The collective power of community members has the potential to shape education reform efforts through activism and community organizing. In this article, we present two cases where community organizers exhibited key leadership strategies designed to influence district decision-making about school closures in Chicago. Employing a mix of interviews,…

In this article we report on our examination of the challenges faced by four successful and long-standing national STEM reform communities. Drawing primarily on interview data from a large-scale, multi-year study informed by literature on "communities of practice" (CoPs) (Wenger et al. 2002), we describe five categories of challenges…

Central to the mission of most educational institutions is the task of preparing the next generation of citizens to contribute to society. Schools, colleges, and universities value a range of outcomes--e.g., problem solving, creativity, collaboration, citizenship, service to community--as well as academic outcomes in traditional subjects. Often…

The research reported in this article follows-up on a study conducted by Anast-May, Buckner, and Geer (2010). The 47 interviewed principals identified three types of experiences school leadership interns needed in order to prepare them to lead school improvement efforts. This study explores interns' perspectives on the efficacy of their internship…

This case study of one school district examined how school leaders use student performance data and technology-based data analysis tools to engage in data-informed decision-making for continuous improvement. School leaders in this context included leaders at the district, school, and classroom levels. An extensive literature review provided the…

Intelligence gathering, or data collection, is a preliminary and critical stage of decision making. Two key approaches to intelligence gathering are "discovery" and "idea imposition." The discovery approach allows us to learn about possibilities by gathering intelligence in order to identify and weigh options. The idea imposition approach limits…

The purpose of this research was to explore and explain the role housing plays in rural community vitality. Community vitality refers to economic strength and social well-being. In spring 2002 we collected primary interview data from informants in 134 small rural communities in nine north-central states and identified related secondary data from…

A longitudinal study (1961-1965) was planned to obtain information on the pervasiveness of personal influence with respect to decisions to join formal voluntary associations; examine the characteristics of opinion leaders and the individuals they influence; discover the differential patterns of joiners' exposure to mass communicated messages about…

Using techniques of the reputational method to study community power structure, this report identifies components of power structure in a Tennessee school district, demonstrates that proven methodologies can facilitate educational leaders' reform efforts, and serves as a pilot study for further investigation. Researchers investigated the district…