Schar School of Policy and Government
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This collection contains ETD documents from the School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs.
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Browsing Schar School of Policy and Government by Author "Armor, David J."
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Item Affirmative Action and Mismatch at Selective Postsecondary Institutions(2015) Porter, Tameka; Porter, Tameka; Armor, David J.This dissertation assesses the extent to which affirmative action as well as enrolling in a college that matches academic ability – college matching – influence six-year graduation rates for students who started college in the 2003-04 academic year. The Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Survey (BPS) was used to estimate the number of students admitted by affirmative action and explore how matching student aptitude with institutional selectivity relates to degree completion. This study reports a negative effect on degree completion for affirmative action students and for highly qualified students who attended a less selective college.Item Earnings Inequality in U.S. Metropolitan Regions: the Role of the Financial Services and Information Technology Industries(2013-08) Lawrence, James Albert; Lawrence, James Albert; Armor, David J.This dissertation presents annual measures of earnings inequality for 255 metro regions in the U.S. for the years 1990 to 2004. Measures of industrial structure are also calculated for each metro to observe whether there is an association generally between industrial structure and earnings inequality, with particular attention paid to the role of the financial services and information technology industries. It is found that while the financial services industry made a clear and significant contribution to the growth of earnings inequality in metro regions, the role of the information technology industry is not clear. It is instead found that the professional & business services industry--in addition to financial services--made an important contribution to the growth of earnings inequality in metro areas over the 1990 to 2004 period. These findings have important implications for financial regulatory and corporate governance policies.Item Education and Social Capital Maximization: Does Decentralization Hold the Key?(2013) McCluskey, Neal; McCluskey, Neal; Armor, David J.It is generally believed that government-run schooling is necessary to achieve social cohesion; diverse children must learn common values, a common culture, and have contact with members of different groups to render society cohesive; and only government-controlled schooling can guarantee that. But appreciable anecdotal and historical evidence belies this, suggesting that putting diverse people in one schooling system may create more net division than cohesion. This research looks at the question empirically, assessing education governance in numerous nations and determining its effect on generalized trust. It finds no significant direct effects of education structure on trust, but significant indirect effects.Item Explaining Achievement Disparities between the United States and South Korea(2013) Park, Eun Jung; Park, Eun Jung; Armor, David J.The educational systems and environments of the United States and South Korea drastically differ, and yet little research has focused on explaining which factors lead to differences in student achievement outcomes. Using the data on mathematics and reading literacy of 15-year-olds from the Program for International Student Assessment, this dissertation aims to reveal how student- and school-level factors are associated with student achievement outcomes within and between these two countries. I find that (1) schools are differentiated in both countries but the extent to which schools are segregated along the line of family SES is greater in the United States than in Korea; (2) Within-country examination revealed that school factors and their relationships with student achievement differ considerably between Korea and the United States. For instance, school autonomy measures have strong and positive relationship with school performance in Korea, whereas they have no statistical significant relationship with school performance in the United States. Also, school accountability measures, including positing achievement data is positively associated with student achievement in the U.S., but is negatively related with achievement in Korea; (3) Korean educational success is largely attained by the role played by parents, and to a lesser extent by the school factors. Parental involvement in education beyond the family's socioeconomic status is found to have strong relationship with student achievement; (4) Shadow education is the major factor that explains the U.S.-Korea achievement gap. The shadow education participation is positively related with student achievement in Korea, whereas it is negatively related with student achievement in the United States. Whether the finding indicates the causal relationship needs to be further examined. In other words, the question remains whether shadow education causes Korean students to achieve higher and U.S. students to achieve lower, or whether there exists the issue of self-selection, where in Korea, high achievers participate in shadow education to excel higher, and in the U.S., low-achievers participate in shadow education for remedial purposes.Item Factors Influencing Improved Student Achievement In Virginia(2012-08-09) Linehan, Patrick D.; Linehan, Patrick D.; Armor, David J.At the beginning of the last decade, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2002. Key provisions of this act focused on holding schools accountable to ensure that all students met state established standards. In Virginia, the state Standards of Learning (SOL) assessments form the basis of measuring student achievement. Previous studies have identified the importance of family and socio-economic status factors on student performance. Other studies have examined the effects of resources, teachers and school characteristics on student achievement with varying results and interpretations. The purpose of this study is determine the factors that affect achievement in Virginia and to determine whether the Virginia results are similar to or different from national studies. The study examines student achievement from 2001 through 2011 with particular attention on school years 2007 to 2009. This study does not examine specific provisions established and implemented by the states in accord with NCLB requirements. Rather, it examines factors traditionally seen to influence achievement and to determine the effects of those factors in the NCLB era.Item Head Start: Assessing Common Explanations for the Apparrent Disappearance of Initial Positive Effects(2012) Bernardy, Pete Michael; Bernardy, Pete Michael; Armor, David J.Experimental design evaluations have consistently found children given access to early childhood services through the federal Head Start program experience better academic and social outcomes relative to comparable peers by the end of their participation, but this early advantage is not sustained through the early elementary grades. However, two studies of the long-term impact of Head Start have found the program to produce improved rates of high school completion. Given these seemingly contradictory findings, this research uses data from a recent nationally representative random assignment study of this program to examine whether there is evidence of enduring effects of Head Start participation: (1) when controlling for within-child variation; (2) for learning skills not previously analyzed in published reports; (3) for children with higher quality Head Start experiences; (4) for children with higher quality early elementary school experiences; and (5) compared to a counterfactual of no preschool participation. No evidence of initial positive effects enduring into kindergarten or first grade is found.Item Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Military Leadership: A Feasibility Analysis of the Military Leadership Diversity Commission's Service Academy Accession Recommendations(2013-08) Williams, Michael; Williams, Michael; Armor, David J.The Military Leadership Diversity Commission (MLDC) was created for the purpose of conducting a comprehensive evaluation and assessment of policies and practices that shape diversity among military leaders. The commission concluded that the Armed Forces had not yet succeeded in developing a stream of leaders who are as demographically diverse as the nation they serve. It recommended twenty improvements to existing diversity-related policies and offered new initiatives to systematically develop more demographic diversity among military leadership. The recommendations included a proposal to increase minority representation in officer accession programs. To assess that recommendation this research sought to identify characteristics of demographically diverse individuals who participate in an officer accession program. The United States Naval Academy (USNA) was used as a case study and a comparison was made between the characteristics of a four-year cohort of USNA students and the characteristics of a similar cohort of students at comparably selective academic institutions. The resultant study provides a theoretical understanding of the characteristics of diverse students who entered the United States Naval Academy, discusses the feasibility of the MLDC recommendations, and contributes to the body of literature which seeks to understand who serves in the United States Military, and why.