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An Examination of Post-Pandemic Enrollment Declines in California’s Public Education System
No full textThe persistent decline in enrollment in California public schools presents complex and far-reaching challenges, impacting budgets, staffing, and student outcomes. These challenges have been further compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted K-12 education nationwide. As students were sent home and families navigated prolonged school closures, the federal government responded with unprecedented funding to public schools, aimed at reengaging students safely, addressing academic losses, and mitigating socio-emotional impacts. While this temporary relief funding provided much-needed resources, it also allowed states and school districts broad discretion in spending, with little consistency or oversight. Investments in infrastructure, staffing, and programs varied significantly across districts, leaving California public schools to face a looming question: What happens when the federal funding expires, and districts are left with fewer resources amidst declining enrollment, a shrinking population, and a declining birthrate?This dissertation examines these issues through the lens of Systems Theory, applying a case study methodology to analyze the interconnected effects of declining enrollment on budgets, staffing, and student outcomes in the Long Beach Unified School District (LBUSD). Over the past decade, LBUSD has experienced a 17 percent decline in enrollment, mirroring statewide trends influenced by demographic shifts, housing affordability challenges, and family outmigration. This study explores how these trends, exacerbated by the expiration of federal relief funds, create systemic ripple effects across key areas of district operations. The research employs a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative data, such as enrollment trends, budget reports, and standardized test scores, with qualitative insights from interviews with district and county administrators and staff. Findings reveal that declining enrollment leads to cascading challenges, including reduced funding tied to California’s Average Daily Attendance (ADA) model, which forces districts to make difficult decisions about staffing and program cuts. The expiration of federal relief funds further intensifies these challenges, highlighting the inadequacy of temporary measures in addressing long-term structural issues. Using Systems Theory as an analytical framework, this study underscores the interconnectedness of these issues, demonstrating how reductions in one area, such as enrollment, trigger feedback loops that exacerbate challenges across the entire system. For example, reduced funding leads to staff reductions, larger class sizes, and diminished support services, all of which negatively impact student outcomes. By situating the analysis within a systems-based perspective, this research contributes to the broader understanding of how demographic, economic, and policy shifts impact public education
Assessing the Impact of Medicaid Expansion on the Labor Market, Healthcare Access, and Health Outcomes During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Get PDFThis thesis examines the impact of Medicaid expansion status on labor market outcomes, healthcare access, and health outcomes during COVID-19. Using data from the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and a Difference-in-Differences (DiD) model, I estimate the effects of Medicaid expansion on unemployment, financial barriers to care, obesity, and poor health before and after the pandemic. The analysis also accounts for state-level political and demographic characteristics, gender, marital status, and education level. My results show that non-expansion states, relative to expansion states of similar political and demographic breakdowns, are significantly more disadvantaged in terms of obesity, poor health, financial barriers to care, and unemployment after COVID-19. Additionally, during this time, Black and Hispanic individuals in non-expansion states appear more likely to be obese–though future research needs to explore these differences. These findings have important implications for policymakers as expanding Medicaid or supporting public healthcare infrastructure could improve health outcomes and support economic recovery during times of shock. Moreover, interventions that target social determinants of health are crucial to address racial disparities in healthcare that cannot be resolved solely through federal healthcare infrastructure
Move Fast and Get Sued: Uber\u27s Entry Strategy and the Role of City Regulation
Get PDFThis paper investigates the impact of Uber\u27s entry into U.S. cities on federal court case filings, particularly focusing on how this disruptive platform influenced litigation patterns and regulatory responses. My analysis seeks to understand whether Uber’s entry into cities significantly affected the frequency and types of legal cases filed, including personal injury, contract disputes, and labor claims. Using an event study model and federal court data from the Federal Judicial Center spanning 2009 to 2023, my analysis evaluates changes in case filings before and after Uber\u27s entry. Additionally, I analyze the impact of city-level regulations in five major cities on case filings using a difference-in-difference model. My findings reveal a notable decrease of civil rights cases filed in New York City and an increase in personal injury cases filed in San Francisco and Austin. These results highlight the broader implications of disruptive technologies on traditional markets and legal frameworks. My analysis emphasizes the importance of developing flexible regulatory frameworks for new technologies that strike a balance between fostering innovation and protecting established industries
Gender Dynamics in Collaborative Settings: Analyzing Communication Variation in Same-Gender and Mixed-Gender Task Completion
Get PDFPrevious research has highlighted the implications of pervasive gender-based stereotypes in workplace environments. Women may face barriers to entry and advancement compared to their male counterparts, and can be undermined in assessments of competency and skill. Unconscious biases, shaped by societal norms and cognitive distortions, may perpetuate inequities and influence how workers communicate and collaborate, particularly in team settings. This thesis investigates the complex dynamics of workplace communication and behavioral patterns across varying gender pair compositions, using collaborative task completion as the focal point. I analyze transcriptions of work-team conversations derived from a pilot for a large natural field experiment and find significant differences in gender-based communication strategies. Key findings indicate that the presence of males in team settings increases the frequency of decision-switching and partner interruptions. These insights support existing gender-based communication theories, demonstrating that gender composition in collaborative task completion significantly influences both group effectiveness and the overall dynamics. This research underscores the importance of fostering more diverse and inclusive workplace environments to mitigate gender discrimination
The Effect of Variations in US Policy Toward Taiwan on US – China Relations
Get PDFUS foreign policy to Taiwan has been defined by strategic ambiguity ever since the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act. However, changes and variations in the intensity of strategic ambiguity have come to the fore in recent years, specifically beginning under the first Trump Administration. This has undermined US China relations in certain cases.The findings reveal that while US actions, such as arms sales and symbolic gestures, provoke short-term tensions with China, the broader bilateral relationship remains defined by economic interdependence and strategic competition
Analysis of Banking-as-a-Service Partnerships’ Effects on the Performance of U.S. Community Banks
Get PDFOver the past decade, financial technology (fintech) has emerged as an innovation reshaping the financial services landscape. One particular fintech that recently caught the attention of consumers and regulators is Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS). BaaS is often a partnership wherein a fintech company provides banking services, such as digital payments or lending, using the infrastructure and license of a sponsor bank. The bank manages regulatory compliance and core banking operations, while fintech focuses on developing and delivering innovative services to customers. On the one hand, BaaS partnerships allow banks to expand their customer base and service offerings without investing in extensive technological infrastructure. On the other hand, there have been rising concerns surrounding the risks assumed by the sponsor banks when they take on BaaS partnerships. The complication of new technology and a newly acquired customer base raise compliance risks. In this paper, I study how BaaS partnerships affect the performance of U.S. community banks, measured by deposit growth and cost efficiency, using a bank-level panel data set from 2014 to 2023. This paper first introduces the levels model, examining whether there is a sustained effect of BaaS partnership on deposits and cost efficiency. Next, the paper implements a differences model to examine whether BaaS implementation has any year-specific impacts or changes on the banks’ deposits and cost efficiency. Estimation of the levels and differences model indicates that there is not a statistically significant relationship between BaaS partnerships and the bank’s deposit growth and cost efficiency
A Wise Latina or a Wise Judge?: Exploring how Social Identity Shapes Knowledge Acquisition
Get PDFThis paper examines the intersection of epistemology and social identity through the contrasting arguments of Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Sonia Sotomayor. Justice O’Connor’s claim that wisdom is universally accessible contrasts with Justice Sotomayor’s argument that social identities offer unique insights to decision-making. The analysis begins by defining traditional and contrasting it to standpoint epistemology, highlighting how social identity influences knowledge acquisition and supporting Justice Sotomayor’s argument (Chapter 1). It then critiques the potential pitfalls of standpoint epistemology, such as blind deference, through Dror’s weak inversion thesis and Táíwò’s perspective on how we often highlight a subsegment of marginalized voices (Chapter 2). Finally, I propose cognitive empathy as a method for bridging epistemic gaps across social identities, combining the Justices’ views to advocate for an inclusive, empathetic framework for understanding knowledge (Chapter 3). The goal of this paper is to affirm the importance of balancing social identity with the shared pursuit of epistemic justice
A Proposed Study on the Role of Peer Influence in Shaping Future Expectations: Long-Term Consequences for Incarcerated Youth
No full textYouth incarceration has long-term consequences for educational attainment and employment outcomes in adulthood. High future expectations may mitigate the adverse effects of youth incarceration, as high future expectations have been associated with stronger academic performance, greater educational attainment, and increased employment opportunities. Peer influence may also affect outcomes through changes in attitude and behavior. Thus, this paper proposed a 3-year study on the impact of peer influence on the future expectations, academic performance, and long-term educational and employment outcomes of incarcerated youth. I hypothesized that peer influence would positively predict the academic performance of incarcerated youth, mediated by changes in future expectations. In addition, I hypothesized that future expectations would positively predict the long-term educational and employment outcomes of incarcerated youth as a result of their academic performance while incarcerated. The participants would consist of male first-time offenders aged 15-16 incarcerated for 6 to 9 months in California juvenile detention facilities. The findings of this proposed study could highlight the importance of cultivating more positive future expectations among incarcerated youth and allocating more resources toward improving the quality of education in juvenile court schools
Working in the New Normal: Analyzing the Impact of Work-from-Home Preferences and Arrangments on Workers\u27 Perceived Productivity
No full textThis thesis investigates how work-from-home (WFH) arrangements, preferences, and alignment with employer policies affect workers\u27 perceived productivity at home versus the office in the post-pandemic U.S. context. Using data from the Survey of Work Arrangements and Attitudes (SWAA), the study finds that workers perceive higher productivity at home compared to the office, especially when they prefer or have already opted for WFH arrangements, and when employer policies align with their WFH preferences. Demographic factors, such as gender and childcare responsibilities, also significantly influence perceived productivity outcomes. These findings highlight the value of flexible, preference-driven workplace policies in the post-pandemic era
The Implications of a Rise in the Minimum Wage: Evidence from Female Workers in Mexico
Get PDFThis thesis analyzes the 2019 minimum wage reform in Mexico, evaluating its impact on female labor market outcomes, including labor force participation, formal employment, and informal employment. This reform introduced a new geographic minimum wage zone along municipalities bordering the United States, accompanied by fiscal incentives, creating a natural experiment for analysis. Using difference-in-differences regression specifications, the study finds that the minimum wage increase was associated with a rise in formal sector employment and a corresponding decline in informal employment among women with low educational attainment. This study finds a magnitude of 6 percentage points in each direction, an economically significant effect, which confirms and expands earlier findings from Viveros (2018) that a 2012 minimum wage increase led to a decline in informal employment. No significant effects were observed for women with higher levels of education, suggesting that the changes were predominantly driven by the minimum wage policy rather than the fiscal interventions. The findings challenge predictions from dual labor market theory, as the reform did not produce adverse effects on formal employment. These results contribute to the broader understanding of minimum wage policies in developing economies and their role in shaping labor market dynamics for women, especially in settings with a large informal labor force