Although the role of leadership in school improvement is widely recognized, there is less understanding of what leaders can do to support (and mitigate barriers to) the implementation of mandated educational change. This systematic literature review analyzed findings from 191 relevant primary studies published between 2000 and 2020 and identified…

In education systems around the world, planners and policymakers are calling for more attention to whole-system improvement. To best address teaching and learning outcomes, teachers and head teachers need whole-system support to build professionalism and improve their practice. The middle tier of education systems, composed of professionals…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), passed in 2015, signaled a major shift in the roles of states and districts in supporting school improvement. Under ESSA, state education agencies (SEAs) and local education agencies (LEAs) have more responsibility and flexibility in developing and implementing plans, informed by local context, to support the…

The purpose of this paper is to describe how one university collaborated with local P-12 partners to create an Ed.D. program in Educational Leadership. This program's goal is to professionally develop aspiring district-level school leadership in concert with local P-12 partnership school districts. As a direct result of those partnerships, the…

There has been a proliferation of high school reform models and interventions over the past few decades aimed at improving the nation's high schools, including increasing graduation requirements, introducing technology to classrooms, grouping ninth-grade students into their own "academies," reorienting the curriculum toward particular…

The purpose of this qualitative research assignment was to explore experiences with the early implementation stages of the Neurosequential Model in Education (NME) in an elementary classroom setting. Data gathered from four participant interviews, three elementary teachers and one educational assistant, revealed three categories surrounding the…

The purpose of this case study is as follows: (1) to identify change within a single school, (2) to record and to categorize this change, and (3) to analyze this change within the targeted school, over a year, after implementation of a non-collaborative SIP through the perceptions of the instructional staff. This study explained how the Louisiana…

In this essay, the author reviews "Education Reform in New York City: Ambitious Change in the Nation's Most Complex School System," by Jennifer A. O'Day, Catherine S. Bitter, and Louis Gomez. The book under review explores a larger set of issues, and some time has passed. But many of the issues studied remain relevant and the consistent…

Despite the key role that principals play in leading schoolwide change, districts' efforts to support principals are often limited, particularly in rural settings. In this article, we report the preliminary findings of a cross-district mentoring program for nine midcareer rural school principals. The collaboratively developed human resource…

This study describes an attempt to introduce change into an educational system. A new science program (MATAL) consisting of new teaching materials, teaching strategies and training courses--was developed and implemented in kindergarten classrooms. Major hypotheses were that (1) the kindergarten is a system; educational change will be achieved…

Discusses internal and external change agents' roles in school improvement, drawing on England's Moving Schools project. Effective external agents or cadres work not just in the school, but in the classroom. Conceptual organizing, a whole-school viewpoint, commitment to action, and teacher development linkages are key to supporting cadres.…

A basic weakness of many national educational reports is that they focus on what is wrong with the education system and overlook how the schools can be improved. Research-based guidelines to be used in change efforts are offered. (DF)

This paper assesses how three schools' change capacity influenced the implementation of school reform, specifically Basic education, a renewed curriculum in the first phase of secondary education. It reports on a study that examined the relationship between the characteristics of Dutch schools and their staff, the actual use of change capacity…

As part of a research project on "Patterns of Successful Assistance in Urban School Improvement Programs," this paper presents a case study of an assister's work in the Constituency-Based School Renewal Program (CSR), implemented in an elementary school in Brooklyn, New York. CSR is a program aiming to institute a process by which a…

A review of five of their own research findings suggests (to the authors) four strategies for preparing facilitators to help implement school improvement programs. "Facilitators" are people who support teachers in implementing new classroom practices, and can include principals, district staff, or external providers of support. The five…