The effectiveness of educator incentive programs rests on the assumption that the potential rewards for participants will motivate them to behave in certain ways (e.g., choose certain jobs, expend greater effort, engage in capacity-building professional development). Some researchers have examined the impact of financial incentives on teacher…

The Supplemental Educational Services (SES) provision of the No Child Left Behind Act offers free tutoring services to students attending perennially underperforming schools. The author assesses the extent to which Chicago Public Schools students most in need of and who could potentially benefit the most from additional academic instruction…

This article discusses a dilemma that confronts reformers who seek to improve the education system yet operate from a position outside that system. On one hand, "external" reformers have found that the implementation of school-level programs is attenuated by a lack of coherence and support in schools' environment. Districts and states often enact…

This article summarizes the findings of the National Research Council (NRC) report "On Evaluating Curricular Effectiveness" and examines the reviews in middle grades mathematics undertaken by the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC). The NRC report reviewed and assessed 147 key evaluations of 13 National Science Foundation-supported K-12 mathematics…

The designation of district central-office administrators to operate as boundary spanners among the central office, schools, and community agencies can help with the implementation of challenging policy demands. However, educational research teaches little about central-office boundary spanners in practice. This article addresses that gap with…

Intermediary organizations have become increasingly prominent participants in education policy implementation despite limited knowledge about their distinctive functions and the conditions that constrain and enable those functions. This article addresses that research-practice gap by drawing on theories of organizational ecology and findings from…

Courts often rely on the testimony of experts to understand arguments and implications in education rights litigation. But expert testimony, and statistical testimony in particular, can offer a false sense of security for the unwary. This article uses expert testimony offered in two recent desegregation cases to consider whether sufficient…

Drawing inspiration from Shulman's (1986) construct of pedagogical content knowledge, we propose that leadership content knowledge is a missing paradigm in the analysis of school and district leadership. After defining leadership content knowledge as that knowledge of academic subjects that is used by administrators when they function as…

This article features case studies of two elementary schools, identified as exemplary by Washington educators, as they worked to enact Washington's Essential Academic Learning Requirements and help students achieve proficiency on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning. We describe school- and classroom-level practices and analyze the…

While transformational leadership has received much attention in recent years, the purpose of this article is to explicate the concept of transition leadership and its centrality to understanding policy implementation and school change through a case study of one district and its school principals, transitioning from court-ordered desegregation to…

Uses an in-depth case study of a California elementary school to examine the processes by which teachers construct and reconstruct multiple policy messages about reading instruction in the context of their professional communities. Develops a model of collective sensemaking and discusses the formal networks and informal alliances among teachers…

Describes five case studies of high-performing public schools that have organized professional resources in innovative ways. Outlines principles of successful resource allocation. Presents a framework and methodology for examining a school's current use of resources. (MAK)

Studied two high school work-based learning programs; one offered paid work experience for one semester, the other provided unpaid internships each year. Quality of students' program work and the relationship between the program and school learning are discussed. (MAK)

A multimethod evaluation of a major Canadian strategic grant program with surveys of 74 funded projects, 4 case studies, and interviews with researchers and grant application staff reveals the favorable effects of partnerships between research and practice on research and dissemination strategies in spite of ideological and pragmatic constraints.…

A study to compare the impact of responsive (case study) and preordinate (questionnaire) approaches to program evaluation was conducted among 29 professional personnel affiliated with Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. Respondents preferred the responsive approach to the preordinate method; however, the responsive approach was more…