There are concerns about the quantity and quality of personnel in early childhood intervention (ECI) as the numbers of infants and young children with delays and disabilities grow in number, needs, and diversity. The Early Childhood Personnel Center (ECPC) was funded to provide technical assistance (TA) to state systems of ECI and institutions of…

This paper presents findings from a larger, qualitative study that explored the potential of a school-based teacher community of practice as a model for a transformative form of teacher professional development. This paper reports on initial findings from a grounded theory exploration of the factors that facilitated and constrained the evolution…

This report summarizes results from a survey of AISD campus-based parent support specialists who reported the numbers of parents and parent involvement activities at their schools for 2011-2012. [Funding for this report was provided by district Title I funds.]

Schools across the country are implementing professional development initiatives with the intent of improving student outcomes. Over the past twenty years the criterion for measuring professional development has shifted from identifying what schools quantify to how professional development impacts students' performance. Teachers are under a…

Never before has the need been so great for classroom teachers to become agents of change and position themselves as problem solvers at the school building level. Teachers are uniquely positioned to assume leadership roles on a variety of tasks that could transform schools from more traditional workplaces into professional learning communities.…

Critical incidents technique was used to investigate the expertise of 11 staff development leaders in British higher education institutions. A model of professional expertise including both functionalist and experiential conceptions of expertise was developed and tested. It proved useful in prompting reflection. (Contains 13 references.) (SK)

A membership organization, the Harvard Principals' Center is showing that school administrators will voluntarily engage in activities promoting their growth as leaders in school improvement. The center provides an external support system in which principals are able to play a major role in their own development. (MD)

As schools respond to higher expectations for student learning, school staffs are uniting around innovations that show the greatest promise for improving student learning. This paper examines one particular staff-development initiative, the Northwest Initiative for Teaching and Learning (NWIFTL), and the leadership actions that support and sustain…

The Leadership Accessing Symposia is a program to provide local school personnel in Indiana with the opportunity to hear and interact with well-known scholars in the field of gifted education. Methods of publicizing the symposia and results of symposia evaluation are discussed. (JDD)

Well-educated, charismatic leaders who can improve systems to enrich the lives of others are needed today more than ever. In this updated edition, John Hoyle identifies vision, motivation, flexibility, and openness to invention and opportunity as key characteristics of effective leaders, and challenges school administrators to think outside the…

This document presents the proceedings of a conference on the Comprehensive System of Personnel Development in the field of special education. Keynote presentations include: "Special Education: Leadership for Change--A Social Marketing Perspective" (William A. Smith); remarks by Thomas Hehir addressing the status of special education and…

Outcomes of two leadership programs designed to increase achievement and participation for all students are reviewed in this paper, which addresses educational disparity. The first program, the Gender/Ethnic Expectations and Students Achievement (GESA) program, has four goals: to reduce the disparity in the frequency and quality of student/teacher…

The author provides staff developers and educational leaders with tools needed to facilitate a workshop or study group, designed around his book. It gives chapter-by chapter activities focused on moral purpose and why it plays such a critical role in changing the context of school leadership. This guide explores in depth: (1) "Changing the…

Presents five key ingredients for successful instructional improvement initiatives in districtwide programs (leadership density, knowledge of the literature, sense of priorities and realistic perspective on available energies and resources, development of a framework for teaching, and a teacher evaluation system complementary to the improvement of…

Descriptions are offered of in-house leadership development programs for faculty and staff at Arizona State University, Kennesaw State College (Georgia), Seattle Community Colleges (Washington), the University of Kentucky, the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, Western Kentucky University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (MSE)