Nearly all high school seniors today aspire to pursue higher education because they know that a college degree offers them the best opportunity to realize the American Dream. Indeed, college-going rates are up considerably for all students over the last 30 years. At the same time, however, racial gaps in degree attainment actually have grown, even…

The literature on teacher hiring and assignment tends to omit definitions of these key terms. An exception in Cohen-Vogel and Osborne-Lampkin (277), who define teacher assignment as "the reciprocal process between school management and teachers to guide decisions about who will teach, where they will teach, and what they will teach." But the…

Title I, Part A and Title II, Part A funds are provided to Houston Independent School District (HISD) through the 2002 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), also known as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). Both funds focus on enhancing student achievement, Title I, Part A through providing…

Research has shown that a solid visual arts program provided to students throughout the K-12 years increases academic achievement, increases self-confidence and self-concept and provides opportunities for students to tap all their intelligences. However, recent budget cuts and the high stake testing on Mathematics and English Language arts at all…

Value-added measures can be used to allocate funding to schools, to identify those institutions in need of special attention and to underpin government guidance on targets. In England, there has been a tendency to include in these measures an ever-greater number of contextualising variables and to develop ever-more complex models that encourage…

This book seeks to explore thematic and pragmatic applications of financing the community college to help facilitate educational reform, to assist efforts related to internationalization, and to create systemic support systems to maintain the mission. It includes chapters on a wide variety of finance related topics, and specific case studies of…

Results-based management has gained currency in Kenya. After pre-service training, teachers take various staff development programmes to enhance their role effectiveness. Many studies which have associated staff development with employee productivity have not delved into the actual mechanisms in which staff development impact on teachers'…

The purpose of this study is to determine the perceptions of New York State superintendents and board presidents in high-achieving and low-achieving school districts on the six superintendent leadership responsibilities identified by Waters and Marzano (2006) and their relationship to improving student achievement: (1) creating research-relevant…

As the U.S. Department of Education prepares to throw $3 billion in one-time money on the table to improve perennially foundering schools, a gulf is emerging between what federal officials would like to see done with the funds and what many districts say is their capacity--and inclination--to deliver. While some districts say the federal largess…

On September 8, 2011, the President proposed the American Jobs Act to Congress, including investments of $25 billion to renovate and modernize at least 35,000 of America's public schools; $5 billion to upgrade infrastructure at America's community colleges; and $30 billion to keep hundreds of thousands of educators in the classroom. This report…

Legislative mandates for improving student achievement under the No Child Left Behind Act have increased the need for student assessment, curriculum development and staff development in public schools. In order to meet these demands, schools must have the capacity necessary for improvement. Minnesota's small districts and their schools face…

A consensus is emerging among researchers who study charter schools that general conclusions about whether or not charter schools nationally perform better than traditional public schools are difficult to achieve (Buddin & Zimmer, 2005). Rather than asking, "Are charter schools working?" the better questions to ask might be,…

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the experiences and perceptions of principals whose schools were granted innovation status in accordance with the "Colorado Innovation Schools Act of 2008" (CISA). The CISA created a statewide system that allowed individual schools and entire districts to increase autonomy and…

With heightened expectations and greater funding as backdrop, one would expect elected officials and educators to ensure that America's substantial investment in public education is used effectively to accomplish its ambitious new goals. Conventional modes of funding school improvement, however, such as across-the-board salary increases,…

This study selected a purposeful sample of eight high performing southern California elementary schools which achieved API scores above 900 over a three year period. A review of instructional strategies for each study school during the improvement process and resource allocation patterns was determined. Case studies of each school include…