This study explored teachers' involvement in decision making processes in instructional leadership teams (ILTs) in three high-poverty high schools. Two factors influenced the extent of teachers' involvement and authority in decision making processes on the team: (1) the design of teachers' roles on the ILT and (2) routines used for agenda setting,…

The purpose of this study was to discover the ways that central office and school level leaders initiate and advance a culture of continuous professional learning in high schools. The conceptual framework for this study was built from a synthesis of literature related to professional learning and leadership for continuous improvement. Relying…

School reformers hope that converting comprehensive high schools into collections of small schools will produce results similar to those realized in freestanding small schools. Three themes--personalization, professional community, and shared decision making--exemplify the early successes in conversions. But the challenge of sustaining these gains…

The following case study (Stake, 2000) explores the collective properties of the group of leaders working together to enact instructional change in an urban high school (Spillane, et al., 2001). It documents how an urban public high continues to work toward developing and enacting a model of leadership that is transformational, distributed, and…