This study investigates an assumption used to legitimate charter school legislation, namely that such schools will reduce regulatory constraint burdening schools and school personnel. Reformers and policymakers have argued that charter schools will increase teacher empowerment and enable teachers to better carry out their education functions.…

Educational leadership preparation and practice typically concentrate on managerial exigencies at the neglect of definitive functions of the institution of schooling. Educational leadership, however, is truly "educational" when its processes focus on fostering student learning of a worthwhile curriculum and when these processes are themselves…

This qualitative study used ethnographic and historical approaches to examine teacher leadership in both an enabling and an inchoate culture. The purpose of this study was to discover what factors contributed to or inhibited the sustainability of teacher leadership. Using original documentation from earlier studies that report on eight years of a…

Many states, accrediting agencies, and the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium have policies and standards mandating strategic planning for public schools. Planning in schools has become synonymous with strategic planning. However, alternative approaches to change exist that offer more effective solutions to school improvement. School…

This study is an analysis of the nature and meaning of bullying in schools. First, the literature on student bullying is reviewed and a definition of bullying is proposed. Next, we developed a set of items to operationalize teacher perceptions of student bullying. An initial, exploratory factor analysis suggested two rather distinct aspects of…

By expanding the school leadership team to include the school's counselors, the staff of a K-12 school successfully transformed many of their existing family-school routines into more collaborative efforts. We delineate the history of this change initiative, the goals and objectives for the change project, and the primary organizational change…

The study of school leaders' feelings during and about their work suffers from inadequate academic definitions about the depth, character, and legitimacy of those feelings, as well as from limitations on the means of capturing and recording those feelings. This study pushes the definitions of administrators' stress into the areas of traumatic…

This survey research study uses job choice theory to assess recent educational leadership doctoral graduates' perceptions of the desirability of the educational administration professorate. Results reveal attractive and unattractive aspects of professorial work as well as those job attributes that are most strongly related to candidates'…

This article presents a principal's reaction to Catherine Marshall and Michael Ward's article on research on social justice and training for leadership. The author applauds Marshall and Ward's efforts to address what is undoubtedly among the most fundamentally important issues facing principals today. Marshall and Ward illuminate the importance of…

This article presents a superintendent's reaction to Catherine Marshall and Michael Ward's article on research on social justice and training for leadership. The author states that there is a problem with Marshall and Ward's article which begins with the title, particularly with the word "training." The author contends that there is a significant…

This article presents the author's reaction to Catherine Marshall and Michael Ward's article on research on social justice and training for leadership. Marshall and Ward's article provides an informative lens into how influential leaders perceive the role and importance of social justice training in the field of educational leadership. Marshall…

This article takes a critical look at administrative decision making in schools and the extent to which complex decisions conform to normative models and common expectations of rationality. An alternative framework for administrative decision making is presented that is informed, but not driven, by theories of rationality. The framework assumes…

This nationwide qualitative study investigated how 25 school leaders, serving in schools with varying resources, perceive the practices they use to support teacher learning. The study discusses how these leaders understand the human resource challenges they face in supporting teacher learning and highlights their creative responses to these…

A landscape painting metaphor was used to report the implications of this study of 33 graduate students preparing to become elementary and secondary school administrators who kept personal journals during their enrollment in an Issues of Diversity class at a private Midwestern university. The journals forced their cultural lens to be transparent,…

This teacher recruitment study was conducted in one of the largest school districts in the United States. The participants (N = 152) were newly hired teachers. Findings revealed the participants considered economic (e.g., teacher salary schedule), school (e.g., location), and community (e.g., cultural opportunities) attributes important in their…