Browsing by Subject "Policy analysis"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Decentralizing school governance: a policy analysis of partnership between parents and public Middle Schools in Morocco.
    (2012-05) Elmeski, Mohammed
    The purpose of the current study is to investigate why parent-school partnerships have failed after ten years of reform implementation. Grounded in Kingdon's multiple streams model for policy formulation (Kingdon, 1995), the hypothesis of this study is that parents and teachers' apathetic attitudes towards partnership may reflect their positions on policy priorities they did not participate in defining. Kingdon's model highlighted issues of political consensus between parents and teachers around school reform and how they accounted for weak parent-school partnerships. Mohr and Spekman (1994) framework for successful partners, and Bolman and Deal (2003) four-framework model of human organizations highlighted the behavioral and organizational barriers to partnerships in Morocco's public middle schools. The quantitative phase of the study consisted of a survey that measured (1) the extent to which parents and teachers demonstrated consensus on middle school problems and their corresponding solutions; and (2) the degree to which consensus accounted for partnerships. In the qualitative phase, interviews were conducted to highlight structural, cultural, human resource, and political impediments to parent-school partnership. Findings suggest that parents' and teachers' agreements on general reform principles did not trickle down to working partnerships at the school level. Further analysis highlighted issues of trust, commitment, coordination, communication quality, and conflict resolution strategies characterizing parents' and teachers' perceptions of each other. Qualitative findings unearthed structural, cultural, human resources, and political barriers to parent-school partnership. Major structural impediments included lack of institutional funding, vague regulatory framework, deficient accountability, excessive centralization, and high opportunity cost of parents' participation. Cultural expectations pigeonholed parents in the roles of disciplinarians, laborers, and school slush funds. Lack of strategies for human resources was manifested in the absence of teachers from partnership trainings. Politically, the primacy of self-interest typified a fragmented political reality characterized by teachers and parent representatives who were too divided to have any significant impact on decision making. This study demonstrated that desultory partnerships were nested in structural, cultural, human resources, and political weaknesses. Unless these underlying weaknesses are addressed, continuing to blame parents and teachers for a problem they are not empowered to solve does little to build stronger parent-school partnerships in Morocco's public schools.
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    Development of ethically appropriate HIV epidemic response strategy in a resource poor setting: the case of Ghana_
    (2014-06) Laar, Amos
    Responding to HIV at global, regional, or local levels can give rise to a multitude of ethical tensions. To provide a comprehensive response to her HIV epidemic, Ghana has developed national plans, policies, and protocols. This thesis aimed to assess the ethics sensitivity of these guiding documents. The assessment included the quality of ethical reasoning and argumentation. Documents were assessed in their entirety using leading frameworks from public health ethics. The documents I reviewed have many strengths and also notable weaknesses. Generally, the documents reflect an underdeveloped understanding of potential and real ethical concerns. These documents provide inadequate responses to diminished rights of key populations. The prioritization schemes delineated in the documents, while sound from a public health perspective, lack adequate ethical justifications. The universal acknowledgement of chronic shortage of antiretroviral medications in the documents is not accompanied by practical recommendations concerning how to address such shortages. Guidelines addressing how to ethically allocate this scarce commodity do not exist.
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    Impacts of Minnesota’s Primary Seat Belt Law
    (Center for Excellence in Rural Safety, University of Minnesota, 2012-03) Douma, Frank; Tilahun, Nebiyou
    In the spring of 2009, the Minnesota Legislature changed the state’s seat belt law, making not wearing a seat belt a “primary” offense, where officers can ticket drivers for not wearing a seat belt even if no other traffic law is broken. Using data from the Minnesota Crash Records Database provided by the Department of Public Safety, the study utilized two methods of analysis, first comparing actual crash data from July 2009 – June 2011 to expected data based upon trends from July 2004 - June 2009, and second, comparing the expected post law change injury types estimated from the July 2006 – June 2009 crash data to the actual post primary crash data from July 2009 through June 2011. Results of seat belt use and public opinion surveys were also reviewed. This study estimates that there have been 68 - 92 fewer fatalities from motor vehicle crashes, and 320 - 550 fewer serious injuries since the primary seat belt law went into effect. This improved safety record translates into at least $45 million in avoided hospital charges, including a direct savings of nearly $10 million or more tax dollars that would have paid for expenses charged to government insurers. The primary seat belt law has enjoyed the support of over 70% of all Minnesotans and observed use of seat belts statewide has risen from 86.7% in 2008 to an alltime high of 92.7% in 2011.
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    Innovative Methods for Using Census Data to Study Poverty, Labor Markets, and Policy
    (2017-09) Pacas Viscarra, Jose
    This dissertation studies poverty, labor markets, and policy. Integral to this effort are innovative methods for using Census data to study these topics. The dissertation consists of three chapters. The first chapter studies year-to-year poverty transitions in the United States. The second chapter measures the extent to which individuals’ union membership status affects the levels of taxes they pay and the cost of public benefits they receive. The third chapter analyzes how the electronic employment verification system, known as E-Verify, affects the labor market outcomes of unauthorized immigrants.