This research project focused on understanding the experiences of Texas elementary school principals in relation to teacher non-renewal policies, ethical dilemmas, and district support. Three key research questions were addressed: 1. How do elementary principals in Texas experience the application of Texas teacher non-renewal policies and…

The available frameworks of instructional leadership do not include functions aimed to ensure that teachers are suited for their position, such as hiring appropriate teachers, placing teachers effectively, and firing ineffective teachers. This study explored how principals link their responsibility of ensuring that existing teachers are the right…

Challenging the conventional wisdom that the spread of democracy was a leading driver of the expansion of primary schooling, recent studies show that democratization in fact did not lead to an average increase in primary school enrollment rates. One reason for this null effect is that there was already considerable provision of primary education…

This report focuses on teacher turnover in Maryland's Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) among two groups: (1) Teachers who left MCPS due to resignation or termination ("teacher attrition"), and (2) elementary teachers who transferred or moved to other schools within MCPS ("elementary teacher mobility"). The ultimate goal…

This study bridges a gap in qualitative research on teacher satisfaction in the United Arab Emirates. In line with the two-factor theory, we found that maintenance factors, such as perception of job insecurity, stagnant salaries and perceived heavy teaching loads, had more prominence in explaining teacher dissatisfaction. Motivational factors such…

Instructional leadership can be defined as an educational leadership approach whereby the school principal is involved in a wide range of activities aiming to improve teaching and learning for all students. Surprisingly, the literature about instructional leadership practices has not mentioned school leaders' practices for hiring appropriate…

This paper explores the emotional experiences of elementary school inspections, from the appointment of the first State school inspectors in 1839 to 1911 when Edward Holmes, the retiring chief inspector, signposted the prospects of a new era in elementary education. The paper is arranged in two parts: the first provides an outline of the origins…

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the Orleans Parish school district fired over 4,000 public school teachers as the city underwent a transition to a market-based system of charter schools. Using administrative data, we examine whether and how these teachers returned to public school employment and teaching. We estimate that school reform and…

Improving the school governance structure and establishing a modern school system are the current research focuses in elementary and middle school management. Through a comparative analysis of the school governance structure of four provinces and cities in China (Beijing-Shanghai-Jiangsu-Guangdong, BSJG) and PISA2015 high-scored…

The increased use of social media sites like Facebook has had an impact on employees when their behavior on such sites is deemed to be inappropriate by employers. This has led to a phenomenon that the popular press calls "Facebook Fired," where an employee is fired for personal social media use. Such terminations have significant…

Massive funding cuts to public education took place around the country following the Great Recession. Many school districts were forced to conduct teacher layoffs at a larger scale than any other time in recent history. We show that prior to a district intervention, the layoff process disproportionately impacted historically disadvantaged students…

Several states have recently adopted or are pursuing policies that deny or revoke tenure from teachers who receive poor evaluation ratings over time based in part on quantitative measures of performance. Using data from the state of Florida, we estimate such value-added measures to consider the future effectiveness and number of teachers who would…

The "State Teacher Policy Yearbook" presents the most detailed analysis available of each state's performance against, and progress toward, a set of specific, research-based teacher policy goals aimed at helping states build a comprehensive policy framework in support of teacher effectiveness. In this seventh installment of the…

The two recently-filed New York lawsuits claiming that teacher tenure laws violate children's constitutional right to a "sound basic education" are finally dragging the long-obscure Section 3020-a of the state's Education Law into the spotlight. This attention is badly overdue because for decades § 3020-a has impeded efforts to ensure a…

Teacher evaluation is at the center of current education policy reform. Most evaluation systems rely at least in part on principals' assessments of teachers, and their discretionary judgments carry substantial weight. However, we know relatively little about what they value when determining evaluations and high stakes personnel decisions. The…