In this paper, we study the roles of expertise and independence on governing boards in the context of education. In particular, we examine the causal influence of professional educators elected to local school boards on education production. Educators may bring valuable human capital to school district leadership, thereby improving student…

Research-practice partnerships (RPPs) offer promising approaches to improve educational outcomes. Navigating boundaries between contexts is essential for RPP effectiveness, yet much work remains to establish a conceptual framework of boundary spanning in partnerships. Our longitudinal comparative case study draws from our experiences as graduate…

Decentralization and deregulation policies assume that local educational leaders make better resource decisions than state policy makers do. Conceptual models drawn from organizational theory, however, offer competing predictions about how district central office administrators are likely to leverage their professional expertise in devolved…

The problem addressed by this study is the impact of the current high-stakes accountability policy on the work of teachers, and whether this impact has created an environment of intensification. Research has shown that intensification manifests itself in teachers' feeling a loss of autonomy, a de-professionalization of their working environment,…

This article explores the way one youth leadership development organization has used youth-adult partnerships (Y-APs) as a practice to support youth participation in community-change efforts in the San Francisco Bay Area and throughout California. The authors describe how Y-APs are used in two principal areas of the Youth Leadership Institute's…