The goal of this thesis is to understand the consequences of educational choice in the public school system. The research takes place in San Antonio, Texas. The research encompasses meaningful comparisons between three sets of low income students and their families: 1) those who chose to remain in their attendance-zone school, 2) those who enrolled in the multilingual program, and 3) those who applied to the multilingual program but were not admitted because of space limitations.

As the American population ages, the issues of aging and work have gradually come to the forefront. An older and increasingly diverse workforce has raised concerns over job performance, labor costs, and alternative work demands. At the same time, evidence indicates that older workers continue to experience extensive labor market problems due to false assumptions on the part of managers about the limiting effect of age on employee performance. The public sector's ability to respond to age-related issues in the workplace has largely been ignored by both public practitioners and researchers. This study addresses the questions of whether age negatively influences public personnel decisions, and if so, whether such influences adversely affect the treatment of older workers. The results of the survey indicate that public managers are susceptible to age bias when making personnel decisions.