This article describes the Future Creating Workshop (FCW) and explores how it can create learning forums for participatory leadership. We investigate how FCW can be an effective form of professional development for educational leaders and explore what leaders learn from implementing FCWs in their settings. The FCW, a three-phase participatory…

Schools are utilizing and acquiring more technology to meet the needs of 21st Century learning and the world that their students will enter into. It is imperative that we implement technology-based formative assessment practices to support teacher pedagogy and increase student achievement. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship…

Despite the clarion call from educational leaders, scholars, and doctoral students for educational leadership preparation to provide learning experiences to ensure students persist to become transformative school leaders, most educational leadership programs struggle to make this happen. The purpose of this reflective essay is to capture how…

This study explores how six school leadership teams in a rural district in California responded to professional development (PD) designed to strengthen leadership practices and organizational conditions in schools for improving teaching and learning. Specifically, the PD was intended to address the problem of practice identified by the schools:…

For school districts in California, just as one set of revolutionary new content standards is beginning to feel familiar, another deep change is brewing. Districts have now had more than five years to wrestle with how they implement the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSS-M) (NGA Center & CCSSO, 2010). Many have made large-scale…

Researchers examined the potential of Presidents' Councils on Diversity (PCDs) to position advancing diversity and inclusion agendas at 11 higher education institutions. Researchers investigated strategies and the degree that PCDs set up agendas through the mobilization (i.e., creating vision and setting priorities), implementation (i.e., creating…

Despite the growing descriptions of effective teacher community--and lessons about the conditions needed for them to survive--more research has been done on exemplars of strong professional community than on efforts to produce professional community where it doesn't already exist. Building professional community is important to school improvement…

This case study examined the implementation of a baccalaureate degree at Skyline Community College--one of the 15 California community colleges authorized to offer baccalaureate degrees established as part of a pilot program enacted by the California Legislature via Senate Bill 850 (2014). The study explored the policies and procedures in place at…

This study examines how, if at all, multiple subjects and administrative services credential preparation programs are changing in response to California's newest grade, Transitional Kindergarten (TK). We analyzed interviews from university faculty in early childhood education and credential programs in five institutions of higher education and…

Courtney and Dennis, two African American male students at McDowell High, were arrested at school for throwing water balloons during senior prank week. The principal assigned two police officers to the magnet school to oversee the implementation of a new discipline protocol. However, several members of the school staff were ill-informed about the…

Purpose: Researchers and scholars have called for greater attention to collaboration among and between educational leaders in districtwide reform. This work underlines the important social aspect of such collaboration and further investigates the type of professional interaction among/between district and school leaders particularly around the…

Reform efforts require stakeholder support, but more importantly, a strong leader to see them through. In this article, the author addresses the importance of strong leadership and the role of principals in effecting change. He describes the success story of Harborside Elementary School in Chula Vista, California as one of a growing group of…

The launch of independent Ed.D. programs in 2007 at campuses of the California State University (CSU) is significant for its large program size and timing amidst national debate on Ed.D. programs. These applied programs for practitioners require a traditional dissertation based on rigorous research that address problems of practice. This…

Since the inception of a "Nation at Risk" (1983) and the gradual growth of the school reform movement over the following several decades, the social and political milieu that exist today under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) can be best described as an era in which public education is fending itself from extinction and takeover, often from…

Background: Community colleges represent an important access point for many individuals seeking to enter into the system of higher education. This is especially the case in California, where the state has indicated that these open-access institutions are supposed to provide education to the communities they serve and to reach those that are…