This dissertation consists of three papers that explore the open enrollment process in a large urban school district that has a mandatory choice open enrollment policy. The first paper examines patterns of school selection in this district after the introduction of a "strategy-proof" deferred acceptance student assignment algorithm.…

Oklahoma is one of 16 states electing to use an A-F letter grade as an indicator of school quality. On the surface, letter grades are an attractive policy instrument for school improvement; they are seemingly clear, simple, and easy to interpret. Evidence, however, on the use of letter grades as an instrument to rank and improve schools is scant…

When school choice policies position young people to compete with one another to access public educational resources, students stand to experience these policies in not only academic, but also civic dimensions. Young people's very encounters with competitive school choice policy through their day-to-day schooling constitute a civic experience.…

Postsecondary education is a fundamental tool for achieving upward mobility and economic growth. Students with an associate's or bachelor's degree earn substantially more in a lifetime and experience better working conditions and job benefits than students with only a high school diploma. This study examines differences in public college…

The past three decades in mathematics education policy and research have seen a considerable focus on algebra and its place in secondary schools. Access to and success in the first high school course, most often termed Algebra I, has been framed as a civil rights issue, a harbinger of college success, and a lynchpin to global competitiveness.…

Purpose/Objectives: Analyses were conducted to examine variations in fourth-grade children's participation in school-breakfast and school-lunch programs by weekday, month, socioeconomic status, absenteeism, gender, and school-breakfast location. Methods: Fourth-grade children were participants in a dietary-reporting validation study during either…

The purpose of this study was to discover if differences existed in the early literacy skills of non-resident kindergarten students participating in the learning community open enrollment program and resident kindergarten students that do and do not qualify for the free or reduced lunch program at the beginning and end of their kindergarten year.…

The purpose of this memorandum is to provide SAT participation and performance for the 2017 graduates in Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS). The College Board redesigned the SAT with the goal of measuring essential skills for college and career as well as relating the test content to everyday learning in classrooms. The redesigned SAT was…

Guam Department of Education (GDOE) is a single unified school district consisting of grades Kindergarten through 12. Its 26 Elementary Schools, 8 Middle Schools, 5 High Schools, and one alternative school serves over 31,000 students, and is managed by the Superintendent who is the Executive Secretary of a 9-member Guam Education Board (GEB).…

In 2002 the Council of the Great City Schools and its members set out to develop performance measures that could be used to improve business operations in urban public school districts. The Council launched the Performance Measurement and Benchmarking Project to achieve these objectives. The purposes of the project were to: (1) Establish a common…

Background/Context: Despite problems with accountability systems under No Child Left Behind, the policy has been widely commended for exposing the depth and breadth of educational inequality in the United States. As states implement new accountability systems, there is growing concern that attention to achievement gaps and the performance of…

This study examined the rates of special education placement during middle school grades (sixth through eighth) among children who participated in the Linda Ray Intervention Program (LRIP) center-based and home-based learning modalities. The study sample included 113 children in Miami Dade County Public Schools who had gestational cocaine exposure…

This study analyzed the required inclusion of school test scores in the yearly evaluation of school principals within the current school reform and standards and accountability movements of both the federal and state departments of education. Extant data from a single school district in Oregon was used for this study, and included: (a)…

Purpose/Objectives: The objective of this study was to assess consumer support for policies lowering the sodium content of cafeteria foods in schools. Methods: Data were used from 9,634 adults aged >18 years who responded to questions about sodium in general and in school foods in a 2010 national mail panel survey. Prevalence of consumer…

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the relation between morphological awareness on reading comprehension is moderated by multisyllabic word reading ability in fifth-grade students ("N" = 169, 53.7% female, 65.2% minority status, 69.2% free/reduced lunch status), oversampled for poor reading skill, when controlling for…