Although quality assurance programs may improve the curricula and outcomes of early childhood programs, some U.S. childcare principals are reluctant to participate in these initiatives. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore the motivation that guides Texas childcare principals' decision-making regarding participation in the…

International education opportunities are vital to students' personal, professional, and educational development. Pre-COVID era research has found that students seek to participate in international education to learn about other cultures, enhance career development, gain world enlightenment, attain personal growth, or for leisure. However, minimal…

In this article, I examine how a sample of principals in Texas and West Virginia made sense of the learning experiences of kindergarteners and how such sensemaking appeared to affect them as instructional leaders. Examining these issues creates the opportunity to consider the types of support school leaders might need to address the changing…

Data-based instruction (DBI) is a process in which teachers use progress data to make ongoing instructional decisions for students with learning disabilities. Curriculum-based measurement (CBM) is a common form of progress monitoring, and CBM data are placed on a graph to guide decision-making. Despite the central role that graph interpretation…

Community college presidents play a critical role in making decisions that shape the organizational cultures and policies of their institutions. This study explored the perceptions of 15 public community college presidents in Texas. Using focus groups and grounded theory methods, this research applied analytical frameworks focused on human…

Prior studies have documented the pattern of decreased state funding for higher education in periods of economic contraction (i.e., the balance wheel phenomenon). This qualitative case study examines how policymakers in California and Texas made decisions about funding higher education at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when policymakers faced…

Using a Critical Race framework, researchers conducted semi-structured interviews to explore how educational leaders across Texas have made meaning of the impact of George Floyd on their practices. Findings from this study add to the literature by examining administrators' reflections on race, racism, and their impact on their approaches to…

High-quality K-12 instructional materials can meaningfully improve teaching practice and student achievement, especially when paired with professional learning support. Yet state policymakers have usually left ultimate authority for textbook selection to school district leaders. Consequently, the quality of materials across U.S. classrooms and…

Educator retention is a concern plaguing the nation. Schools struggle yearly to fill positions for classroom educators as teachers leave the profession. This phenomenological study examined a rural Central Texas school district and its educators' perceptions of retention issues. Multiple classroom educators were interviewed at a Title 1 rural…

Purpose: This study sought to investigate how secondary agriculture teachers' characteristics influence their perceived ability to teach students decision-making skills. Design/Methodology/Approach: We used a cross-sectional survey research design and distributed the instrument to secondary agriculture teachers in the U.S. via Facebook. We…

This dissertation consists of two chapters studying problems faced by youths in two contexts that could be pivotal to their future: admissions to higher education and the juvenile criminal justice system. The underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields has been studied extensively, and there have…

At a mid-size suburban school district located in Texas, secondary special education teachers are not integrating technology routinely into their content-based lessons, thereby not ensuring special education students have access to a guaranteed viable curriculum. The purpose of this basic qualitative research study was to explore secondary…

The COVID-19 pandemic was a primary cause for the decline in college enrollment rates for Latino/x college men over the last two years. The aim of this qualitative study was to explore how these students discussed their decisions to attend and enroll college since the onset of the pandemic. Using the Theory of planned behavior (Azjen, 1991), we…

Principals are responsible for academic achievement within their schools and, as such, drive the decisions in reading instruction for their campus. There is much research on instructional decision-making and reading instruction, but little exists on the connection between the two. This study focuses on the reading instructional decisions of…

The purpose of this dissertation was to provide teachers, principals, district administrators, and local, state, and national legislators with an understanding of what the perception is of Hispanic American Immigrant parents regarding their access to parental engagement and agency through the American public school system, specifically elementary…