With the demands on student learning and school accountability, school leaders and teachers must be provided with high-quality structures and conditions for effective and meaningful school improvement. This, coupled with highly effective leadership, is crucial. This qualitative study examines Illinois's current state comprehensive school…

The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to understand the perceptions and emotions of teachers during the global pandemic, specifically looking at the "how" and the "what" teachers experienced during the pandemic, focusing on the emotions deriving from the participants' lived experiences with technology. The…

The purpose of this quantitative research was to explore how secondary career and technical education (CTE) teachers' retention is affected by self-efficacy as it relates to the type of licensure they possess: traditional Professional Education License (PEL) or industry experience Educator License with Stipulations (ELS-CTE). In order to achieve…

U.S. public education is regulated by accountability policies designed to ensure that all students, and those who are responsible for their education, are held to high academic standards. Accountability policies at the federal and state level have unintended consequences for educators, with principals and teachers experiencing increased job…

The media and observers across the ideological spectrum were surprised and, in some cases, disconcerted in July 2014, when at the annual American Federation of Teachers (AFT) convention in Los Angeles, the union's leadership team announced that its Innovation Fund grants of $20,000 to $30,000 were going to be made available to state and local…

The current educational climate of increased accountability requires school principals to improve student learning for all students, implement national and state policies, maintain a positive culture, provide professional development, and supervise and evaluate faculty members. In order to improve learning in schools, education reform mandates…

"It's demoralizing to see your life's work pilloried almost daily in the news." This comment is typical of the anger and disappointment expressed by many of the more than 2,300 Chicago teachers surveyed by Deborah Lynch in 2011-2012. Lynch set out to explore how the accountability policies pursued by Chicago's board of…

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…

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…

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…

Some researchers believe that collaboration between schools and community stakeholders--including families, educators, community organizations, and businesses--is the key to improving public education. However, broad and inclusive community-school partnerships are rare. Instead, we frequently hear about friction between communities and their…

This qualitative study of teachers in three low-performing elementary schools in Chicago reveals that transformational leadership behaviors were important to teacher motivation, affecting whether they believed that they could improve student performance as the accountability policy required. The findings suggest that principal leadership is…

This case study uses a theory of occupational ecology to understand why test-based accountability has been successful at redirecting principals' work toward high-stakes standards and assessments. The principals and English teachers at two Chicago high schools were interviewed annually over a four-year period. The study finds that test-based…

This paper situates the contemporary debate about education and accountability for English language learners/bilingual learners within a sociocultural context and suggests ways that dual language educators and researchers can help move this debate forward. I begin with a brief review of competing discourses about bilingualism and education for…

The study examines the relationship between principal leadership and teacher expectancy within Chicago's accountability context. Current school accountability policies assume that the threat of sanctions will motivate teachers to improve. The study uses expectancy theory, which suggests that any impact on motivation will be constrained by…