In "From Tinkering to Transformation," Meredith Honig and Lydia Rainey call on superintendents and other district leaders to rethink the very premises that underlie the long-standing ways of working in their central offices. Based on the results of nearly two decades of research from districts of 2,000 to 200,000 students, Honig and…

Purpose: Districts across the country are calling on their principal supervisors to shift from mainly focusing on operations and compliance to dedicating their time to help principals grow as instructional leaders. Learning theory elaborates that such support for principals demands that supervisors take a teaching-and-learning approach -- which…

Principal supervisors often find themselves drawn into managing logistical and operational matters, instead of helping principals become more effective instructional leaders. Yet Meredith Honig and Lydia Rainey contend that principal supervisors need to make principals' instructional leadership their primary focus. Drawing on their work with…

School district leaders nationwide aspire to help their schools become vibrant places for learning--where students have meaningful academic opportunities and develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Historically, though, school district central offices have been ill-equipped to support such ambitious goals. A new wave of research…

School district leaders nationwide aspire to help their schools become vibrant places for learning--where students have meaningful academic opportunities "and" develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills, the ability to communicate effectively, and other deeper learning capacities that are essential to success in later life.…

Districts nationwide have launched efforts to fundamentally change their central offices to support improved teaching and learning for all students and are turning to research for help. The research provides promising guides but is challenging to use. What happens when central offices try? We explored that question in six districts using…

Background/Context: Some school districts across the country have begun to convene principals in professional learning communities (PPLC) as a strategy to help principals develop as instructional leaders, and they have designated executive-level central office staff to lead the PPLCs. Extant research suggests the promise of PPLCs for supporting…

In school districts across the country, central office staff members are working to improve how they lead district-wide instructional improvement, but are finding few guides or supports for that work, what design researchers might call limited "designs" for their leadership. Superintendents frequently elevate school-based staff to…

Research on evidence use in school districts overwhelmingly focuses within schools on how school staff work with evidence including student performance data, research, and information about teaching quality. While important, this focus on schools reflects a mismatch with federal and state policies that demand not only that school staff work with…

For central offices to become full partners with schools in improving teaching and learning, simply defining new roles or creating new reporting structures is not enough. Through the authors' recent central-office research, they have confirmed that creating the conditions for improved teaching and learning districtwide demands new practices within…

Purpose: Research on educational leadership underscores the importance of principals operating as instructional leaders and intensive job-embedded supports for such work; this research also identifies central office staff as key support providers. However, it teaches little about what central office staff do when they provide such support and how…

School district central office administrators face unprecedented demands to become key supporters of efforts to improve teaching and learning districtwide. Some suggest that these demands mean that central offices, especially in midsized and large districts, should become learning organizations but provide few guides for how central offices might…

A diverse and historically underserved urban student population struggles with academic learning and social adjustment in a context of limited resources. Support for staff efforts or special student needs is also limited, making it harder to attract and retain qualified staff. Given the conditions that educators must contend with in such settings,…

This report summarizes main results from a national study of how leaders in urban school district central offices fundamentally transformed their work and relationships with schools to support districtwide teaching and learning improvement. All three study districts had been posting gains in student achievement and credited their progress, in…

New small autonomous schools initiatives are relatively recent educational change strategies that in some urban districts aim to remake how district central offices function as institutions. In this article, the author draws on theories of organizational innovation and learning to reveal how central office administrators participate in these…