Which Principal is the Right Principal? Student Achievement, School Finances, and Community Stakeholders

When a struggling high school may be placed on turnaround status during a bid for a school bond, the district considers replacing a beloved principal with a record of low test scores with an unpopular principal whose record shows increased student achievement. The school board must decide whether to prioritize finances, community support, student achievement, or state-level demands. This case presents many difficult decisions schools and districts are required to make. Key factors discussed in the case include principal turnover, student academic achievement, teacher retention, school culture, and power.

School Bond Success

Following two-failed school bond issues in 1995 and 1998, one mid-sized rural school district organized an effort that led to two successful school bond elections in 2001 and 2003. The school district’s strategic plan mirrored many of the recommendations for successful bond referendums published in School Bond Success: A Strategy for Building America’s Schools. Findings from this case study, utilizing a Rapid Assessment Process, illustrate many of the reasons why the school district passed two consecutive bond issues with unprecedented community support. Although the findings from this school district may not match the concerns of all communities, it provides readers with a perspective of voters’ beliefs in one rural school district.

The Relationship Between Open Enrollment and School Bond Voting

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify an association between student mobility through open enrollment and voter support for school bond proposals. Specifically, we hypothesized that higher percentages of nonresident enrollment in a school district and resident exit from a district would be associated with lower levels of voter support for bond proposals. Data Collection and Analysis: We utilized publicly available data on bond proposals placed on ballots between 2009 and 2015, publicly available data from the State of Michigan for information on percentages of nonresident enrollment and resident exit, and publicly available data from the U.S. Census Bureau for data on district resident characteristics. Regression analysis was used to identify associations between nonresident enrollment and resident exit with the percentage of “yes” votes on school bond proposals controlling for community and resident characteristics. Findings: We failed to reject the null hypotheses, finding no statistically significant association between nonresident enrollment and resident exit and average voter support for school bond proposals, ceteris paribus. Implications for Research/Practice: We laid some groundwork for reconceptualizing the relationship between open enrollment policies and communities’ willingness to support local public schools. This has potential implications for both local- and state-level policies regarding enrollment issues and issues of school finance. As local boards continue to struggle with budget shortfalls and mounting capital needs, they may need to further weigh their own communities’ interest in supporting local public schools in the wake of increased student mobility in and out of districts.

School Experience During Adolescence: A Comparative Study Between Adolescent Offenders and Not Offenders

This study aimed to test the school control model, inherent to the Social and Personal Control Theory, verifying which context variables and mechanisms would distinguish offender adolescents from non-offenders adolescents, aiming to understand their school experience. Sixty male adolescents (15 school-dropouts-offenders/15 student-offenders, 15 school-dropouts-non-offenders/15 students-non-offenders), aged 14 to 18 participated (M=16,6; SD=0,78). All responded a scale formulated in the light of the theoretical framework. Data were analyzed by the Kruskall-Wallis test, with Dunn post-test. The results showed that everyone would be to some extent vulnerable to negative school-experience, depending on the context variables, and also indicated that “performance” and “school-bond” would be more associated with school-dropout, while “school constraints” with involvement in infractions. The identification of these problematic aspects in the schooling of the offender adolescents helps to think about the interventions, in the socio-educational accompaniment, aiming at an adequate (re)insertion in the school.

Election timing as a predictor of electoral outcomes in public school bond elections in Missouri

This quantitative study sought to investigate the differences in the electoral outcomes of school bond elections in Missouri from 2009-2016 based on election timing. The researcher utilized election timing theory as a framework for the study. Data from Missouri school bond elections was compiled from online databases, the Missouri State Auditor's office, and archived newspaper reports. Results suggest that differences exist in electoral outcomes for school bond issues based on election timing. The study concludes with recommendations for Missouri school administrators, designed to aid in the successful passage of school bond issues.

School Bond Referendum, Capital Expenditure, and Student Achievement

In the United States, the reform of the financial system of capital expenditure is under consideration, as people believe the current system through local referenda contributes to inequality in student achievement across school districts. Several studies using a regression discontinuity design (RDD) find zero to modest positive effects of capital expenditure on student achievement; however, these studies identify only the effect of capital expenditure financed by a marginally passed bond with a vote share at the cutoff. In this paper I estimate the average effect of capital expenditure on student achievement by incorporating a latent factor model into the existing RDD framework, and comparing school districts that are similar in their underlying confounding variables, namely preferences for educational investment. The results show that, on average, capital expenditure financed by a passed bond does not have significant effect on student achievement.