Providing an in-depth look at the processes, pitfalls, and successes that can emerge from major education reform efforts at the state level, this volume covers the full policy change cycle in the development and transformation of the Illinois principal preparation program. Offering perspectives from the major stakeholder groups involved in…

The growing prominence of value-added models for measuring teacher effectiveness has prompted a recent surge in policies that consider students' classroom performance part of a teacher's evaluation. Yet, in light of the criticism and limitations of the current models, whether and how evaluation systems will adapt over time is unclear. This paper…

U.S. school districts have taken widely varied approaches to reopening public schools for the 2020-2021 school year. The divergence stems from the highly localized approach to both schooling and addressing the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and differences in COVID-19 transmission rates among communities. To develop a national…

A study was done of the relationship between school district central offices and school-based innovations in a large urban school district. The study looked specifically at the work relationships among central office personnel and their behaviors and attitudes toward school-based innovations. Data were collected through a survey administered to 30…

Different groups have different ideas about how schools should be restructured. Although decision-making and control are increasingly shared with other groups, the principal remains most accountable. Innovative leadership styles, such as the inhouse critic and the master generalist, address issues of curriculum totality, function, and goals.…

As part of the Study of Dissemination Efforts Supporting School Improvement, researchers looked at how the activities of, perceptions of, and opinions about the building administrator affect the outcome of efforts to implement new practices. This paper describes a sample of building administrators working in the 146 school districts that…

A study to determine whether the instructional leadership shown by principals is a causal factor in the effectiveness of schools demonstrated that involving principals in staff development programs can increase implementation of the programs' objectives. Fifty-three fourth- and fifth-grade teachers were assigned to three treatment conditions: one…

After implementing changes in language arts instruction, the principal--who is in a key position to sustain or institutionalize the changes--faces several responsibilities. Factors involved in directing innovations to become "built in" to school programs include solving specific problems, sharing decision-making responsibilities, upgrading and…

In preparation for a major research study on change in schools, a 3-month pilot study of principals in 10 schools was conducted in central Texas. The main purpose of the study was to investigate different ways to document the actions taken by the principals to facilitate implementation of innovations in their schools. In this paper, the procedures…

The three diagnostic dimensions of the Concerns Based Adoption Model (CBAM) are tools that can evaluate the degree of new program implementation at the classroom level. Implementation success is a function of use/nonuse, appropriate/inappropriate practice, and user concerns about the innovation. These dimensions: Levels of Use (LoU) of the…

Past research has correlated differential curriculum implementation outcomes at the classroom level with the actions of the key change facilitator at the school level: the principal. Accordingly, this paper reports the results of a study of three change facilitator styles among principals: responders, managers, and initiators. Working definitions…

Describes the Principal-Teacher Interaction Study that focused on the interventions made by nine elementary school principals and their staff and on their involvement together in the implementation of new curricula. Examines what principals and others did in the process of facilitating change and what effects their interventions had on the…

This paper summarizes some of the main conclusions of the Study of Dissemination Efforts Supporting School Improvement, specifically those regarding the process of innovation implementation. The focus is on the contributions of potential assisters to various implementation outcomes, from which implications for policy and practice are derived. The…

These papers represent the efforts of individual researchers from five countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, The Netherlands and the United States. Each paper reports on educational change in a different country, based on the Concerns-Based Adoption Model developed at the Research and Development Center for Teacher Education at the University of…

Four papers are included in this document that examines roles of participants in high school change. Each paper draws on data gathered from three years of a three-phase study of change processes in 30 high schools in Texas, Oregon, Maryland, Indiana, New York, and Florida. Four major questions provide research focus: the types, sources, and…