This collection of reflections serves as a companion to the California Collaborative's report, "Keeping the Main Thing the Main Thing: Lessons About Effective School Board Governance From Napa Valley and San José Unified School Districts." The report describes the experiences, practices, and learnings from two school boards in California…

New teachers enter the classroom with high hopes and expectations, only to feel defeated by the end of their first few years of teaching. There can be many variables that affect a teacher's self-efficacy. This study aimed to determine if the teachers' self-efficacy correlates with new teachers' emotional competency. This quantitative study…

For decades, policymakers in the U.S. have leveraged accountability policy as a governing tool to lift school performance and close the achievement gap. Accountability become so widespread that it arguably became a "policy paradigm" with the passage of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act in 2002. Yet after just 13 years of…

One of the greatest contributors to a student's success in K-12 education is the effectiveness of their teachers and, consequently, teacher retention. Unfortunately, teacher turnover rates have increased substantially since 2015, with the majority of teachers leaving for reasons that do not include retirement. Teachers who are more satisfied with…

The purpose of this phenomenological study is to understand the key factors of K-12 administrators' emotional intelligence as they lead their staff through creating sustainable systems as they navigate organizational change. The theoretical framework used was Daniel Goleman's theory on Emotional Intelligence and how EQ impacts administrators as…

Coaching is a popular and high-leverage instrument for instructional reform. Coaching holds potential to accelerate teacher learning and school improvement. Linking results from current research, we portray how coaching benefits from robust infrastructure. This article offers three design recommendations that leaders can implement to optimize…

The United States is experiencing a tremendous shift in the composition of its population. For the first time in history, the overall number of Asian, Latino, and African American students in K-12 public education classrooms is projected to surpass the population of Non-Hispanic whites. The number of Latinos in educational leadership positions in…

Collaboration is an underused teaching strategy despite its benefits and the call for curriculums worldwide to increase its use. To aid in discovering why the strategy is underused, more information was needed about the implementation of collaboration in the mathematics classroom. The purpose of this study was to investigate mathematics teachers'…

Teachers' social and emotional learning (SEL) beliefs can impact SEL implementation efforts and consistency in primary and secondary schools. The diffusion of innovations theory is a suitable framework for understanding problems with SEL implementation and diffusion within educational organizations and among teachers over time. The purpose of this…

Issues of social injustice are pervasive in school systems around the world (Welton et al., 2019) with ingrained institutional barriers that hinder students from reaching future successes. As a result, the purpose of this study was to understand the focuses, mindsets, and actions of leaders for social justice working to redress issues of inequity…

This dissertation examined Culturally Responsive School Leadership (CRSL) within California's educational system using a quantitative approach with qualitative insights (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). The study, guided by two research questions, investigated the impacts of school leaders' demographics (race, gender, and experience) on their…

Public K-12 education in the United States is distinctively a local affair: school districts are governed by local boards of education, composed of lay members typically elected in non-partisan elections. These boards have decision-making power over hundreds of billions of public dollars and oversee complex agencies that, in addition to preparing…

Civics education continues to gain national importance, especially in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election and with recent debates about the teaching of history that addresses the legacy of racism and discrimination in the United States. Despite the increasing interest in strengthening civics education, states continue to differ in…

This study involving 233 participants from ten states sought to identify the types of educational journals practicing superintendents read. The findings indicate that the majority of superintendents are reading publications provided by professional and trade organizations rather than peer-reviewed journals. Across all subgroups, "Educational…

In November 2022, California established the Arts and Music in Schools Act to fund arts education programs in TK-12 public schools. With funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, SRI Education led an inquiry to estimate the number of new arts teachers required to fulfill the promise of the act. This brief presents funding allocations…