Empirical studies indicate family concerns as a primary reasons why promising principals and central office administrators do not aspire to the superintendency (O'Connell, Brown, Guptil, Stosberg, & O'Connell, 2001; Volp & Rogers, 2004). Hesitancy to apply for superintendent positions is further complicated by the fact that the…

This case study describes collaboration between business executives and superintendents to influence local/regional K-12 educational change. Specifically, we examine participant like-mindedness about the ethics and appropriate focus of K-12 intermediary collaboration, the extent of democratic functioning, and key individuals to involve. Data…

This comparative case (Merriam, 2009) study explored two charter school principals' engagement in instructional leadership. Analysis of three data sources--interviews, observations, and documents--revealed that principals were almost exclusively focused on state accountability and possessed limited knowledge of pedagogical practices. In…

Many school districts struggle to recruit sufficient high-quality principals for their schools. A variety of conditions contribute to this challenge, including the retirement of the baby boom cohort and diminishing interest in administrative careers due to the expanded responsibilities of school principals. In response, districts enact a range of…

This article focuses on the broader political sphere as it affects superintendents and other constituents of rural districts. The current landscape of education reform focuses on accountability--particularly at the policy level of both state and federal education agencies. This article draws on the literature and an empirical study that examined…

Social network analysis (SNA), a methodological approach that enables the mathematical examination of interprofessional relationships, can be an important tool for understanding and leveraging the social relationships that support and restrain instructional innovation and the quality and pace of school reform initiatives. In this article, we…

The purpose of this article is to describe lessons learned from studying the leadership in eight award-winning secondary schools and districts that were recognized for successfully leveraging technology as part of their efforts for school improvement. Data were collected through observations, interviews, and document analysis in schools and…

In this study, the role that racial identity plays among Latina school principals is examined through a case study of a principal in a K-3 elementary school. Based on a Latina/o critical race framework and a phenomenological research approach, the study explores the degree to which having a strong understanding of one's racial identity…

This article examines how school superintendents and parents in high-needs rural districts conceptualized educational quality. Specifically, this comparative case study of two rural school superintendents presents a contextualized understanding of rural superintendents' and other educators' mainstream views of educational quality,…

This case study on nine bilingual teachers in Texas during their first year in a graduate education program examines both the development of critical consciousness among the educators and the ways in which critical consciousness shapes how these teachers come to understand their roles as teachers and leaders of a sociopolitically marginalized…

With strong connection to schoolwide policy and vision and to the realities of the daily life of teachers and students, the department chair is uniquely positioned to play an important role in advancing instructional effectiveness (Printy, 2008; Weller, 2001). This article provides an in-depth look at the efforts of three urban comprehensive high…

This article traces how the work of instructional leadership in the urban high school embodies a response to particular pressures in the school's environment. Based on evidence from multiple-case study research in four urban districts, the article demonstrates how supervisory and nonsupervisory leaders fashioned responses to the district (and…

This article explores the idea of distributed instructional leadership as a way to understand instructional leadership practice in comprehensive high schools. Our argument is that distributed leadership analyses allow researchers to uncover and explain how instructional improvement in high schools occurs through the efforts of multiple individuals…

The present study examines the nonroutine problems that eight Anglo-American principals encountered in managing three elementary bilingual immersion schools in the Northwest United States. Using qualitative inquiry to collect data, I employed the multisited ethnographic research model. The principals reported nonroutine problems in the following…

The purpose of the study was to examine educator-peer social relationships within the context of the organization and to consider the role of the school administrator in establishing collegial and caring relationships. The study was a critical collective case study of six educators--administrators and teachers--in U.S. schools. Through interviews,…