Middle leaders in schools are increasingly recognised as playing pivotal roles in school improvement. Although some school systems provide formal professional development for middle leaders, many middle leaders express a preference for job-embedded learning. Yet, international research has documented difficulties in providing intensive support…

Students in our nation's largest school systems--a majority of whom are students of color from nondominant communities--are unlikely to attend schools with strong, consistent leadership. Those big-city school systems are increasingly adopting principal pipeline initiatives to address the quality and stability of their principal corps. Principal…

In the Republic of Ireland, school leadership policy adopts a distributed leadership model nationally. Given that this is a relatively recent policy development, research conducted on distributed leadership to date has highlighted that there are particular challenges for school leaders in enacting this model in practice and, more significantly,…

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to provide an example of instructional coaching for inservice teachers within the context of community-engaged scholarship (CEP), involving professional learning communities (PLCs). This study seeks to encourage policymakers to allocate budgets for instructional coaches, as well as resources for schools.…

Districts are increasingly investing in coaching programs to improve teacher practice and student outcomes. However, merely providing schools with the funding for a coaching position is not enough. To maximize the return on the investment of coaching, our research on the Dynamic Learning Project (DLP) shows that districts need to ensure that they…

This paper presents an empirically grounded conceptual model that positions the principal as the talent developer, who when provided mentorship on how to strategically scaffold their teachers, will improve their own self-efficacy and competencies to provide better administrative support. Not only will this mentorship decrease their feelings of…

The New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) set forth the Renewal School initiative as a method of school turnaround that preserves the existing school community; with necessary leadership changes when applicable, and supplied human and operational resources. Educational research has cited that school leadership is the second leading…

This capstone details the process of developing a qualitative principal appraisal system for the Houston Independent School District (HISD). I employed observational research, in-person interviews, and historical data analysis to inform the envisioning, development, and implementation process. Using Semler's (1997) Systematic Agreement Framework,…

Collaborative international partnerships offer important benefits for institutions of higher education, both domestically and abroad. Recently, a Midwestern institution formed an important partnership with a sister institution in Vietnam that provides opportunities for cultural and academic exchange across cultures that differ dramatically. Very…

This brief summarizes the January and February 2018 Thought Leadership Forum presentations. January featured a content-based presentation by William Robinson from the University of Virginia on turnaround leadership competencies and February featured Hannah Peria and Elisabeth Peterson from the New Mexico Public Education Department profiling New…

The Future Ready Framework for principals identifies six key priorities essential for school principals interested in creating and sustaining a new culture of personalized learning within their school. Those six priorities are as follows: (1) Create a vision for digital learning in their school; (2) Model professional learning with teachers that…

A prolific number of researchers have chosen to study metaphorical narratives, confirming their usefulness in educational research. The aim of this paper is to analyse the metaphorical expressions used by 68 principals from infant, primary and secondary schools in Alicante (Spain), concerning the way they see the figure of the principal and how it…

This study explores how six school leadership teams in a rural district in California responded to professional development (PD) designed to strengthen leadership practices and organizational conditions in schools for improving teaching and learning. Specifically, the PD was intended to address the problem of practice identified by the schools:…

Rhode Island educators believe that implementing a fair, accurate, and meaningful educator evaluation and support system will help improve teaching, learning, and school leadership. The primary purpose of the Rhode Island Model Building Administrator Evaluation and Support System (Rhode Island Model) is to help all building administrators improve.…

In this paper will be analysed three different educational contexts for preparing school principals such as Australia, England and the United States. This study analyses the professional development of academic leadership in the countries previously mentioned in order to apply the successful aspects to the Chilean education system, a system…