The purpose of this mixed methods study was to explore how perceptions of team strengths and weaknesses present in school district leadership teams, as conceptualized by Patrick Lencioni: a team's ability to 1) trust, 2) commit, 3) handle conflict, 4) be accountable, and 5) be attentive to results. Additionally, this study sought to identify…

As research continues to underscore the positive impact high-quality early childhood programs have on young children, numerous states have implemented quality rating and improvement systems (QRIS) to measure and improve the services young children receive across a wide range of early learning settings. These state systems range from two to five…

In the 2012-2013 school year, Chicago Public Schools unveiled its new teacher evaluation system in all of its almost 600 schools. This study draws on 32 interviews from a random sample of teachers and 2 years of survey data from more than 12,000 teachers per year to measure their perceptions of the clarity, practicality, and cost of the new…

This research study examines the various decision-making processes that superintendents may encounter within the field. The degree to which public school superintendents and public school systems are being held accountable has increased in recent years. The recent unethical decisions made within the last decade in both the public and private…

Charter schools are publicly-funded educational entities that operate independently from local school districts and are exempt from certain state and local requirements, particularly with regard to teacher personnel policy. In exchange for this flexibility, charter schools are held more accountable for results and may be shut down if they fail to…

This study was designed to investigate the perceived experiences encountered by principals in the state of Illinois regarding professional development sessions offered through the Illinois Administrator Academy. The fundamental value of the Illinois Administrator Academy was designed as one of 169 specific initiatives in association with the…

The faculty research residency (FRR) model was launched in 2010, with the goal of transforming coursework to improve the preparation of teachers for high-need schools. The FRR model leveraged school-university partnerships and situated university faculty in high-need schools to conduct research related to the university courses they taught. This…

Background/Context: Performance funding finances public higher education institutions based on outcomes such as retention, course and degree completion, and job placement rather than inputs such as enrollments. One of the mysteries of state performance funding for higher education is that despite great interest in it for over 30 years, only half…

In December 2015, President Barack Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which replaced No Child Left Behind (NCLB), as the nation's major law governing public schools. ESSA retains the requirement that states test all students in reading and math in grades three through eight and once in high school, as well as the requirement that…

Charter school boards enter into a critical bargain: autonomy for accountability. Compared with their traditional district counterparts, they operate with relative freedom in curriculum, hiring, budgeting, and other operational decisions. In exchange, they are held accountable for student performance in ways that traditional district schools are…

In this qualitative case study, we investigate teachers' appropriation of language policy at one urban elementary school in Illinois. Recognizing classroom teachers' central role in the education of English learners, we probe teachers' policy appropriation, or how bilingual educators take state-, district-, and school-level policies and…

In this article, the author examines the links between high stakes testing policies, school organization processes, and instructional practice using data from a study of K-5 and K-8 schools in Chicago. He argues that although the policy environment penetrates the classroom, this penetration is partial--stronger on some aspects of instruction than…

This study focused on the federal and Illinois State the reform legislation titled the Performance Evaluation Reform Act and Senate Bill 7. The Performance Evaluation Reform Act or "PERA" was created from collaboration between stakeholders as Illinois competed in a federal competition titled "Race to the Top." The legislation…

This is a report on how community stakeholders, including parents, teachers, community leaders and advocates, think about current efforts by Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to "turn around" Chicago's lowest-performing schools, and their expectations for future school reform actions. It was prepared by Public Agenda, with support from the…

This action research project report uses standard-based grading to address the problem of traditional grades not adequately assessing student content mastery and students' lack of awareness regarding their strengths and weaknesses. Research was conducted by one elementary and two middle school teachers with 158 students between the dates of…