In this article, the authors make a case for greater attention by researchers to the process of school decline. This article opens with a discussion of the challenges involved in studying school decline. Challenge number one turns out to be pretty basic--gaining agreement on what is meant by the term "school decline." Other challenges include…

In September 1999, Donald J. and Catherine Willower established the Willower Family Lecture Series as a way to add to the intellectual climate of the University at Buffalo-State University of New York (UB), while enhancing the reputation of its Graduate School of Education (GSE). This lecture series resides in UB's Department of Educational…

In this article, we review research from the organizational sciences to develop lessons for educators and policy makers. The approach is an integrative review of the literature. We employ a comprehensive process to unpack and make sense of the turnaround literature from the organizational sciences. We rely on strategies appropriate for document…

While much has been written about the process of employee selection in other occupations, there has been little discussion on the process and tools of teacher selection and why it occurs as it does. To understand this question, we conduct an extensive literature review in which we compare teacher hiring with hiring in other occupations. We also…

Using case studies of four schools in three districts, this article explores how leadership is distributed in districts and asks about the role of teacher leaders. It proposes that teacher leaders and districts can share three leadership tasks: procuring and distributing materials, monitoring improvement, and developing people. The district and…

In this study, we inquired about patterns of leadership distribution, as well as which leadership functions were performed by whom, the characteristics of nonadministrative leaders, and the factors promoting and inhibiting the distribution of leadership functions. We consider our account of distributed leadership in this district to be a probable…

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…

In this study we inquired into the qualifications of public secondary school teachers by examining whether or not teachers met the No Child Left Behind Act's ([NCLB] 2002) definition of "highly qualified" immediately prior to the law's enactment. We examined this by core academic subjects (English, social studies, math, and science) and,…

Does principal licensing encompass the knowledge and skills principals need to promote student learning? If not, what kind of policy framework would help decision makers rethink licensing and the school leadership it supports? To answer these questions, this article examines licensing regulations in all fifty states and the District of Columbia.…

This article review examines Arthur Levine's 2005 "Educating School Leaders," a report that recommended the elimination of the Ed.D. and the establishment of a new degree, the Master's in Educational Administration. The article review draws attention to the central irony of Levine's report: after chronicling the many ways that schools of education…

Often viewed as a recruitment issue, the teacher shortage is better defined as a retention issue. This three-year study examines teacher retention through a professional learning communities framework. During the first year of data collection, 217 first- and second-year teachers in a small urban school district were surveyed to assess their…

Motivating environments include elements across the whole school-as-system, with contributions made by teachers, students, administrators, and factors outside the school in the surrounding community. Positive motivating environments can support self-determination and intrinsic motivation of both students and teachers despite a number of risk…

This study examined the beliefs and practices of three principals during whose tenure their high-poverty urban elementary schools experienced improved student achievement. A two-stage, multiple case-study methodology was employed. First, New York State Education Department (NYSED) school report card data were analyzed to identify case-study sites.…

This study uses multivariate analysis of a large panel dataset to examine the determinants of principal retention (and, thus, the determinants of attracting a principal away from her current position). The empirical model incorporates measures of a principal's traits and of the organizational structure, culture, and situational context within a…

This article reports on a series of empirical studies that investigated the extent to which teacher evaluation policies and procedures promote teachers' inquiry into the relationship between their teaching and their students' learning. Four possible explanations for the weak focus on student learning in teacher evaluation are discussed. They…