From an international review of 109 school effectiveness research studies, only 6 could be seen as theory driven. As the border between substantive conceptual models of educational effectiveness and theory-based models is not always very sharp, this number might be increased to 11 by including those studies that are based on models that make…

Early school leaving is an international concern. Previous research indicates that the school context contributes to early school leaving. This systematic review is aimed to gather marginalised young peoples' perceptions concerning contextual factors that contributed to and interfered with their decisions to stay in alternative education.…

The United States has long struggled with the challenge of educating children experiencing extreme disadvantage, including the poor, ethnic and racial minorities, English language learners, and foster children. In this article, we argue that solutions to this problem lie not to the east or west, but to the south. Specifically, we offer the…

Current changes affecting education systems have impacted teaching work as a whole. The concept of teachers' and establishments' effectiveness was introduced to operationalise an approach that is dominated by the cost-benefit model. This article uses this premise to suggest an analysis of the social value of teaching work, and more specifically…

Educational effectiveness research (EER) has accumulated much knowledge in the areas of school effectiveness research (SER), teacher effectiveness research (TER) and school/system improvement research (SSIR). Yet many schools and educational systems are not making enough use of the material and their insights. The article reviews evidence of…

The article "Getting lost in translation" by Harris, Chapman, Muijs and Reynolds addresses the engagement of policy-makers and educational practitioners with (the results of) educational effectiveness and improvement research. In this commentary the article is discussed from the perspectives of research utilisation, the solidity of the…

John Muir Elementary School in San Francisco is like countless other schools in cities across the United States. The student body comprises mostly lower income, African American and Latino students who--despite being just as intelligent as their white and Asian counterparts--traditionally underachieve on many academic measures. Talented,…

Peer review of teachers is controversial for several reasons. Some say peer reviewers encroach on the rightful domain of the principal as instructional leader. Others argue that, because peer evaluators are fellow teachers, they may be biased or unwilling to make hard decisions. Many teachers find the prospect of peer evaluation unsettling because…

Regardless of the relentless efforts of the federal and state government, as well as those of local school districts, students not completing high school continue to weigh down the educational system and society as a whole. Schools face the challenge of transforming the inclination for students to drop out of school with the associated damaging…

Background: Effectiveness research is maturing as a field within intervention and prevention science. Effectiveness research involves the implementation and evaluation of the effectiveness of the dissemination of evidence-based interventions in everyday circumstances (i.e., type 2 translational research). Effectiveness research is characterized by…

Merit pay proponents argue that monetary incentives for better teaching can improve the quality of instruction in the nation's classrooms. Yet only a handful of studies have evaluated the impact of teacher merit pay on student achievement. These studies offer no conclusive recommendations regarding the optimal role of merit pay in U.S. school…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report the formative evaluation results from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development Healthy School Communities (HSC) pilot project. Design/methodology/approach: This study utilized 11 HSC pilot sites in the USA (eight sites) and Canada (three sites). The evaluation question was…

This issue of "Leadership and Policy in Schools" outlines research into successful principal leadership from the perspective of four countries--New Zealand, Israel, Cyprus, and the USA (San Antonio). The research followed the methods and protocols established by the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP), which was…

In this qualitative study, we applied the concept of expert noticing to instructional leadership in high-performing urban schools that attained both excellent and equitable results for the various diverse populations they served. Unlike the overwhelming majority of urban schools in the United States, in the schools we studied, the academic…

The purpose of the multiple-site study was to explore educator's perceptions of the Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) that had been operating in three school districts using in-depth interviews. The goal of this research was to describe from the educator's perspective what they perceived, thought and observed about the PLCs functioning in…