The purpose of this study was to compare experiences of teachers and learners in the implementation of the National Strategy on Inclusive Education between primary and secondary schools in Malawi using a qualitative methodology with a phenomenological approach. The findings show that there is no clear difference in the way the National Strategy on…

In 2017 the Texas Education Agency (TEA) launched the Systems of Great Schools (SGS) initiative. With a combination of incentives and capacity building, SGS attempts to transform how school districts approach school improvement. It calls on districts to manage school performance in new ways, expand access to school choice options, and take a…

Educational reforms are often translated in and implemented through artifacts. Although research has frequently treated artifacts as merely functional, more recent work acknowledges the complex relationship between material artifacts and human/organizational behavior. This article aims at disentangling this relationship in order to deepen our…

This qualitative case study investigated the implementation and experiences of access and equity work in a suburban, public K-12 school district in the Midwest United States. While the literature regarding educational leadership, student educational gaps, and school change is prolific, inequities in policy and practice perpetuate predictable…

Purpose: In recent years the benefits of distributed leadership have often assumed the status of an unchallengeable orthodoxy. There is a general acceptance that leadership is best when it is dispersed. In reality this is often little more than a form of "licensed leadership" in which those working in subordinate roles can only exercise…

This report investigates factors that drive teachers to embrace or challenge the use of products and services designed to support improvements in practice. Key elements of the study include: (1) Technology-based resources studied include those designed for video observations, peer feedback and collaboration, online professional learning, and…

The research investigated the way in which school administrations implement resources provided by Israel's "Courage to Change" reform. The uniqueness of this reform stems from the fact that the allocated resources come in the form of "weekly instruction time" rather than finance, and the school management needs to decide how to…

Planning for policy implementation is as important as the implementation itself. A policy's intent can be subverted by the way the policy is implemented, or when unanticipated outcomes take precedence over the true intent. This article presents three cases of specific instances of unintended outcomes from policy implementation and presents a…

This article describes a process one librarian discovered and implemented as she observed the changing role of the librarian and the library. Frustration was growing due to the gradual erosion of school libraries as they struggled to remain, with electronic books, video streaming, and databases supplanting many of the physical resources in the…

While the 2011-2012 school year offered educators a sketch of the Common Core State Standards and how they would impact teaching and learning, this year that painting takes shape. Many states and districts are well on the way to implementing the standards--but the process is complex, especially for the school leaders who shoulder the task of…

During the past several years, school systems have implemented a variety of organizational improvement initiatives, such as Six Sigma, Balanced Scorecards, Baldrige Criteria, activity-based costing, and managing for results. Unfortunately, evidence of sustained success is fleeting as school districts remain trapped in a time warp of command,…

State education agencies (SEAs) are under fire and face new expectations from all sides. The federal government, state legislatures and governors, and citizens themselves are calling upon the SEA to do "more"--more to improve outcomes for students, more to close the achievement gap, and more to meet the diverse instructional needs of students.…

Evidence-based programs will be useful to the extent they produce benefits to individuals on a socially significant scale. It appears the combination of effective programs and effective implementation methods is required to assure consistent uses of programs and reliable benefits to children and families. To date, focus has been placed primarily…

Librarians might remember that day, whether it was a month ago or over ten years ago. They may have asked themselves what they needed to know, how they should do it, how they could improve it, and, if change was needed, whether they could effect change with ease or would be met with opposition? Did they go in like lambs and become lions, or learn…

In this descriptive study the aim is to analyze the Hungarian educational policy history and event-chain of the comprehensive and post-comprehensive project. As a structuring framework this paper used the historical landmarks and the different institutional arrangement models (governance types and power distribution models). Accordingly, three…