What School Principals Need to Know About Curriculum and Instruction

Looks at what school leaders need to know about instructional practices, organizing a school for greater student learning, supporting teacher development, and balancing school improvement with non-instructional issues and emergencies

State Budget Challenges and the Scourge of Poverty

Performance Measurement is necessary in order to support the implementation of a Continuous Improvement approach within a company. Performance Measurement has been a subject of increasing interest for researchers and practitioners. The questions addressed in the literature especially evolved from “what” to measure to “how” to measure. The present thesis follows this evolution by exploring how companies can successfully implement Performance Measurement. The thesis follows a parallel research design including a literature review and a case study. From one side, a literature review aims at explaining the main theories behind Performance Measurement, such as the concept of Performance Measurement System, as well as giving some recommendation for its implementation. On the other side, an empirical case study, conducted in a construction industry company, presents a practical implementation of Performance Measurement including some of the indicators dashboards built in several factories and departments of the company. The results of this case study are also supported by several interviews conducted at different steps of the implementation with the different actors involved. Then a theoretical verification is conducted by comparing the theory from the literature review with the empirical results from the case study. It especially allows to verify some recommendations as well as to identify a few gaps. The results of this study can be seen as a set of verified recommendations in order to successfully implement Performance Measurement within a company. These recommendations come from the comparison between theory and practice and they are divided in three main parts: the Key Performance Indicators identification, the Performance Measurement System design, and the practical implementation of Performance Measurement. Regarding this last part, five key success factors (e.g. perceived benefits of performance measurement, top management commitment) and five barriers (e.g. time and effort required, human behaviour) have been verified. Moreover, some Performance Measurement issues are discussed, such as the reduction of the complexity, the potential gaps between local approaches and global consistency, as well as the concept of organisational learning. Finally, the thesis identifies three kinds of trade-offs (e.g. accuracy of the data and cost of collection) that need to be considered when implementing Performance Measurement

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Block Grant

[Excerpt] The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant was created in the 1996 welfare reform law (the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, P.L. 104-193). That law was the culmination of a series of legislative changes that altered the rules for providing benefits and services to needy families with children

Leavitt path algebras: the first decade

The algebraic structures known as {\it Leavitt path algebras} were initially developed in 2004 by Ara, Moreno and Pardo, and almost simultaneously (using a different approach) by the author and Aranda Pino. During the intervening decade, these algebras have attracted significant interest and attention, not only from ring theorists, but from analysts working in C$^*$-algebras, group theorists, and symbolic dynamicists as well. The goal of this article is threefold: to introduce the notion of Leavitt path algebras to the general mathematical community; to present some of the important results in the subject; and to describe some of the field's currently unresolved questions.Comment: 53 pages. To appear, Bulletin of Mathematical Sciences. (page numbering in arXiv version will differ from page numbering in BMS published version; numbering of Theorems, etc ... will be the same in both versions

Extension of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Block Grant in the Consolidated Appropriations Act: In Brief

[Excerpt] The pending FY2017 Consolidated Appropriations Act (the proposed House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 244) would extend funding for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant for the remainder of FY2017 and for FY2018. The bill would also revise the financing and activities of TANF-related research and evaluation. The changes to TANF-related research and evaluation are substantially the same as in a 2016 House-passed bill (H.R. 5170; 114th Congress). The TANF block grant is best known for providing monthly assistance (often called “welfare”) for needy families with children. However, TANF is a broad-purpose block grant to states, tribes, and territories that provides funds for a wide range of benefits and services to ameliorate and/or address the root causes of childhood economic disadvantage. In addition to monthly assistance, TANF provides funding for work and job preparation activities for needy parents and youth; child care subsidies; earnings supplements, including refundable tax credits; early childhood development programs; and programs for families where children are at risk of, or have been subjected to, abuse and neglect