links between educational policy research and media research suggest that this definitional advantage translates into educational policy settlement. My research begins from the premise that this theory requires further clarification as recent evidence suggests definitional advantage and links to settlement are context specific and more complex than initially envisioned. This study focuses on policy player representations in newspaper accounts of educational choice issues in Edmonton and Calgary, Alberta from 1990 to 2005, with attention to who was saying what, when, and with what authority. A fifteen year timeline was chosen in order to illuminate periods of policy crisis and settlement, and contrasting case study sites were chosen due to key differences in school board resistance and local policy implementation. While newspaper accounts shifted overtime in response to local conditions, main narrative issue themes focused on charter approval challenges, administrative issues, and monitoring and support needs. Policy players also weighed in on the school choice debate by articulating claims related to equity, quality, and the need for diversity of educational opportunities. Charter school, school board, and government players were best able to articulate their positions in the public sphere as evidenced by measures of access, recognition, responsiveness, and intertextuality. Teachers’ union representations were surprisingly limited in both newspapers. Differences across local sites reveal strategies for effective counter-hegemonic work in the public sphere. By reinforcing their position of accommodation, connecting to local conditions, and limiting their assertions, the Edmonton board stopped the spread of charter schools early in the policymaking process. In contrast, the Calgary school board took an aggressive position of resistance that reinforced public perceptions of self-interest and mediocrity. Educational policy players should be encouraged that power is not a prerequisite for definitional advantage. Rather, connecting to local conditions, avoiding blame, and targeting assertions are effective policymaking strategies to be used in the public sphere.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-104). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Oct. 22, 2007). Directed by C. P. Gause and Ulrich Reitzug; submitted to the School of Education. Includes bibliographical references (p. 151-157, p. 169-171).

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the use of discursive practice in the media public sphere as part of the educational policymaking process. The theory of definitional advantage suggests that powerful policy players have preferred access to media accounts of educational issues. Links between educational policy research and media research suggest that this definitional advantage translates into educational policy settlement. My research begins from the premise that this theory requires further clarification as recent evidence suggests definitional advantage and links to settlement are context specific and more complex than initially envisioned. This study focuses on policy player representations in newspaper accounts of educational choice issues in Edmonton and Calgary, Alberta from 1990 to 2005, with attention to who was saying what, when, and with what authority. A fifteen year timeline was chosen in order to illuminate periods of policy crisis and settlement, and contrasting case study sites were chosen due to key differences in school board resistance and local policy implementation. While newspaper accounts shifted overtime in response to local conditions, main narrative issue themes focused on charter approval challenges, administrative issues, and monitoring and support needs. Policy players also weighed in on the school choice debate by articulating claims related to equity, quality, and the need for diversity of educational opportunities. Charter school, school board, and government players were best able to articulate their positions in the public sphere as evidenced by measures of access, recognition, responsiveness, and intertextuality. Teachers’ union representations were surprisingly limited in both newspapers. Differences across local sites reveal strategies for effective counter-hegemonic work in the public sphere. By reinforcing their position of accommodation, connecting to local conditions, and limiting their assertions, the Edmonton board stopped the spread of charter schools early in the policymaking process. In contrast, the Calgary school board took an aggressive position of resistance that reinforced public perceptions of self-interest and mediocrity. Educational policy players should be encouraged that power is not a prerequisite for definitional advantage. Rather, connecting to local conditions, avoiding blame, and targeting assertions are effective policymaking strategies to be used in the public sphere. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate