Social bookmarking is a new phenomenon characterized by a number of features including active user participation, open and collective discovery of resources, and user-generated metadata. Among others, this study pays particular attention to its nature of being at the intersection of personal information space and social information space. While…

Scope and Method of Study: Qualitative research to collect data from two sources: (1) Face-to-face interviews with school board members representing four Oklahoma School Districts; (2) Newspaper articles. Findings and Conclusions: Data from the study indicate that time availability and personnel expertise are determining factors in the decision…

The Ralph M. Brown Act's enforcement language implies striking a proper balance between school public officials and the public at large. This study of The Brown Act's enforcement provisions is presented in the context of school districts. The investigation focused on the following overarching question: Does a policy analysis support a finding that…

Make positive and immediate changes in your school with the support of your entire staff. New from acclaimed speaker and bestselling author Todd Whitaker ("What Great Teachers Do Differently, Dealing with Difficult Parents"), Leading School Change provides principals, assistant principals, district superintendents, and other educators with…

Purpose: The dual purpose of this paper is to determine how superintendents in US school districts work with stakeholders in the decision-making process and to learn how different choices superintendents make affect decision outcomes. Design/methodology/approach: This multiple case study of three school districts employs qualitative methodology to…

Seattle Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson spoke at National Staff Development Council's (NSDC) 2010 Summer Conference in Seattle in July. Goodloe-Johnson shared her insights on the role of professional learning in reaching all students in a diverse urban district. Selected excerpts from her speech are presented.

As the charter school movement has come to scale within the United States, it poses new questions about how to govern public education. With a significant rural contingent, charter schools are no longer just an urban phenomenon. Partly in response to the growth in charter schools, Paul Hill, director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education,…

Purpose: This study examines the ways in which school and district leaders create systems of support for classroom teachers who work with linguistically diverse students. We attempt to uncover the intentional supports leaders put in place for classroom teachers and how this may be part of a broader teaching and learning effort. Research Design:…

During the last several decades, educational reform in Sweden has been at once contentious, fast paced, and uneven as control of Parliament and educational policy shifted between left- and right-wing political factions. These political power shifts within Parliament created tension between national and local municipal governments and provoked…

Commercial search consulting firms such as Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, almost unheard of just a generation ago, today help fill a small but growing number of the more than 2,000 superintendent openings that arise each year in the nation's nearly 14,000 public school districts. It is unlikely that the nation's largest school systems,…

This 27th edition of the "Annual Condition of Education Report" includes a rich set of information to evaluate the current status of the education system in Iowa. Data in the report provide important information about Iowa's students, teachers and schools from multiple perspectives. It includes information such as demographic…

The future of public school performance demands that states and districts actively develop and seek strong principals. Instructional leadership is the critical element that is missing in efforts to improve America's lowest-performing schools and in moving good schools to great schools. Turnover among principals currently is at an unsustainable…

The passage of a school bond can determine the direction of a district for many years to come (Faltys, 2006). Upkeep of older facilities and the building of new facilities can have an impact on instruction, teacher job satisfaction, student achievement, and perceptions toward the district (Moore, 2003). Despite the fact there is often state money…

This research was conducted to examine how school district superintendents perceive prospective school principals who were initially certified through alternate means. Data were collected through interviews with superintendents in an effort to examine whether the superintendents believed that principals' career and educational paths affected the…

This case presents a situation in which a reformist superintendent attempts to achieve a systemwide, yet simple change in the school time schedule to incorporate well-established neurocognitive sleep research to enhance student learning. The public discussion of the reform proposal brought forth a very negative, single issue group who took over…