“Marching Mothers”: The Battle for Desegregation in Cleveland Public Schools, 1957-1976

In 1957, the Cleveland Municipal School District’s (CMSD) Board of Education implemented a relay program to address issues of overcrowding in Cleveland public schools. Solely affecting schools that served a predominately black student body on Cleveland’s rigidly segregated East Side, this program split the school day into two three-and-a-half hour sessions to accommodate increasing student body sizes, shortening the school day for African American pupils by an hour-and-a-half compared to the five hours in the classroom given to white peers. As mothers of children on the relay program realized that this was the Board of Education’s permanent solution to overcrowding, they mobilized to protest the racial discrimination pervasive in the Board’s policies. Their picketing and sit-in demonstrations fueled by emotions such as anger and frustration laid the foundation for the larger school desegregation movement that occurred in Cleveland, Ohio from 1957 to 1976. The purpose of this independent study is to examine African American women as the driving force behind Cleveland’s school desegregation movement. Through their personal connection to their children, mothers sustained the movement’s momentum as it faced resistance from the Board of Education and whites, using emotion as a political tool to garner further support. By analyzing mothers’ activism in Cleveland’s desegregation movement, this study also seeks to show the significance of Cleveland in terms of the national civil rights movement and shed light on the imperative contributions of women often overshadowed in the popular civil rights narrative by male historical subjects

Federal Principals, State Agents, and Teacher Quality: Factors affecting States Implementation of No Child Left Behind\u27s Highly Qualified Teacher Provision

With the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, the federal government extended its reach into classrooms across America. Despite this proverbial reach, its lack of enforcement of the Highly Qualified Teacher provisions of this act has been blamed for the varied and often poor implementation of this federal teacher policy across states. Through the lens of Principal-Agent Theory this project discusses the relationship between the federal and state governments, testing the impact of state teacher policies before the passage of NCLB, union presence, and the political partisanship of the governor as influencing factors in the implementation of the Highly Qualified Teacher provisions of NCLB

The Impact of Directors’ Attributes on IFRS Fair Value Disclosure:An Institutional Perspective

Purpose: The current study investigates the impact of directors' attributes on the extent of compliance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) fair value disclosure requirements. The attributes investigated include directors' human capital (accounting qualification) and social capital (political association), directors' share ownership and the power distance between the chief executive officer (CEO) and the rest of the board members. Design/methodology/approach: The study uses disclosure analysis to measure the extent of compliance with the fair value disclosure requirements of IFRS. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression is used to test the relationship between the disclosure score and directors' attributes. Data were collected from the annual reports and websites of the sample companies. Findings: Contrary to conventional belief, this study's findings suggest that directors' social capital and the power distance between the CEO and the rest of the board act as more powerful factors than directors' human capital in explaining corporate mandatory disclosure. Specifically, the results indicate that powerful actors form a dominant coalition and co-opt influential constituents from the institutional domain to neutralize the effect of legal coercion and the accounting expertise of board members and Big Four audit firms on the extent of compliance with institutional (fair value) rules. Research limitations/implications: This study utilizes Oliver's (1991) framework of strategic response to institutional processes in the Bangladeshi context. Although the study provides new insights into corporate disclosure practices, findings are not generalizable due to different institutional settings in different countries. Therefore, future studies could replicate the approach in different institutional settings. Practical implications: The findings of this study will be of interest to the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) as it focuses on a developing country that has adopted IFRS 13 and other fair value-related standards relatively recently. Originality/value: The disclosure analysis contained in this study represents the first comprehensive analysis of the extent of compliance with the fair value disclosure requirements of IFRS. Furthermore, this study considers the impact of directors' social capital and finds that it is a more powerful determinant of the extent of compliance with IFRS as compared to human capital.</p

Carbon Disclosure, Performance and the Green Reputation of Higher Educational Institutions in the UK

Purpose This study aims to investigate the carbon emission disclosures (CED) and performance of UK higher educational institutions (HEIs) and the associated impact on their environmental reputation. The paper argues that HEIs possess distinct characteristics that make comparisons with profit-oriented companies problematic and misleading. Design/methodology/approach The green score published by the People and Planet organisation provided the population for this analysis. All universities with a 2012 score were entered into the initial sample. The association between green reputation, CED and carbon performance was examined using a robust least squared regression model. The green score published in 2019 was then compared with this to confirm whether the findings still held. Findings CED, carbon emissions and carbon audit were found to have highly significant determinant relationships with HEIs’ green reputation status at a 1% significance level. Research limitations/implications The impact of CED and carbon performance indicators needs to have a clear relationship with reputation to motivate HEIs to act and disclose. Originality/value The study is distinct in investigating the impact of CED and carbon performance by UK HEIs on their environmental reputation. The study shows whether, and how, the HEI CED and carbon performances contribute towards their environmental reputation. HEIs have distinct characteristics from profit-seeking organisations and thus tailored research is required. </jats:sec