With many states facing budget cuts over the last ten years, reconfiguration and school closings have been an unfortunate reality for public school districts. Building trust is a critical component in creating, leading a learning organization and being an effective cultural change agent (Tshannen-Moran 2015). This article tells the story of how a…

Sixty-six school districts and more than 150 schools in the state of Kansas are participating in the Kansans Can Redesign Project. In this article, we present a case study of using Design Thinking as a systemic process to structure continuous school improvement. The collage of real-life scenarios presented in our case shows the integration of…

This qualitative phenomenological interview study examined the experiences of principals who completed Stanford University d.school's School Retool fellowship program for school leaders, which focused on using the design thinking process for school improvement toward deeper learning. This research project explored the leadership practices and…

The author's journey as a strategic staffing principal in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has been one of ups and downs, scary turns and some great success for students. It began in May 2008 when she was asked to move to Devonshire Elementary School with marching orders to "turn the school around." Because of its failure to meet annual…

Principals need to acquire understanding of, and proficiency in, technology skills and integration to be effective instructional leaders. As issues concerning the lack of systemic change in school reform and technology integration persist, little research has been published concerning the extent to which technology leadership behaviors identified…

As education continues to succumb to deficits in budgets and increasingly high levels of student performance to meet the federal and state mandates, the quest to sustain and retain successful principals is imperative. The National Association of School Boards (1999) portrays effective principals as "linchpins" of school improvement and…

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between school leadership and implementation of school-wide reforms. I chose the case of Response to Intervention (RTI), which had been adopted throughout my district. In order to explore the relationship between leadership and implementation, I sought two sets of data. First, I wanted to…

The reauthorization of the Individual with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 strongly encourages the use of a response-to-intervention (RtI) model to reduce the number of students identified as learning disabled, to increase student achievement, and to close learning gaps between subgroups of students. RtI is based on the systematic assessment of…

Purpose: This article attempts to build a better understanding of the leadership necessary to create socially just schools for English language learners (ELLs) by addressing these questions: In what ways do principals create asset-based, collaborative, and inclusive learning opportunities and services for ELLs? What do varying approaches of these…

Background/Context: The U.S. federal government has been interested in improving the performance of students who come from low-income homes since the time of Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" initiatives in the 1960s. The current administration strongly supports the belief that good schools can be created and has funded the Comprehensive…

Background: Current federal, state, and local school accountability measures as well as policy initiatives that call for improved leadership have placed increasing demands on principals. Many districts face shortages of appropriate candidates for the job; popularly, this shortage is explained by the fact that simply too few hero-principals exist…

Elementary school principals who received a Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) award in January or August 2002 (n = 21) were invited to be interviewed in the late spring and summer of 2003. A total of 19 principals consented to audiotaped interviews. The interviews focused on several CSR dimensions, including principals' beliefs about the extent to…

Partnerships between universities and public schools that recognize the interdependence and mutual benefits derived from an alliance have become a cornerstone of educational restructuring (C. Dean, P. Lauer, & V. Urquhart, 2005; J. L. Goodlad, 1991; Holmes Group, 1990). Although interrelated, these partners exist in distinctive milieus in which…

The Whole-Faculty Study Group (WFSG) System is a student-centered, teacher-driven process for facilitating major staff development and schoolwide change. When applied properly, it has produced extraordinary results for thousands of educators and students in schools and school districts across the country. The Whole-Faculty Study Groups Fieldbook…

During the 1990s, a new policy hypothesis focusing on the quality of teaching to provide a high-leverage means for improving student achievement began to gain currency. Based on interview, observation, survey, and record data collected at the state, district, and school levels over a five-year time period, the study offers a look at how the San…