The aviation industry expects over two million new personnel in the next twenty years to ensure safe commercial travel and support long-term growth. However, the industry needs more diversity. This study gathered information from administrators and educators in a large, diverse urban school district to address this issue through questionnaires and…

Schools in the United States average an annual teacher turnover of 16%, with half of all teachers who change jobs also leaving the profession. This problem is important because high teacher turnover interrupts the development of pedagogical acumen among teachers, adversely affects student achievement, and diverts budget dollars that are needed…

The purpose of this quantitative study was to inform local practices in the state of Oklahoma regarding the equitable allocation of resources within school districts by examining the relationship between student per-pupil expenditures at high schools located in an urban district and student outcomes. Significant efforts, both legal and academic,…

The transition from middle school to high school is known to be one of the most critical times in a student's educational career. Ninth-grade students walk into larger schools; for some physical, emotional, and social developmental stages initiate; many encounter new demands of more rigorous academics; opportunities for participation in various…

In the United States, individuals with disabilities experience much higher rates of unemployment compared to non-disabled individuals. When an individual with a disability is unemployed, they are unlikely to achieve independence, which can lead to a lower quality of life. The Ohio Youth Leadership Forum (OYLF) is a program that was created to…

Using a South Los Angeles charter school of approximately 650 students operated by a non-profit charter management organization (CMO) as the primary field site, this two-year, ethnographic research project examines the implementation of a one-to-one tablet computer program in a public high school. This dissertation examines the variety of ways…

Today's public school principals lead under conditions of significant pressures for change. At the local level, principals are the primary receivers and interpreters of the discourses and demands for change coming from central administration. Principals must make sense of these discourses and demands for change at the local school level, and they…

This dissertation examines how eight urban high schools responded to mandates to raise graduation requirements in mathematics. The change process was complicated by challenges such as the conditions of poverty, lack of adequate financial support for schools, and large numbers of students who come to high school with inadequate preparation in…

University-school-community partnerships represent a collaborative model of urban educational reformation inclusive of all the organizations that impact urban education. Co-constructed relationships among communities, schools, and universities have the potential for redistributing hierarchical power, thereby enabling all partners to contribute to…

Students who are English Language Learners (ELLs) form the fastest growing segment of the American school population. Prompted by the call for scientific literacy for all citizens, science educators too have investigated the intersection of language and science instruction of ELLs. However these studies have typically been conducted with…