School districts increasingly gauge school quality with surveys that ask about school climate and student engagement. We use data from New York City's middle and high schools to compare the long-run predictive validity of surveys with that of conventional test score value-added models (VAMs). Our analysis leverages the New York school match, which…

This asset-framing semi-ethnographic case study examined how school leaders in a successful, economically disadvantaged New York State high school--Evergreen High School--cultivated student belonging through a culture of dignity for low-income students. The dignity framework for educational equity (Cobb & Krownapple, 2019) was used as an…

Collective leadership of teachers and administrators can be a vehicle for catalyzing school improvement. In chemistry, a catalyst is any substance that increases the rate of reaction without itself being consumed. Leadership that accelerates good work without using up the leader is increasingly necessary. We identified schools that demonstrated…

This study examines whether Superintendent-Principal Partnership Longevity has a relationship with student Annual Graduation Rates in New York State from 2009 to 2018. Previous research has explored the role of individual school leadership longevity (superintendent or principal) on student achievement. Superintendent-Principal Partnership…

The recent changes to school accountability under the "Every Student Succeeds Act" (2015) have highlighted the negative effects of chronic absenteeism on student achievement. For many students, poor attendance habits begin as early as kindergarten and continue through high school. Resulting in literacy and math gaps, the impacts of…

This qualitative grounded study investigated professional development, pre-service and in-service that 7 high school principals, 3 assistant principals, and 2 directors in New York State received to build their instructional leadership capacity. The researcher conducted 12 interviews via Zoom video conferencing to ascertain how preparation…

Traditional grading practices have been in place for well over a hundred years and grades received served to identify in which subjects a student is "smart" or in which ones they are not (Dewitt, 2017). The problem with traditional grading is that it does not provide qualitative information on the difference between an A, B, C, D, or F…

Gifted education focuses on academic excellence at the expense of equity and, therefore, gifted students are often not educated in a culturally responsive manner (Ford & Harris, 2000; Mun et al., 2020). Also, the K-12 population has the most significant growth in diverse student populations, yet the college transition rate for students of…

The novel COVID-19 pandemic has caused a rupture in the trajectory of education worldwide. Students, families and schools are experiencing unprecedented times and are navigating uncharted territory together in how we educate our students. In the U.S., it has been noted that the schism within education as a result of the pandemic is the biggest…

In field-based research, masking practices, as well as the general practice of relegating historical context to abstracted 'site descriptions' in a paper's methodology section, can produce a tacit inattention to historical specificity. By juxtaposing two case studies of schools, this article examines the ways school sites are haunted by…

State education departments find themselves pressured to reduce costs while improving student performance. To do so, state education departments must measure the performance of each school district in an objective, data-informed manner. We present a benchmarking methodology and illustrate its application in New York State school districts. We…

Inequity and marginalization exist within educational structures, policies, and practices. As such, practitioners, like district-level leaders need a clearer understanding of the barriers and their role in making meaning and shaping progress to overcome the disconnect between their beliefs, data, and meaningful and sustainable action. This study…

The purpose of this phenomenological qualitative study was to explore the perspectives of school leaders who have supported teachers' transition through the implementation and sustained use of blended learning in middle school and high school settings in New York State. The theory that guided this study was Bridges's (2016) transition theory. The…

Currently, the perceived use of critical theoretical frameworks to shape instruction in public K-12 education is undergoing intense scrutiny in popular and political debate. Chief among such frameworks has been Critical Race Theory (CRT), which, at the time of this writing, has been legally banned or restricted in eighteen states -- with similar…

This interpretive phenomenological study explored the lived experience of rural high school principals in New York State and developed an understanding of why they choose to remain in their role as school leaders. The study answered two research questions: "What role, if any, does self-efficacy play in the sustainability of rural high school…