Education decision makers in Colorado, Missouri, and South Dakota share concerns about and need more information on changes in school and district leadership (principals, assistant principals, superintendents, and assistant superintendents), including mobility (when leaders move to a different school or district within the state public school…

Education decision makers in Colorado, Missouri, and South Dakota share concerns about mobility and attrition among school and district leaders. In collaboration with educators in these states, the Regional Educational Laboratory Central used administrative data to examine the percentages of school and district leaders who remained in a leadership…

Principals represent the most "visible" form of leadership in schools, but current workforce data show that K-12 school principals are overwhelmingly white and fail to reflect the diversity within the student population. With increased policy focus on teacher diversity, equal attention must also be directed towards the lack of diversity…

This brief summarizes the practices of successful, instructionally engaged leaders and the ways districts develop these leaders. These practices are drawn from "positive outlier" districts in California that have excelled at helping African American, Latino/a, and White students achieve at high levels on assessments of academic standards…

This case highlights the challenges faced by the principal of Forest Middle/Senior High School. In the surrounding school community, White middle-class families are increasingly opting to send their children to private schools. Within the school, critical incidents between White teachers and Black and Latino/a teachers and students mirror the…

This case involves a small town in the southwestern United States. Background descriptions of the community and school are provided, including historical and demographic information. As the community and school transition from a small ranching town into a bedroom community for the large city nearby, tensions related to race and wealth erupt in a…

Few people realize the movement's breadth and the forms in which school choice expansion is manifest. Out of slightly more than 57 million K-12 schoolchildren, almost 29.4 million--nearly 52%--are enrolled in a K-12 school choice option. This article provides an overview of the scope of school choice today and summarizes the political, policy, and…

When Palmdale School District and Pivot Learning Partners entered into their first contract in 2006, neither organization foresaw the magnitude and complexity the relationship would take over time. Pivot Learning Partners (formerly known as Springboard Schools) is a non-profit service provider that first entered the Palmdale School District…

In 2007, the Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) requested that the RAND Corporation monitor implementation of year 2 (2007-2008) of the district's Excellence for All (EFA) initiative and provide feedback to district staff, the PPS board, and other stakeholders. In 2008, RAND expanded to a more comprehensive focus on effective implementation of EFA's…

This publication, 10th in a series, provides a pocket-sized compilation of statistical information covering the broad field of U.S. education from kindergarten through graduate school. Data are from many government sources, especially surveys conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics. Unless otherwise noted, data are extracted from…

This document, the eighth edition of the "Mini-Digest of Education Statistics," provides a pocket-sized compilation of statistical information about U.S. education from kindergarten through graduate school. The statistical highlights provide a quantitative description of the current U.S. education scene. Data are from many government…

This seventh edition of the "Mini-Digest" provides a pocket-sized compilation of statistical information covering U.S. education from kindergarten through graduate school. This information is found in much greater detail in the "Digest of Education Statistics,""The Condition of Education," and "Youth Indicators." The statistical highlights provide…

This edition of the "Mini-Digest" provides a pocket-sized compilation of statistical information covering U.S. education from kindergarten through graduate school. This information is found in much greater detail in the "Digest of Education Statistics,""The Condition of Education," and "Youth Indicators."…

This book, a commentary on becoming a teacher, presents a set of essays based on observations of a group of young, white, middle class female teachers learning what it means to be alone at the head of the classroom. It presents a textured picture of the development of competence. The picture is organized around the complications of ordinary life…

This article describes lessons learned in a case study of three high-poverty/racially mixed elementary schools in Louisville, Ky. An approach that included: 1) setting specific, measurable goals, 2) frequent monitoring of student work, and 3) applying distributive leadership elements enabled two of the schools to significantly decrease the…