Third Mission (TM) drives universities to a purpose beyond their traditional role, especially in local socioeconomic and innovation ecosystems. To investigate the issue, we consider an exploratory and comparative study of two different governance systems of public universities (Southeast Brazil-region 1 and Texas-US-region 2). The comparison took…

When school districts move more administrators down to school campuses, do they get better at reducing the income-based achievement gap? Data from Texas public school districts between 1994 and 2010 show that such managerial decentralization is positively associated with income-based achievement gap, explained by the tendency of elite capture in…

This dissertation consists of three chapters covering applications within Matching Theory. In the first chapter, we study the decentralized college admissions in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), where students submit their applications to each college separately, and colleges use a ranking based on weighted centralized test scores. Unlike the…

We survey 137 charter school administrators and 129 board members and find that U.S. charter school internal controls are perceived to be relatively strong overall. However, board independence, board communication of internal control responsibilities to school personnel, lines of communication between the board and school personnel, and reporting…

This study illustrates the benefits of public-private partnerships in creating public corporations to build sport venues. In addition to potential returns, public officials' understanding of the potential structures of these authorities is equally important. Additionally, as the scope of public-private partnerships broadens, it is essential for…

This research study employed qualitative methodology, and the form of inquiry used was portraiture. Portraiture is rooted in the methodology of qualitative inquiry known as phenomenology; however, portraiture is distinct in that it intentionally includes diverse audiences through a fusion of art and science, while encapsulating the connection…

In "Discredited," education scholars Lauren Schudde and Huriya Jabbar illuminate the successes and failures of the systems that support student transfer among postsecondary institutions. Summarizing the key challenges of various transfer pathways, Schudde and Jabbar show how the current decentralized, bureaucracy-ridden, and often…

This article describes the step-by-step process of how data science, marketing and communications, and higher education improved access and success for students. Over the last three years, strategic planning efforts helped develop a data-informed culture on campus. The work described within the playbook required time, energy, and a lot of…

Policymakers and researchers often talk about "autonomous schools" as if there's a single, agreed-upon definition of what that means. In reality, there's no standard design for autonomous school policies, and school autonomy can mean a lot of different things. The policies that states have enacted vary widely in terms of their goals, the…

Texas state grant aid programs provide significant support to many low- and moderate-income state residents pursuing postsecondary education. Only a small share of eligible students receives state grants, however, and students often cannot predict whether they will receive aid, especially if they apply to different types of institutions.…

Cheating and unethical behavior in the context of high-stakes accountability has been well documented. Recently, the US Department of Education found Texas schools failing to comply with the nation's special education law as a result of a state accountability policy. This article examines how a group of principals recognized for their…

This analysis of college- and career-ready standards implementation is grounded in the policy attributes framework, which states that the more specific, consistent, authoritative, powerful, and stable a policy is, the better implementation will be (Porter, 1994). "Specificity" refers to how extensive, detailed, or prescriptive a policy…

This study explores the relationships between gender, career ambition, and the emergence of executive leadership in the bureaucracy. In "Bureaucratic Ambition," Teodoro (2011) shows that public administration career paths shape individual ambition, political behavior, and policy innovation. But career systems are not neutral conduits of…

In partnership with the National Charter School Resource Center (NCSRC), the National Association for Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) has been conducting authorizer assessments over the past six years. However, the correlation between high-quality authorization practices and charter school impact has largely been unexplored. This report uses a…

The United States has faced stagnant postsecondary education degree completion rates for over a decade. When coupled with improved educational outcomes in other nations, the one-time world leader in higher education attainment has precipitously declined in standing internationally. Coupling this reality with the need for a more educated workforce…