During my 45 years as an academic, I have followed the admonition sometimes attributed to the legendary Jedi warrior Obi-Wan Kenobe that political scientists should "use [their] power for good and not for evil." In this spirit, I have devoted substantial portions of my career to public service by providing strategic advice and campaign management…

Retaining early career teachers and enticing promising teachers to become teacher leaders are issues of international interest not only because large numbers of teachers will retire from the profession over the next five to 10 years but also because the strongest teachers are the teachers most likely to leave the profession during their early…

Rhode Island educators believe that implementing a fair, accurate, and meaningful evaluation and support system for support professionals will help improve student outcomes. The primary purpose of the Rhode Island Model Support Professional Evaluation and Support System (Rhode Island Model) is to help all support professionals do their best work…

In this article, the author describes her experience as an educational consultant specializing in the educational needs of gifted and creative children. Gifted children are acutely aware of the world around them. One of the characteristics of these gifted children is the ongoing questioning of how and why they are living on this earth. They react…

Formerly, search consultants were used in higher education at only a small number of institutions--and even there, only when recruiting presidents. But over the years, the industry has grown to the point that many large and small firms now compete for higher education searches, including ones for administrators and even some for endowed faculty,…

Teacher shortages have real impact on schools, students, and communities. A gap of one teacher in a school means diminished opportunities for students. And, like many challenges in public education, the pain of teacher shortages is not distributed equitably: The communities that suffer the most from teacher shortages are often low-income and…

Replacing the method of counting inventory from paper count sheets to that of wireless reliably reduced the elapsed time to complete a daily inventory of the storage cooler in a dairy manufacturing plant. The handheld computers delivered immediate prompts as well as auditory and visual feedback. Reducing the time to complete the daily inventory…

This article describes the development, implementation, and outcomes of a pilot intervention designed to enhance preschool programs' ability to support children's social-emotional development. Working with two Head Start programs, the intervention included (1) restructuring existing early childhood mental health consultation services; (2) engaging…

This article presents the conceptual foundations and specific features of an ecologically oriented model of school-based organizational consultation. We begin by providing an overview of ecological theory. This is followed by a brief description of a model of school-based organizational consultation with a special focus on the ecological elements…

An authentic learning strategy fostering students' active learning was studied using the scenario of a real-world project. Students from two different classes at two different universities worked as clients or consultants to develop an apparel sourcing strategy. Quantitative and qualitative data were gathered from 44 undergraduates enrolled in…

Stories of veteran teachers have much to contribute to our understanding of how to approach the current problem of teacher attrition. We examined the stories of one teacher, Betty Peck, who had more than 50 years' experience teaching, with the goal to explore what dispositions she considered most important to her resilience as a teacher. We found…

Accidents and fatalities at USA amusement parks are rare, yet when they do occur, they can injure, maim, and even kill. This dissertation sheds light on how three family-owned amusement parks learned and improved as organizations from their own and others' failure experience. Using a multiple case study design, 18 participants were interviewed.…

The authors are professors of literacy in a teacher education program that leads to a reading endorsement. Their graduates are reading specialists, literacy coaches, and district language arts specialists--but only if, in addition to the coursework and practicum experience that make up their National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education…

This article uses a multiyear case example to illustrate principles of comprehensive program consultation to low-performing urban school districts. The Plainfield (NJ) school district concluded that leaving no urban child behind required school personnel to attend to students' academic, social, and emotional development in an integrated, ongoing…

The Code of Ethics of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) articulates a common set of values upon which education researchers build their professional and scientific work. The Code is intended to provide both the principles and the rules to cover professional situations encountered by education researchers. It has as its primary…