Purpose: Many US school districts currently face teacher-retention issues, raising questions about which new teachers might remain long term in district schools. Positing that a teacher's local ties matter, this quantitative analysis was designed to compare the long-term retention of community-based teachers to community outsiders in the school…

This paper reports on a study that explored the roles of district and community-based education structures (DCES) in preparing, implementing, and communicating education policy initiatives at the district and school levels. A descriptive multiple-case survey design involving three purposefully selected districts was employed. The study used a…

In this manuscript, the authors discuss a seven-day research project that occurred within the Birmingham metropolitan area where fourth graders researched the role that public issues played in the creation of two suburban school systems in their city. We coded student work samples to look for themes. Emergent themes from student work samples are…

This study aimed to determine the effect of localized lesson plans to the interest and performance in mathematics. The respondents were grade 6 pupils of Odiong Elementary School, Philippines in the school year 2019-2020. The experimental grouped was exposed to instruction using localized lesson plans while the control grouped was exposed to…

This report is based on evidence gathered during visits undertaken in November and December 2021. HM Inspectors (HMI) visited four stand-alone early learning and childcare (ELC) settings; 15 primary schools including 13 with nursery classes and one with Gaelic Medium Education; 13 secondary schools; three special schools; three community learning…

The number of deaths caused by the use of heroin or prescription pain killers nationwide has increased annually over the past decade with some of the most rapid growth occurring in the nation's most rural areas. This qualitative study examines the responses of districts and superintendents to this growing health crisis in twelve rural school…

In this paper, we study the roles of expertise and independence on governing boards in the context of education. In particular, we examine the causal influence of professional educators elected to local school boards on education production. Educators may bring valuable human capital to school district leadership, thereby improving student…

This poll was conducted between February 12-February 15, 2022 among a sample of 2,200 adults. The interviews were conducted online and the data were weighted to approximate a target sample of adults based on gender, educational attainment, age, race, and region. Among the key findings are: (1) Education issues rank higher when it comes to voting…

The COVID pandemic has led to a prolonged period of educational disruption with few precedents from the recent past to guide recovery. The Institute of Education's project, "Learning Through Disruption," set out to explore the knowledge schools have acquired from working with children and families during the crisis. The authors found…

Amid the growth of charter schools, autonomous schools, and private management organizations, an increasing number of urban districts are moving toward a portfolio management model (PMM). In a PMM, the district central office oversees schools that operate under a variety of governance models. The expansion of PMMs raises questions about local…

This case is written for graduate students in a superintendency seminar course, a school-community relations course, or a school leadership course, such as a school politics course. It presents a highly charged school referendum issue in a school district that is comprised of two distinctly different communities. An initial referendum to construct…

While the teacher shortage is a national crisis, the manifestations of the shortage are felt most acutely at the local district level. The diversity of these micro-contexts often leads to disparities in the ways local school systems are served by large-scale initiatives. District leaders provide an important lens for understanding the localized…

The "Learning through Disruption" research project ran between May-August 2021, with funding from the Economic and Social Research Council. The project was based at UCL Institute of Education (IOE) and data collection began in May 2021, shortly after primary schools in England had emerged from the spring 2021 national lockdown, and were…

Background: Scholars widely acknowledge that politics help explain why policies are adopted and how they play out in states, districts, and schools. To date, political analyses of education reform tend to isolate a particular policy and examine the politics of its adoption or implementation, but pay less attention to the effects of the politics of…

Local control of schooling has been considered a defining feature of the American school system; however, in the past several decades of public schooling has also increasingly been subject to the influence of extralocal institutional mandates that encourage curricular and organizational standardization. We conducted a content analysis of 480…