Theses and Dissertations from UMD
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item WHO GETS WHAT: A WITHIN-SCHOOL EQUITY ANALYSIS OF RESOURCE ALLOCATION(2014) Wolf, Rebecca; Davis, Thomas E; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study analyzes resource allocation within schools, and it is one of the first in the literature to analyze the equity of monetary resources at the individual student level. The study calculates teacher resource expenditures (TREs) per pupil by allocating teacher salaries to individual students for each high school student in a large urban public school district. Next, the study compares the degree of within-school variation in per-pupil TREs to the variation between schools and concludes that the variation within schools is much larger than the variation between schools. The study then uses Berne and Stiefel's (1984) equity evaluation framework and develops an analytic approach that is appropriate for conducting a within-school equity analysis of per-pupil TREs. The findings indicate that inequities in the allocation of teacher salaries at the student level do exist. Specifically, the study finds violations of horizontal equity, vertical equity for low-income students, and equal opportunity for students of differing achievement levels. These findings also suggest that district leaders may be unaware of how resources are ultimately allocated to students.This study also evaluates the equity of the within-school allocation of specific resources to identify if resources are equitably allocated in academic courses that are critical for academic success. This study evaluates the equity of the allocation of class size, teacher experience, and social capital in students' English and math courses only as well as the number of advanced placement (AP) courses taken by students, which indicates access to rigorous curricula. In analyzing the equity of these specific resources within each school in the district, this study determines if multiple resource advantages or disadvantages exist for some students.
Findings indicate that multiple resource inequities may exist for low-performing, low-income, and minority students. Further, the study finds that schools with greater socioeconomic and racial diversity have more occurrences of within-school resource inequities for low-income and minority students than schools with homogeneous student populations. The study is among the first to analyze the equity of the within-school allocation of multiple resources simultaneously to gain a better understanding of whether students in the same school receive equitable resources.
Item The Effectiveness of School Based Intensive Probation for Reducing Recidivism: An Evaluation of Maryland's Spotlight on Schools Program(2011) Frederique, Nadine P.; Gottfredson, Denise C; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)School Based Probation programs provide intensive supervision for juvenile probationers by placing probation officers in high schools. However, they have yet to undergo rigorous evaluation. Previous evaluations suffered from methodological flaws and have presented inconsistent findings. The state of Maryland began its SBP program, called Spotlight on Schools (SOS), in the 1990's. It is now used in many schools throughout the state. SOS has never been formally assessed. This dissertation presents results from a quasi-experimental non-equivalent group study examining the recidivism rates of students in schools with and without this probation program. I address the flaws of previous evaluations by using two statistical methods. First, I use multi-level modeling to predict school level recidivism while controlling for statistically relevant individual level and school level characteristics. Second, I use survival analysis to determine if juveniles on SBP experience a longer time in the community before recidivism. These analyses are supplemented with interviews of school principals and probation officers. Results from the multi-level modeling and survival analysis indicate that school participation in the SOS program is not significantly related to likelihood of recidivism or the seriousness of recidivism. Seven of the eight outcome variables assessed in this evaluation are not significantly related to participation in the SOS program. This study joins a long list of intensive supervision evaluations that suggest that these programs have no significant impact on juvenile recidivism.