Matching Items (3)
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- All Subjects: Discrimination in education
- Creators: Dorn, Sherman
Description
ABSTRACT
Closing the achievement gap between low-income, marginalized, racially, and linguistically diverse students has proven difficult. Research has outlined the effects of funding on student achievement in a manner that focuses the attention on dollars expended, in order overcome barriers to learning. Arizona has long been recognized for its education funding disparity, and its inability to balance fiscal capacity in a manner that serves to improve educational outcomes.
This dissertation examines how Arizona funds its education system. It measures horizontal inequity in a robust manner by examining those fiscal capacity resources directly related to learning and poverty. Recognizing districts with higher concentrations of special needs students will impact fiscal capacity at the district level, this dissertation applies a non-linear analysis to measure how English language learners/ limited English proficient (ELL/ LEP) student proportionality impacts federal and state revenue per pupil, ELL expenditures per pupil, and total expenditures per pupil.
Using the Gini Ratio, McCloone Index, Coefficient of Variation, and Theil inequality index, this dissertation confirms that significant education funding disparity exists across Arizona’s school districts. This dissertation also shows the proportion of English language learners is negatively related to local revenue per pupil, and ELL expenditures per ELL pupil.
Arizona has characteristically funded the public education system inequitably and positioned its students in a manner that stratifies achievement gaps based on wealth. Targeted funding toward ELLs is in no way meaningfully related to the proportion of ELLs in a district. Conceptually the way in which equity is defined, and measured, may require re-evaluation, beyond correlated inputs and outputs. This conceptual re-evaluation of equity must include the decision making process of administrative leaders which influence the quality of those resources related to student learning.
Closing the achievement gap between low-income, marginalized, racially, and linguistically diverse students has proven difficult. Research has outlined the effects of funding on student achievement in a manner that focuses the attention on dollars expended, in order overcome barriers to learning. Arizona has long been recognized for its education funding disparity, and its inability to balance fiscal capacity in a manner that serves to improve educational outcomes.
This dissertation examines how Arizona funds its education system. It measures horizontal inequity in a robust manner by examining those fiscal capacity resources directly related to learning and poverty. Recognizing districts with higher concentrations of special needs students will impact fiscal capacity at the district level, this dissertation applies a non-linear analysis to measure how English language learners/ limited English proficient (ELL/ LEP) student proportionality impacts federal and state revenue per pupil, ELL expenditures per pupil, and total expenditures per pupil.
Using the Gini Ratio, McCloone Index, Coefficient of Variation, and Theil inequality index, this dissertation confirms that significant education funding disparity exists across Arizona’s school districts. This dissertation also shows the proportion of English language learners is negatively related to local revenue per pupil, and ELL expenditures per ELL pupil.
Arizona has characteristically funded the public education system inequitably and positioned its students in a manner that stratifies achievement gaps based on wealth. Targeted funding toward ELLs is in no way meaningfully related to the proportion of ELLs in a district. Conceptually the way in which equity is defined, and measured, may require re-evaluation, beyond correlated inputs and outputs. This conceptual re-evaluation of equity must include the decision making process of administrative leaders which influence the quality of those resources related to student learning.
ContributorsMartinez, David G (Author) / Pivovarova, Margarita (Thesis advisor) / Berliner, David C. (Thesis advisor) / Dorn, Sherman (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Over the last fifty years, education funding has been litigated and debated in the United States. In an effort to uncover more into the effects of state dollars on education, I used the guiding research question: did differences in state-level education funding trends in the 1990s affect crime rates? With the help of literature on changing education-funding trends, I selected the timeframe of 1990-1995 because some states and jurisdictions increased their funding while others decreased it. For my research, I outlined the independent variable of per pupil expenditures in order to focus directly on the dollars that impact the individual student, and the dependent variables of burglary, robbery, and motor vehicle theft crime rates because juveniles typically commit these crimes. Unemployment rates and household income served as confounding variables, as these economic factors have been proven to affect crime rates. Using the difference-in-difference method, I was able to test the effect of the implementation of a treatment, increased education funding, on my control and treatment group over the 1990-1995-time period. After running a regression on each of my selected juvenile-specific crime rates, I found my results to be inconclusive; however, by factoring in more confounding variables, I believe this quasi-experimental approach can be repeated to find more solid results.
ContributorsWilson, Kelsey Marie (Author) / Dorn, Sherman (Thesis director) / Carter, Heather (Committee member) / Tatto, Maria (Committee member) / School of Public Affairs (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
In the wake of both the end of court-ordered school desegregation and the growing popularity of accountability as a mechanism to maximize student achievement, the authors explore the association between racial segregation and the percentage of students passing high-stakes tests in Florida's schools. Results suggest that segregation matters in predicting school-level performance on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test after control for other known and purported predictors of standardized test performance. Also, these results suggest that neither recent efforts by the state of Florida to equalize the funding of education nor current efforts involving high-stakes testing will close the Black-White achievement gap without consideration of the racial distribution of students across schools.
ContributorsBorman, Kathryn M. (Author) / Eitle, Tamela (Author) / Michael, Deanna L., 1961- (Author) / Eitle, David J. (Author) / Lee, Reginald (Author) / Johnson, Larry (Author) / Cobb-Roberts, Deirdre (Author) / Dorn, Sherman (Author) / Shircliffe, Barbara J. (Author) / Arizona State University. College of Education (Contributor)
Created2004