This mixed-method phenomenological study reports findings of 144 urban California educational leaders' and teachers' views about the identified effects Academic Optimism has on supporting equitable growth in student learning within ten low SES schools. Hoy, Tartar and Woolfolk-Hoy (2006) examined how Academic Optimism was a general demonstrable…

This paper highlights the importance of school principals in English Learners' academic achievement in the age of the Common Core State Standards. Revising the curriculum of administrator preparation programs to include a greater emphasis on curriculum and instruction is one approach to enhancing principal leadership for English Leaners. Another…

This article addresses the failure of sustainability of reform efforts in public school systems by reconceptualizing the perplexing notion of sustainability through a case study to discern the skill sets needed of principals to sustain reforms in urban settings. This study draws on perceptual data gathered from principals in 36 schools in one…

Increasingly, the viability of university programs to develop in school leaders the knowledge, skills and dispositions needed to bring about reform are being questioned. This article uses case study methodology for looking at how an increasing emphasis on collaborative inquiry in one university's program influenced a school principal several years…

The goal of this comparative study was to explore the online interactions among members of two learning communities. The two cases examined two different cohorts in the same professional preparation program for school principals and administrators: a distance-learning cohort and an onsite university-district partnership cohort in which online…