International Journal of Education Policy and Leadership (IJEPL)
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Educational Contracting and the Translation of Research into Practice: The Case of Data Coach Vendors in Delaware
Get PDFAccountability puts demands on educational agencies that often exceed their capacity. As a result, a variety of educational organizations are contracted to design and implement policy. Programs and services offered by these contractors are not only instrumental in the process of mediating and implementing policy, but may also be instrumental in translating research into practice. To explore this issue, a case study is conducted using vendor proposals for Delaware’s Data Coach initiative. Data are analyzed through content and citation analyses to examine the degree and nature of research use by educational contractors. This research offers new directions for studies of research use in policy but also lessons for policymakers and practitioners that seek the services of educational contractors
Democratic Dialogue as a Process to Inform Public Policy
Get PDFAn exploration of the collaborative reconceptualization of a provincial Supervisory Officer’s Qualification Program (SOQP) through the use of dialogic approaches is the focus of this inquiry. The stories, perspectives, and lived experiences of supervisory officers, principals, teachers, parents, students, and members of the public in Ontario were included as essential voices and information sources within policy development conversations. These narratives of experience revealed the forms of knowledge, skills, dispositions, and ethical commitments necessary for effective supervisory officers today and in the future. They also illustrated the transformative nature of narrative dialogue to enlighten, deepen understanding, and alter perspectives. The policy development processes used in this publicly shared educational initiative
serve as a model of democratic dialogue. The inclusive and dialogic methods
employed to collectively reconceptualize a supervisory officer formation program illustrate
an innovative framework for developing policies governing the public good
Principal Leadership and Its Link to the Development of School Teacher Culture and Teaching Effectiveness: A case Study of an Award-Winning Teaching Team at an Elementary School
No full textThis study aimed to (1) describe principal leadership and the context of the overall school teacher culture that cultivated an award-wining team at an elementary school; (2) analyze the award-winning team’s learning behaviors, shared goals, values, beliefs, mutual interactions or dialogues, and experience sharing among members; and (3) unveil the key factors that shape excellent teaching team culture and its functions. Major findings are:
1. The award-winning teacher group at the school was able to facilitate the development of professional co-operation and teaching innovation within the school, and transform the school into a learning community.
2. The campus ethics of affiliation, collegiality, and experience-heritage was enforced at the award-wining elementary school.
3. The school leaders, especially the principal, had a critical impact on the development of school teacher culture via their determination and encouragement.
4. Both the school principal and the school’s senior teachers played an exemplary and leading role in shaping a high-quality school culture for professional development.
The study concludes that the principal and the senior teachers played an exemplary and leading role in shaping a positive school culture, and that a positive school culture can enhance school effectiveness and productive power
Principals’ moral agency and ethical decision-making: Towards transformational ethics
No full textThis descriptive study of the ethical decision-making among a group of Canadian principals provides a rich portrait of how and why principals engage their moral agency through their decision-making processes. Using a leadership responsibility framework linking moral agency and transformational leadership, the researchers found that: modeling moral agency is important for encouraging others to engage their own moral agency in the best interests of all children; despite efforts to engage in collaborative decision-making, principals are often faced with the reality that they are the one to absorb the cost of the decisions; and principals tend to engage less often in transformational aspects of leadership as part of the decision-making process. More research is needed to understand how school leaders can engage more often and more substantially in transformational leadership among their teachers and staff and how they build moral agency capacity in their schools
Secondary School Science Department Chairs Leading Successful Change
No full textA foundational understanding within education leadership literature is that education leaders are expected to guide reform efforts within school systems (e.g., Darling-Hammond, 2001; Evans, 1996; Fullan, 2001). This expectation mirrors organizational development literature that describes leaders as individuals who constructively institute change within their organizations (e.g., Northouse, 2004; Havelock & Zlotolow, 1995; Yukl & Lepsinger, 2005). Although leadership and change are portrayed as codependent and recursive phenomena within both educational and organizational development literature, no scholarship has linked change models with leadership theories (Herold, Fedor, Caldwell, & Liu, 2008). This article describes a multiple case study that explored the relationship between leadership behaviors and the change process through secondary school department chair stories of change. From the analysis of these stories of successful and unsuccessful change attempts, a clearer picture emerged that illustrates how leaders with little control over decisions implement change. Findings included distinct connections between CREATER change process stages (Havelock & Zlotolow, 1995) and specific leadership behaviors related to the Leadership Grid (Blake & McCanse, 1991; Yukl, Gordon, and Tabers, 2002), as well as change-leadership patterns that differentiate successful and unsuccessful change. Based on these findings, suggestions as to how education leaders should approach change attempts within their schools are discussed
What Makes Them the Best? An Analysis of the Relationship between State Education Quality and Principal Preparation Practices
Get PDFThis paper examines the relationship between principals’ training experiences and perceived school quality in seven U.S. states. Current school principals were surveyed regarding their perceptions of the comparative effectiveness of field experiences in the principal preparation program (PPP) each attended. States were selected to represent high, middle, and low scorers in the annual Education Week “Quality Counts” report. Surveys were emailed to school principals in Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, and South Dakota; the response rate was over 17%. Most respondents completed field experiences as part of their PPPs and considered many of those experiences to have been valuable learning tools. Principals from the highest-ranked states identified data-driven analysis as having helped prepare them the most, while principals from two of the three lowest-ranked states mentioned working with curriculum, data analysis, & involvement in teacher observations and/or evaluations as field experiences that helped prepare them the most. This research found strong support for expanding the use of field experiences in principal training, especially as part of a longer PPP period or internship. It also indicates a need for more budget and finance training; teacher observation and evaluation training; curriculum training; and student discipline training
Teacher Incentive Pay Programs in the United States: Union Influence and District Characteristics
Get PDFThis study examined the characteristics of teacher incentive pay programs in the United States. Using the 2007–08 SASS data set, it found an inverse relationship between union influence and districts’ incentive pay offerings. Large and ethnically diverse districts in urban areas that did not meet the requirements for Adequate Yearly Progress as defined under the No Child Left Behind Act are more likely to offer a larger number of economic incentives. Although rural districts are likely to reward teachers in hard-to-staff schools, they are not more likely to reward teachers who are certified by the National Board or who teach in the subject areas of shortage, nor are they more likely to offer multiple financial incentives
A Teacher Based Checklist for the Assessment of Student Learning and Development
Get PDFThis paper reports on two studies that evaluated the statistical validity of the Classroom Learning and Development Questionnaire as a universal screening and early identification observation instrument within the North American context. The Classroom Learning and Development Questionnaire was first proposed and tested in Hong Kong in the mid-1990s. It has been used as an integral part of the school procedures in the Hong Kong school system since it was first launched and has spawned a number of intervention programs for students within the Hong Kong Educational Authority. The Classroom Learning and Development Questionnaire (CLDQ) has been adapted from the Hong Kong study as a Tier I observation instrument to be used in the North American context. Results of the principal component analysis (PCA) in Study 1 (N = 820) extracted six components, which exhibited adequate to high levels of internal consistency. Results of Study 2 (N = 117) indicated statistically significant and negative relationships between the CLDQ subscales and Teacher Rating Form (TRF) (Achenbach, 1991) variables, demonstrating evidence of convergent validity. Based on the findings of these studies, the authors conclude that the screening protocol does present as a robust instrument capable of supporting screening at a primary prevention level. Based on this study, it is argued that classroom teachers hold a wealth of information concerning each student and that this, when presented in a systematic fashion, leads to greater understanding of individual and group learning needs and may lead to pre-emptive actions which would benefit students’ learning trajectories
School Mobility and Students’ Academic and Behavioral Outcomes
Get PDFThe study examined estimated effects of school mobility on students’ academic and behavioral outcomes. Based on data for 2,560 public schools from the School Survey on Crime and Safety (SSOCS) 2007-2008, the findings indicate that schools serving a total student population of more than 50% minority students, high schools, and urban schools tend to have more school mobility than their counterparts. After controlling for crime prevention programs, violence, and school background characteristics, school mobility is negatively associated with principals’ perceived students’ aspiration and school achievement and positively associated with students’ insubordination. Policy implications for school leaders are offered
Perspectives about living on the horns of dilemmas: An analysis of gender factors related to superintendent decision-making and problem-solving
Get PDFThe major focus of this paper is a gender-based analysis of school superintendent decision-making and problem-solving as well as an investigation of contemporary leadership dilemmas. The findings are based on responses from 258 superintendents of K-12 school districts in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania collected over a period of three years (2009-2011). The researchers also conducted 18 comprehensive qualitative “face-to-face” interviews with self-selected superintendents who responded to the quantitative survey. The intended outcome of this article is for education policy makers, professors, and practitioners to comprehensively examine the extent and degree of various dilemmas confronting the Mid-Atlantic Region school superintendent sample and to evaluate the decision-making and problem-solving approaches used by them. The study results that are presented will serve as valuable references to not only individual superintendents but also to university administrator preparation professors and to state administrator licensure agencies because it is important for all aspiring superintendents to know the various issues associated with education leadership and the personal and professional dilemmas that they need to be prepared to face as they embark on a career to improve schooling in the United States