This article examines whether centrally developed initiatives at the state level have an impact on how districts in the U.S. think about their role in providing direction and support for student learning, and also examines how districts view the strategies that state governments use to initiate change at the local level. Our focus is on smaller…

In this article, we revive work redesign theory, specifically Hackman and Oldham's Job Characteristics Model (JCM), to examine distributed leadership initiatives. Based on our early observations of six schools engaged in distributed leadership reform and a broad review of literature, including empirical tests of work redesign theory, we retrofit…

Explores three philosophies--liberal democracy, social democracy, and participatory democracy--and discusses how they play out in the policy arena in different countries. Because globalization involves the rapid diffusion of educational ideas and policies, there is an increasing mix of new and old ideas in every country. Draws implications for…