How do principals adjust to new standards and measurement rulers of school performance when they are coupled with high-stakes consequences? Adopting a contingent view of leadership and a multiple accountabilities framework, this qualitative study explores how high school principals enacted their accountability in New York City, by comparing two…

The belief that educational leaders need to be ethical decision-makers is recent. Thomas and Bainbridge suggest that an educational leader needs to develop technical competency in ethical leadership. Yet few leaders in schools have been trained in conflict resolution of an ethical nature and little importance has been given to this within existing…

Donald W. Compton, the first director of evaluation services at the National Home Office (Atlanta) of the American Cancer Society, tells the story of building the unit in conditions of high demand and a limited budget. Along the way, evaluation was brought to regional divisions and to local offices in part as a response to United Way and to his…

Using panel data on the salary schedules of public school teachers and administrators, I look for evidence of a tournament wage structure. A tournament model is presented, where teachers compete for promotion to administrators. Districts can create incentives for teachers by offering either a higher pay premium for promotion or a larger…

Paper screening in the pre-selection process of hiring teachers has been the focus in an ongoing series of similar studies starting with Allison in 1981. There have been many independent variables, including, but not limited to, age, gender, ethnic background, years of experience, type of experience, and grade point average, introduced into the…

Purpose: The literature indicates the advantages of decisions formulated through intuition, as well as the limitations, such as lack of consistency in similar situations. The principle of consistency (invariance), requiring that two equivalent versions of choice-problems will produce the same preference, is violated in intuitive judgment. This…

Purpose: This article describes and reports the results of testing a new conception of how leadership influences student learning ("The Four Paths"). Framework: Leadership influence is conceptualized as flowing along four paths (Rational, Emotions, Organizational, and Family) toward student learning. Each path is populated by multiple…

There is an inextricable link between democracy, education and the law. After 15 years of constitutional democracy, the alarming percentage of dysfunctional schools raises questions about the efficacy of the system of local school governance. We report on the findings of quantitative and qualitative research on the democratisation of schools and…

This book provides a valuable balance between what one must know and what one must do to turn around low-performing schools. The 3-E framework simplifies this complex process by focusing resources on the environment, the executive, and the execution of the turnaround plan. Central to each of these components is a spotlight on the values supporting…

Successful schools that provide positive, productive, and vibrant teaching and learning environments do not occur by accident. Instead, the most effective schools are led by principals who are equipped with the skills and possess the attitudes required to be exceptional school leaders. The good news is there is a growing research base that clearly…

This case study investigated equity in teacher education admissions. Through document analysis and structured interviews with ten past or current members of the admissions committee in a large initial teacher education program in Ontario, we developed an understanding of equity in teacher education admissions as encompassing two foci: equity in…

From the 1980s to the present, educational accountability in the United States has grown dramatically. Such accountability in U.S. school districts, although driven primarily by external demands, has internal manifestations as well. The chapter traces the historical development of internal evaluation in American school districts, then highlights…

This was a purposeful, qualitative, historical and document-based research study that investigated the trends and outcomes of the legal issues relating to teacher dismissal for "immorality". The study included 114 cases over a 30-year period spanning from 1977-2007. Federal and state level law cases were researched to determine the ruling of…

As competition for students, faculty and financial support has increased, so has the application of marketing in the field of higher education. One critical application of marketing all too often neglected, misunderstood and mismanaged in higher education is targeting customers for profitability. The purpose of this paper is to enrich the…

Serving as a new principal is not only demanding, it can also be a lonely job. But successful leadership doesn't happen in a vacuum, and principals need to know from their peers best practices about everything from focusing on instruction to planning fire drills. With this in mind, "Principal" magazine created a virtual roundtable--between…