This case study explores a central office's attempt to improve its school performance by shifting from a loosely to a more tightly coupled organization through greater oversight and standardization of practice. Educational leaders and, specifically, district-level and central office administrators often negotiate between providing schools autonomy…

This paper discusses the influence of neoliberalism and the knowledge economy in national curricula, and in school music education in particular, in order to cope with the role school music is playing and it could play in a curriculum conceived 'to boost the knowledge economy' currently in effect in most of the countries. For this, some economy…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the efficiency of the Colombian higher education system, differentiating between public and private universities. Design/methodology/approach: A data envelopment analysis (DEA) model is applied to separately and jointly evaluate the teaching and research efficiencies of universities. The empirical…

The teaching of music-reading skills has been cited as a neglected area of music education needing improvement. Music reading is the process of translating notation into sounds. Producing the notated sounds by singing, more specifically referred to as sight-singing, is especially demanding because it requires the individual to first mentally…

Young people have long been on the front lines of pushing for systemic change. The Prichard Committee Student Voice Team, consisting of 100 self-selected students from across Kentucky, works to improve schools and society. This article describes the Student Voice Team, an extension of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, an organization…

Even in "routine" years, the principal's attention to climate matters for wellness, and it matters for outcomes. School climate is a critical factor supporting the quality of student learning, particularly in times of stress. As a result, districts across the nation have dedicated considerable resources to tools used to assess climate,…

"We can't do that in our school district." "I don't have time to add that to my curriculum." "We're fighting against impossible odds with these students." Sound familiar? School improvement can often feel like a losing battle, but it doesn't have to be. In this fully revised and updated second edition of "The…

The sudden emergence and rapid spread of COVID-19 is a reminder of our frailty, where the magnitude of the impact facing the world as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic has become increasingly apparent. One way that we have effectively responded to this emergency educationally, has to become innovative in our relationship with technology. The value…

Professional development is a critical part of implementing new instructional strategies. Despite its importance, little information is available explaining if and how professional development motivates teachers' instruction. This qualitative descriptive study examined what influences teachers' motivation to implement STEM instructional…

Student voice may seem like a new concept; however, it has a long history of being engrained in public schools in the United States. The trend towards incorporating and expanding student voice opportunities in high school is based on the tenets of democracy. Educators seek to provide an opportunity for students to practice democracy in their…

International policy trends point to an increased focus on student achievement, teaching quality, and school outcomes. Attention to Swedish students' poor academic achievement over the past two decades has resulted in an increased emphasis on the responsibility of municipalities and schools to create a better educational atmosphere through…

Research into the effects of pressure on school leaders has focused more on its impacts at the system level than on the human impact on leaders. Using theories of vulnerability, this paper attempts to redress this balance, examining the challenges school leaders in North East England faced during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and the…

Educational systems worldwide promote the use of collaborative networks to foster teacher learning and improve practice in the pursuit of educational change to address longstanding equity and achievement issues. New Zealand is no exception, with its Communities of Learning/Kahui Ako policy mandating collaboration spanning across schools--a mandate…

This individual case study is part of a larger group study examining how principals benefit from and shape professional capital to improve schools. Specifically, this study sought to understand what organizational and individual factors contributed to principals' decision-making about implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies in…

In this study, we applied the technique of piecewise linear regression to a total of 144 schools with the third to fifth grades, aimed to search for a turning point at each grade level in terms of the effects of school renewal on school reading and mathematics achievement. We did find a turning point for each school subject at each grade level,…