Background/Context: In the field of education, the lens of agency has provided a valuable conceptual alternative to deterministic portrayals of schools as oppressive institutions where teachers and students have little power over the conditions in which they teach and learn. A number of studies have investigated teacher and student agency, but few…

Some evaluation has been carried out in Vocational High Schools (VHSs), but most of it focuses on the documents or passive data rather than the processes happening in VHSs. Thus, this research focuses on the evaluation of VHS performances where the process is initiated with identifying the constructs and developing the instruments of performance…

The purpose of this study is to develop a valid and reliable measurement tool for measuring organizational health of schools. The study group consists of 429 teachers working in secondary schools in the central districts of Eskisehir/Turkey in the 2015-2016 academic year. The construct validity of the scale was examined by exploratory factor…

Using a sample of 300 Arab teachers in Israel, we developed a model to analyze how school-based management directly and indirectly (through motivation) affects school effectiveness. The results show that there is a positive relationship between all dimensions of self-management (decision-making, resource and personnel management, availability of…

As researchers continue to examine the growing number of charter schools in the United States, they have focused attention on the significant heterogeneity of charter effects on student achievement. Our article contributes to this agenda by examining the achievement effects of virtual charter schools vis-à-vis brick-and-mortar charters and…

Kappan's editor-in-chief talks with renowned scholar Susan Moore Johnson about her extensive research into the professional lives of public school teachers. For decades, studies have shown that teaching tends to be isolating work, with few opportunities for teachers to collaborate with and learn from each other or to play meaningful roles in…

The goal of this toolkit is to shed light on the importance of authorizing nontraditional charter schools and how the challenges of authorizing nontraditional schools manifest in practice, as well as to provide action steps for authorizers and school leaders who are able and eager to lead the field on these complex issues. The toolkit contains the…

Drawing upon a theoretical framework that acknowledges the bidirectional relationship between local discursive acts and institutional structures, this paper analyzes classroom observations with student interviews to understand how fifth-grade multilingual learners are making sense of dialogic literacy instruction to support their reading…

Despite evidence provided through decades of educational research regarding effective practices in high-performing, high-poverty schools, Mississippi continues to trail other states in improving student achievement outcomes (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2016). Educational research provides evidence regarding the importance of school leadership, the…

Purpose: Most education systems were not initially designed to include students with disabilities. However, over the past 25 years, great strives have been taken to ensure students with disabilities have access to the general education classroom and to important social, emotional and academic opportunities. Within the USA, researchers have begun…

The main objective of the study was to examine the implementation of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) in Malaysian secondary schools. The study was conducted by using quantitative method whereby a total of 971 principals, senior assistants and teachers were involved in the survey. The descriptive statistical analysis was employed to obtain…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among collective efficacy factors, as measured by the Illinois 5Essentials Survey, and college readiness scores, as reported by American College Testing (ACT), for high schools in the state of Illinois. The 5Essentials have been considered crucial to school success and therefore used to…

Professional learning communities are promising for teacher learning and improving the quality of education. In the past decade, there has been a shift in focus from within-school to cross-school PLCs: Professional Learning Networks. Knowledge of the underlying working processes of teacher learning in PLNs is scarce. This is even more complicated…

Data is a critical part of policy conversations in every state. This briefing book is meant to bring the reader up to speed on 12 of the most pressing topics about the schools and postsecondary and workforce options in each state: (1) Student data helps improve student achievement; (2) Postsecondary data provides insights about students, schools,…

Purpose: Through description and consideration of 12 models developed as part of the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP), a new model of successful school leadership is developed. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is necessarily descriptive in nature. For the first time, 12 ISSPP models are described together, and…