The Morrill Act of 1862 provided the funding mechanism for the modern land-grant college system. In the over 160 years since its passage, the tripartite land-grant mission of teaching, research, and service has become the most recognizable legacy of the legislation. Recent scholars of land-grant education caution against viewing the history of…

School turnaround in the United Stated has been a focus dating back to the mid 1960s with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act aimed to ensure that children have equal access to excellent educational opportunities. This qualitative study targeted seven Turnaround Principals of…

The U.S. Department of Education, under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, underscores every child's right to integrate, receive support, and fully participate in school life. The problem is that significant disparities exist in reading growth scores between students with disabilities taught in special-education resource settings and…

On December 10, 2015, President Obama signed Every Student Success Act (ESSA), which reauthorized the 50-year-old ESEA commitment to equal opportunity for all students (U. S. Department of Education, n.d.). One of the provisions included all students in America be taught to high academic standards that will prepare them to succeed in college and…

The problem that was addressed in this study was a rural school district in southeastern Georgia was identified by the Georgia Department of Education as overidentifying African American students as having an intellectual disability (ID). The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of special education eligibility team members…

Distributed leadership practices were used by principals to engage teacher leaders in instructional leadership responsibilities to create an innovative learning culture in Title I elementary schools. It was not known how teachers described the influence of principal-distributed leadership practices on organizational learning and innovativeness in…

The purpose of this study was to examine the knowledge and inclusion practices of music educators in the Southeastern United States, specifically in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Participants (N = 10,666) included K-12 general music, band, orchestra, and choir teachers. Participants were asked…

This study examines principal turnover in Georgia public elementary schools during a time period prior to the existence of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, through the law's full implementation. Data was compiled for the fourteen-year period and examined to determine if a relationship existed between principal attrition rates and the…

After decades of attempting to identify effective reading programs within the United States, in recent years, the emphasis on identifying these programs has made a dramatic shift. The continuous increase in federal involvement began the implementation of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). One of the primary goals for NCLB is to drastically improve…

This dissertation explored the constitutionality of a Georgia law, under both the Georgia Constitution and the United States Constitution, which allows for the removal of elected school board members based on threatened loss of district accreditation. The problem is that elected board members are being removed from office based on district…

Response to Intervention has the potential to help schools reach the goals of both the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act and Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA) 2004. The course of action with the Response to Intervention model is to apply instructionally sound practices based on students' needs, monitor students'…

In the 12 years subsequent to the passing of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the ensuing standards-based reforms (SBRs) have created multiple effects that have permeated every aspect of the educational process, and teachers have reported specific constraints being placed upon them as a result. Grounded in Eisner's (2002b) theory of aesthetic teaching…

Educational leaders continue to be challenged in terms of accountability measures for increased student achievement, as mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). In particular, schools must show adequate yearly progress (AYP) reaching 100% proficiency levels for all students in the areas of English language arts and mathematics by…

The problem addressed in this study was to understand how preservice teachers documented and communicated learning via working eportfolios to demonstrate reflective practice in a teacher education class. The purpose of the study was to use mixed methods to understand how preservice teachers document and communicate their learning in working…

As school districts are facing increasing pressure to meet annual yearly progress goals based upon the No Child Left Behind legislation (2001), teacher preparation and effectiveness, especially in teaching specific subgroups, is an issue that resonates with many educators today. This quantitative, causal-comparative study examined the impact…