The purpose of this study of school improvement planning in the southeastern USA was to establish the current view of the process through the eyes of the district superintendents. The answers to the questions were consistently mixed. Generally, the presence of school improvement planning is prevalent in the large majority of districts. However,…

In response to a challenging state economy, the Texas Legislature implemented the Regular Program Adjustment Factor (RPAF) in 2011, effectively reducing state funding to all Texas school districts. This mixed methods study reveals the effect of the RPAF on a sample of the smallest Texas school districts and their response to decreased state…

Purpose: Reflecting the Mauritian government's "quality" agenda and its focus on school leadership, this paper reports the findings of research exploring Mauritian principals' views about the use of total quality management (TQM) for school improvement. While aspects of this research have been reported elsewhere, the purpose of this…

This document is from a featured presentation at the 2018 annual conference of the Science Teachers Association of Texas (STAT). The public schools are a fundamental element of our democratic society, and they have been the pathway to opportunity and a better life for generations of Americans. But at present, the American public school system is…

The "Quality Practice Project" (QPP) is the National Association of Charter School Authorizers' (NACSA's) multi-year research initiative to identify what high-performing authorizers do to achieve stellar student and public interest outcomes. Participants and researchers collaboratively investigated the perspectives and practices of…

Socioeconomic integration in schools has been shown to bring positive academic and nonacademic outcomes to disadvantaged students attending them. The academic benefits of integration on advantaged students are, by contrast, less evident. Effective integrated schools are those that promote disadvantaged students' outcomes yet advantaged students do…

Public charter schools (PCS) are thought to succeed because they have greater autonomy and are held more accountable than traditional public schools (TPS). Though teachers are central to this expectation, there is little evidence about whether teachers in PCS enjoy more autonomy and are held more accountable than teachers in TPS. Also, it is…

The current paper primarily aims to investigate and interpret the observations, perceptions, and experiences of an effective school's principal through a qualitative approach. The study was designed as a case study. The participant of the study was a primary science education teacher with 17 years of experience in the profession who has been a…

Full-service community schools are designed to increase students, and families' access to comprehensive and coordinated supports, services, and programs such as medical care, food aid, and enrichment activities. Despite widespread support, the research base documenting the efficacy of community schools is still emerging. Analyzing longitudinal…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the efficiency of secondary education schools in Chile. Since the early 1980s, several educational reforms have been passed with the main objective of improving the quality, equity and efficiency of the Chilean education system. This has initiated a debate about the efficient use of public…

Although school improvement continues to present as an unresolved educational problem, the required changes are relatively straightforward. Essentially, schools need to be retooled with students' experiences and high-quality instruction at the center of the design. In this article, we present the findings of research into the leadership of…

Purpose: Research indicates that a culture of learning is a key factor in building high schools that foster academic achievement in all students. Yet less is known about which elements of a culture of learning differentiate schools with higher levels of academic performance. To fill this gap, this comparative case study examined the cultures of…

This qualitative study examined the distribution of inequitable resources, a culture of control, and implications for postsecondary pathways for Latinas/os in five California high schools. This study integrated critical race theory in education, school culture, and the concept of "panopticon" to examine school structures, climate, and…

Pennsylvania is a state with significant proportions of students who attend rural schools, as well as students who attend charter schools. This study examines enrollment patterns of students in brick and mortar and cyber charter schools in Pennsylvania and how these enrollment patterns differ across geographic locale. We analyze student-level…

The focus of the article is the process educators use to interpret data to turn it into usable knowledge (Honig & Coburn, 2008) while engaging in a continuous improvement process. The authors examine the types of evidence educators draw upon, its perceived relevance, and the social context in which the evidence is examined. Evidence includes…