This study profiles superintendents in North Carolina public-school districts for academic year 2020-2021. We focus on superintendent gender, race, educational experiences, highest degrees earned, and professional longevity; and personal characteristics such as age and marital and parenting status, and the relationship between gender and race and…

Children's approaches to learning (AtL) has been identified in research and policy as a key domain of children's school readiness. However, relatively little is known about the child and family factors that shape early AtL, how it varies in the general population, or how it develops and changes through the early years of schooling. This…

Numerous studies have explored the labor market of school principals, documenting high turnover rates and voicing concerns regarding labor supply. However, little is known about the staffing challenges in rural schools and what promotes applicants to apply for and be hired for principalship in these locales. In partnership with the Wisconsin…

In order to inform and improve policies and programs designed to assist low-income students, policymakers and academic scholars seek to understand the characteristics of this student population, how these students fare in college, and the challenges they face in persisting and completing a degree (Choy 2000; Perna 2015; Watson 2017). Recent…

Latino students now make up 1 in 4 public school students in the United States and are a rapidly growing population in nontraditional settlement areas. Yet persistent racial and ethnic disparities in educational achievement and attainment are cause for grave concern, as high school graduation and postsecondary-education are increasingly necessary…

Great progress has been made in providing pre-kindergarten (pre-K) public education throughout the United States. The percentages of 3- and 4-year-olds enrolled nationally have grown from 3% to 5% and 14% to 29%, respectively, between 2002 and 2015. By 2015, 42 states and the District of Columbia were in varying stages of offering pre-K programs…

This dissertation is comprised of three essays, all of which focus on various impacts of economic recession. The first two essays utilize county-level data to examine differences between rural and urban response to economic downturn, while the final essay makes use of individual-level data to examine the impact of recession on enrollment in higher…

This secondary analysis of the earning mobility of the near poor examined the impact of human capital investment on the earning mobility of the near poor between 2005 and 2009. The theory framing this study is Human Capital Theory (Shultz, 1961). Other demographic and socioeconomic variables were included in this study to further explore factors…

This report provides a portrait of women in the United States and highlights comparisons with men at the national level. It is part of the Census 2000 Special Reports series that presents several demographic, social, and economic characteristics collected from Census 2000. The data contained in this report are based on the samples of households…

"The Condition of Education 2017" is a congressionally mandated annual report summarizing the latest data on education in the United States. This report is designed to help policymakers and the public monitor educational progress. This year's report includes 50 indicators on topics ranging from prekindergarten through postsecondary…

Multinomial stepwise logistic regression analyses were used to establish the most robust set of risk factors that would best predict low basic reading skills (i.e., a standard score less than 85 on the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test-Revised Basic Reading Skills cluster) of kindergarten and first-grade children at risk for emotional and behavioral…

Understanding the health literacy of America's adults is important because so many aspects of finding health care and health information, and maintaining health, depend on understanding written information. Many reports have suggested that low health literacy is associated with poor communication between patients and health care providers and with…

Background: The Hawaii Department of Education (HDOE) launched its Hawaii State Assessment (HSA) in spring, 2002, within the context of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) Act of 2001 and its mandates to close the "achievement gaps" between subgroups of students. Thus, it is important to investigate the extent to which student…

This report presents comprehensive information on juvenile crime, violence, and victimization and on the juvenile justice system. This report brings together the latest available statistics from a variety of sources and includes numerous tables, graphs, and maps, accompanied by analyses in clear, nontechnical language. The report offers Congress,…

Background: The overall goal of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 is to close, by the end of the 2013-2014 academic year, "the achievement gap between high- and low- performing students, especially the achievement gap between minority and non-minority students and, between disadvantaged children and their more advantaged peers"…