This comparative case study was conducted to explore how family contributions are garnered and allocated at two socioeconomically different schools in Kansas and how those contributions mitigate or exacerbate existing inequities between schools. The Parent Teacher Association at each school was a focus of the study as it is the main avenue for…

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…

Statement of Purpose and Method of Study: Historically, Mississippi has lagged behind the rest of the nation in student achievement and funding for education. This comparative quantitative study investigated whether significant differences in student achievement as measured by mean composite ACT scores of high school juniors in Mississippi public…

This qualitative case study investigated the perspectives of higher education leaders and business executive on the funding gap between liberal arts programs and STEM education in a public research level 2 institution in Florida. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore and explain participants' perspectives and finding ways to…

Community colleges are unique in the higher education realm. Open access, the demographics of students, communities served, locations, and funding sources all present distinct circumstances. A strategic plan supported by leadership, faculty, staff and the external environment is needed to steer students on pathways to success. The focus on…

Nearly 30 states have adopted or are transitioning to performance-based funding programs for community colleges that allocate funding based on institutional performance according to defined metrics. While embraced by state lawmakers and promoted by outside advocacy groups as a method to improve student outcomes, enhance accountability and ensure…

This research is an examination of the instructional leadership practices of effective rural superintendents who oversee school districts in small, rural school districts in the most northern New England states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The study looked at the successful leadership practices of school district superintendents who have…

This dissertation examines the complexity involved in teachers' perceptions and experience of time on school-related activities. The Intensification Theory explains that test-based accountability has caused a time crunch for teachers, increasing their stress level and burnout rate. Research literature has shown that teachers experiencing high…

Providing support for institutional planning is central to the function of institutional research. Necessary for the planning process are accurate enrollment projections. The purpose of the present study was to develop a short-term enrollment model simple enough to be understood by those who rely on it, yet sufficiently complex to serve varying…

The educational system in the United States continues to pose many challenges for law and policy makers. Many of these challenges can be traced back to two landmark cases, "Plessy vs. Ferguson" and "Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka." And, while the U.S. Department of Education developed programs to address many of these…

The intersection of the accountability measures found in NCLB with the legislative response to the Campbell decisions in Wyoming has resulted in an unprecedented focus on accountability for student achievement and resource use. Funding provided to schools has increased with a concomitant drive for accountability and transparency, the publication…

The purpose of this study was to examine the dispersion of human capital resources within one school district in southern California and compare the use of personnel at each school to the desired allocation informed by the district's strategies and staffing formula. The district's resource distribution was also compared to that of the Evidence…

The purpose of this study was to analyze human resource allocation data for all elementary schools in large urban school district to determine whether resources were allocated in ways in that research suggests can lead to improved student achievement. Data from all 46 elementary schools that participated in the study were compared to the…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not a significant difference existed in the overall academic performance of athletes when compared to non-athletes at one rural high school in Wisconsin. The study was important to the field of educational leadership because in the current environment of accountability, educational leaders need…

This study implemented a two phase concurrent mixed-methods design to generate a greater understanding of how elementary schools with increased autonomy in fiscal decision making allocated their money, how their site-based decisions affected allocative efficiency, and how increased autonomy affected site-based decision making when compared with a…