This paper examines a period in Scottish educational history when civil servants, not politicians, were in the ascendancy in the initiation of policy. The first three Secretaries of the Scotch/Scottish Education Department (SED) -- Henry Craik (1846-1927), John Struthers (1857-1925) and George Macdonald (1862-1940) -- enjoyed considerable…

This article investigates the perceptions of English headteachers and Hong Kong principals on the kinds of pressures that they believed affected the way they did their job, and in particular the degree to which they felt their governments were affecting their leadership role. The research utilised semi-structured interviews to generate written…

In all of the years of training required to be an expert on any topic, teachers too often forget how to learn from the beginning. This is particularly true with regard to teaching and learning dance in U.S. primary and secondary school settings. Many P-12 dance teachers have had at least ten years of formative dance technique instruction in…

In this article, we suggest that communities must explore alternative leadership ideologies, actors, and venues to make meaningful academic and social improvements in our cities. We examine how themes from Paulo Freire's critical ideology can help expand our conceptualizations of educational leadership and facilitate pragmatic responses to complex…

The article focuses on tracking financial delegation (introduced nationally in January 2010) as part of the broader process of education restructuring and decentralisation in post-communist Romania. The aim is to critically pinpoint some of the challenges specific to the Romanian context, such as the multitude of policies and legislation (due to…

The purpose of this study was to determine what the most highly effective leaders do during difficult times to be successful. The backdrop of the study was the 2009 $300 million cuts to the Indiana K-12 education budget, a uniform crisis that affected all 293 public school districts at the same time. The subjects in this study were those…

In fall 2007, nine Catholic colleges and universities began a collaborative process to explore ways Catholic institutions of higher education (CIHE) could increase effective support of pre-K-12 Catholic schools. This new organization, Catholic Higher Education Collaborative (CHEC), committed to hosting a series of six conferences focused on…

This article offers a critique of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) related to the implications for teachers in educational improvement. Through an analysis of the NCLB legislation and accompanying policy tools that support it, the authors explore three images or central common conceptions symbolic of basic attitudes and orientations about teachers and…

The question of whether single-sex schooling is preferable to coeducation for some or all students continues to be hotly debated. Much of the debate is philosophical and would be waged even if single-sex schooling were shown to be highly advantageous for one or more subpopulations. However, the actual research evidence, although suggestive that…