In May of 2002, Wichita Falls ISD, a district in Texas with a stagnate enrollment of 14,000 students for multiple years, asked for the community to support a $120 million bond to help cover the cost of four new elementary campuses and to maintain and upgrade aging facilities. The bond failed. Additionally, a 2004 bond failed again. Finally, in 2006, the district is finally able to pass a $60 million bond and only includes two new elementary campuses and no funding to address the aging facilities. At the same time, other districts in fast growing areas of Texas are able to pass school bonds with little to no issues. This begs the question, is there a formula for getting school bonds passed? The purpose of this study is to discover what key factors influence a bond package; to help find those answers, eight districts in Texas were selected, five considered to be a fast-growth district" and three considered to be no-growth district. The study used a qualitative research approach, using semi-structured interviews with 24 participants. After all factors were analyzed, a pattern and recommendation is developed for districts to follow allowing a high degree of success for school bonds.

During the Great Depression, for the first time in its history, the federal government provided relief to the unemployed and destitute through myriad New Deal agencies. This dissertation examines how "general relief" (direct or "make-work") from federal programs—primarily the Emergency Relief and Construction Act (ERCA) and Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA)—was acquired and administered by the government of Texas through state administrative agencies. These agencies included the Chambers of Commerce (1932-1933), Unofficial Texas Relief Commission (1933), Texas Rehabilitation and Relief Commission (1933), Official Texas Relief Commission (1933-1934), Texas Relief Commission Division of the State Board of Control (1934), and the Department of Public Welfare (1939). Overall, the effective administration of general relief in the Lone Star State was undermined by a political ideology that persisted from, and was embodied by, the "Redeemer" Constitution of 1876.

A sizeable literature documents patterns of competition between local governments in metropolitan regions, while also exploring variation in such local government financial attributes as efficiency, budget size, fiscal disparity, and service equity, which are frequently bound together under the concept of fiscal health. However, the concept of fiscal health is broader and more sophisticated than any one fiscal measure, and empirical studies tend to focus only on multi-purpose governments. This study brings these concepts together to investigate how interlocal competition affects the fiscal health of different government types. This study answers three questions: What is a measure of fiscal health applicable to different government types? How does competition among cities and towns affect local fiscal health? How does the proliferation of special districts affect the fiscal health of local governments? This study measures the concept of fiscal health using factor analysis and examines the effects of competition among different government types on the fiscal health of both municipalities and special districts. Utilizing a pooled cross-sectional time-series approach and data from the U.S. Census Bureau for metropolitan statistical areas for every five years between 1972 and 2012,the study finds that competition among municipalities has adverse influences on the fiscal health of …

Nearly 30 years after its publication Gloria E. Anzaldúa's book Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza remains more relevant than ever, particularly her discussion of borderlands as more than physical boundaries. In her book, she theorizes and explores how borders can possess psychic, social, and geopolitical qualities, and in order to articulate the nuances and challenges of border-culture, she invents a new language for underrepresented poets to discuss their poetics. The goal in crafting this essay is to reclaim Anzaldúa as an author worthy of consideration for her poetics. History and bloodlines are central to Anzaldúa's argument that poetry allows for language to transform violence, or historical and bloodline traumas, into one's own new myth-making. The capacity to redefine a border and make it borderless is discussed through the works of Natalie Scenter-Zapcio and Vanessa Angélica Villarreal's poems, in addition to a few key anthologies and my own collection, which seeks to sit in ambiguities and to reclaim and affirm histories. Ultimately, conversations about the poetics of Anzaldúa and her influence on other poets should expand our discussion of American poetics. Her focus on "psychic unrest" gives power to language over ambiguity and could be greatly useful to other poets beyond …

The aim of this thesis is to narrate and analyze lynching and atypical violence in Denton County, Texas, between 1920 and 1926. Through this intensive study of a rural county in north Texas, the role of law enforcement in typical and systemic violence is observed and the relationship between Denton County Officials and the Ku Klux Klan is analyzed. Chapter 1 discusses the root of the word lynching and submits a call for academic attention to violence that is unable to be categorized as lynching due to its restrictive definition. Chapter 2 chronicles known instances of lynching in Denton County from its founding through the 1920s including two lynchings perpetrated by Klavern 136, the Denton County Klan. Chapter 3 examines the relationship between Denton County Law Enforcement and the Klan. In Chapter 4, seasons of violence are identified and applied to available historical records. Chapter 5 concludes that non-lynching violence, termed "disappearances," occurred and argues on behalf of its inclusion within the historiography of Jim Crow Era criminal actions against Black Americans. In the Prologue and Epilogue, the development and dissolution of the St. John's Community in Pilot Point, Texas, is narrated.

Edward C. Fritz was one of the most influential environmentalists in Texas history. Although he took a circuitous route to environmental activism, Fritz evolved into a powerful force fighting on behalf of Texan nature. Participating in substantial actions throughout the second half of the twentieth century, Fritz's contributions to environmental activism resulted in the successful preservation of thousands of acres and multiple wildlife species. Fritz parlayed his legal background into effective activism, beginning his career with a successful lobbying campaign for protection of Harris Hawks. He led the campaign to stop a decades old plan for canalization of the Trinity River. The creation of COST combined Fritz's environmental focus with the concerns of economic conservatives to prevent a billion dollar government funded project that would have significantly altered the river. Fritz then led a cadre who took over efforts to establish a preserve in the Big Thicket national forest. He oversaw the foundation of a protected area far larger than original expectations, capitalizing on the growing awareness of environmental issues in the 1970s. Fritz's interest in the Big Thicket led to a fight against the Forest Service's practice of clearcutting and its effect on Red Cockaded Woodpeckers. Through litigation and …

This study examined student academic optimism in four diverse North Texas school districts. This study used a convergent parallel mixed methods design to analyze results of an online administration of the survey, and Latinx student responses to a focus group protocol derived from the survey. Quantitative results indicate the individual scales making up the construct align with previous research results. The three scales were found to be strongly and significantly correlated, indicating the potential for validation. Qualitative results indicate Latinx students' perceptions of their academic careers align with four themes. Latinx students are keenly aware of their teachers as a person, their school as a community, the intrusion of the outside world, and students as agents. Qualitative results support the importance of the three components of the construct, student trust in teachers, student academic press, and student identification with school. As a new source of data, combined with existing metrics of instructional effectiveness, student academic optimism could increase the ability of decision makers to improve the overall efficacy of school systems especially when addressing the persistent opportunity gaps for Latinx and other students of color.

During the Second World War the United States mobilized its industrial capacity to become the great "Arsenal of Democracy," as vehicles, ships, and small arms flowed out of American factories. Perhaps the most impressive accomplishment was the mobilization of the aviation industry, which grew rapidly after the war began in Europe. In 1940 the United States produced 24,600,000 pounds of airframe. By 1943 this figure had grown exponentially, with 760,926,600 airframe pounds produced. This was achieved through the cooperation of the United States government and the aviation industry. It required creative techniques in funding and manufacturing, and the construction of expansion facilities throughout the country, including Dallas, Texas. The city was selected as the site of a factory operated by North American Aviation. This plant produced some 18,784 aircraft in all, making it one of the most prolific in the country. This dissertation is a study of the North American factory in Dallas. It begins with decisions leading to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's call for 50,000 aircraft in May of 1940. From there the focus moves to the selection of Dallas as a location, the construction and opening of the factory, its operation, its relations with the local community, and …

Social issues are becoming increasingly apparent. More people are experiencing the impact of social issues directly and through their media consumption. It is important to understand and reflect on our collective impact on the media and how the media affects the collective. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effects of a collaborative workshop (collective shaping) and a verbal community that examined media depictions of social justice and injustice related to context and power dynamics. The effects of the workshop were evaluated using an A-B design with multiple probe measures across three participants. During the pre-, probe, and post-training assessments, participants watched videos and responded to a written prompt. Results of the study suggest that written responses were not adequately trained during the workshop. However, anecdotally, participant's verbal responding shifted drastically during the training workshop. The results are discussed within the context of the training apparatus, effects the workshop had on the participants and researchers, and progression forward.