Pundits and bureaucrats use the results from international tests, particularly the PISA, to make claims about the quality of the public education system in the United States and make policy recommendations. In this article I argue, with evidence, that the scores and rankings from PISA are not important and that they cannot give policy makers or…

This article is a commentary on Australia's involvement in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests. It provides a rationale for Australia's participation in the PISA programme, the influences of PISA involvement on education policies and practices, and considerations and implications for school leaders and…

America is not Singapore and Singapore cannot be America. So why are we often comparing ourselves to high-performing countries based on international exams? Despite the educational crisis many U.S. schools are facing, Americans should be cautious not to mimic another country's model within our diverse classrooms. We are largely grounded on…

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] is a global policy organization that includes the United States and about half of the Western Europe countries. It administers international comparison tests, called Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), for 15 year-old students in Mathematics and other subjects. I…

As the charter school sector expands rapidly with federal support amid on-going diversification and growing segregation among traditional public school students, this article examines existing patterns of segregation in charter schools. Prior research has demonstrated that charter schools are substantially more segregated than our already…

How can institutions of higher education, local education agencies, and departments of education partner to build capacity for 21st-Century school leadership? The model (IMPACT V) we describe utilizes a systems-wide partnership approach to cultivate shared leadership within influenced middle and high schools statewide to leverage technology as a…

Studies illustrate that achievement gaps between poor and non-poor children already exist at kindergarten (Lee & Burkham, 2002). The larger the gap at the time children enter school, the harder it is to close the gap. This article reviews a case study of one Midwest school district and their attempt at reducing the achievement gap through the…

This article examines reasons why teachers who were identified by their school principal as leaders or having leadership potential, chose not to become school principals. While the literature reports a shortage of qualified applicants for school administrative positions, the deterrents that teacher leaders most often identify include…

Collaborative learning teams have emerged as an effective tool for teachers to steadily and continuously improve their instruction. Evidence also suggests that a learning teams model can affect school leadership as well. We explored the impact of learning teams on leadership roles of principals and teachers in secondary schools and found that…

Retaining teachers is a challenge for schools today. The number of teachers leaving the profession each year is costing schools in the United States billions of dollars annually. This article explores an alignment of the attributes of teacher leaders and conditions affecting teacher retention. Characteristics of teacher leaders are discussed and…

Under pressure from the U. S. Department of Education (USDOE) and select private foundations, state officials have rushed to establish and enforce sets of standards for the K-12 public schools sector. This writer analyzed selected samples from several state sets and found them to be technical specifications without the needed prerequisite learning…

Is there validity to the claim that national standardized curriculum and testing will bring about the necessary education reform in the United States? To answer this question, the author has looked at and learned from Singapore, a country that has traditionally excelled and outperformed U.S. students in the international comparative studies. This…

Educational expectations and demands on the principal have changed markedly over the past few decades, so an updated set of standards or competencies is needed to effectively evaluate school principals today. Increasingly, many states require that administrators qualify for the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) certification.…

In most states those aspiring to be school superintendents must satisfy a series of post-master's requirements to receive the necessary certification. At the University of South Carolina, these academic requirements can be met through the completion of a 33 credit hour program culminating in an educational specialist's degree. A survey of recent…

Conflict management is among the skills necessary for the development of successful school leaders. Those in campus leadership positions are certain to face conflict situations on a regular basis. This study focused on four questions about conflict in the professional lives of campus administrators: (1) What is the frequency of conflict…