The problem addressed in this study was that elementary teachers in a culturally and racially diverse school district in the Midwest did not have adequate training, support, and resources to implement culturally responsive teaching strategies. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore teachers' perspectives on their current needs for…

Elementary principals have the challenging responsibility of acting as the instructional leader of their school while at the same time managing the daily operations of a school with limited resources and support (Simieou et al., 2010). Without formal support and layers of leadership within their school, elementary principals are often isolated to…

This case study explores the implementation of personalized learning at an elementary school in Santa Cruz Valley Unified School District 35. The study, conducted by Research for Action and funded by KnowledgeWorks, sheds light on the shift towards personalized, competency-based learning practices within the district. Through qualitative sources…

This quantitative study investigated the impact of leadership behaviors and additional factors on teacher morale across seven schools from three Arkansas school districts. The study utilized the "Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI)" and "Purdue Teacher Opinionaire (PTO)" as measurement tools to explore various leadership…

Many urban districts use a portfolio management model, hoping to promote school choice and improve school performance. This model requires school closure, which has predominantly impacted lower income families. In 2013, Chicago Public Schools relocated Granger Elementary into one of 48 schools it closed, placing its middle-class parents in the…

A diverse, urban district's Personalized Learning Initiative (PLI), committed to transforming instructional tasks through integration of technology, created spaces for collaboration, voice, and choice for the PLI teachers and students. The teachers and students used various web-based technologies for collaboration with their peers, had more…

This mixed-methodology case study explored one district's attempt to provide teacher leadership training in an effort to increase feelings of empowerment. Empowerment is defined as the degree to which an individual feels capable of influencing his or her work role and context (Spreitzer, 1995) and in the field of education, empowering teachers is…

The Teaching, Empowering, Leading and Learning (TELL) AISD Survey gathers information about school conditions from the educators working in schools. TELL obtains perceptions on a variety of issues related to student achievement and staff retention. In 2016, 5,309 AISD teachers (91%) and 3,092 other campus employees completed the survey. This full…

This report summarizes district-level results of the 2015 Teaching, Empowering, Leading, and Learning (TELL) AISD Survey. A separate one-page research brief also was published. [For the brief, see ED626501.]

This study examines innovative practices that have been implemented in a summer session for an elementary school district in the Chicago area, and how program practices of a community college program work to provide academic support for first-generation, college-bound students from low-income households to encourage postsecondary educational…

Preparing students to be college or career ready in the 21st Century starts with the foundational skills they acquire in elementary school. Elementary school principals must work to ensure that, not only do they have a belief in their own abilities to provide this foundation, but that their school improvement efforts are reflected in the results…

This qualitative study is written from a phenomenological standpoint using Van Manen's (1990 ) hermeneutic lived experiences of the participants. Fourth grade teachers from a large urban school district in the southwestern U.S. completed an online questionnaire and participated in a focus group interview to provide insight into their attitudes and…

Most school districts conduct annual leadership retreats for their school boards, central and site leadership teams and their business and community partners. Holding leadership development retreats for students, on the other hand, is a new and somewhat revolutionary idea. This article describes a series of leadership retreats where faculty worked…

Purpose: To investigate relationships between teacher empowerment and interpersonal level trust in the principal. Design/methodology/approach: Trust is a fundamental element in well-functioning organizations. Studies of empowerment, a motivational construct, have suggested that empowering employees is a key factor in managerial and organizational…

Adopting policies of decentralization has become more or less a universal fashion among governments. Institutional redesigning as regard to affirmative state is favored by the political left and right in capitalist democracies. However, their arguments revolve around the decision-making powers of ordinary citizens. Some academics argue that the…