The purpose of this study was to report how principals describe their role as marketers for their school and examine how these perceptions influence the ways in which principals engage in their daily work. To investigate this phenomenon I conducted 30 interviews with 10 traditional public school principals in the U.S. state of New Jersey.…

This dissertation explores the complex dynamics and conflicts surrounding the privatization of public school services in New Jersey. Through detailed case studies of multiple New Jersey towns, this dissertation examines how local school districts, grappling with funding challenges, consider outsourcing educational support professional roles to cut…

Identifying methods of increasing student achievement is a focus of school administrators. The problem was there was a need for academic performance data for suburban public high school students in New Jersey that identify the difference of involvement in extra and co-curricular participation on student academic performance. The purpose of the…

Over the past three decades, reformers have championed approaches to improving schools that have included state takeovers, school closures, and firing teachers. Despite the prevalence of these policies, these reform efforts have failed to produce strong systems of public education. This article examines Union City schools in New Jersey (USA), a…

This article examines how school boards in New Jersey navigated the COVID-19 pandemic, which also coincided with the national trauma and reactions related to the George Floyd murder and subsequent backlash. The politicization of issues during that first year of the pandemic foreshadowed profound changes in the world of many school boards in New…

This qualitative study gathered the perspectives of public school superintendents on truancy interventions. The study sample consisted of five school superintendents employed within five New Jersey Public School Districts and included four males and one female with a minimum of twenty-five years of experience in public school settings. Each…

The aim of this qualitative phenomenological action research was to explore the viewpoints of educators participating in a community of practice that integrates the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework with culturally responsive teaching and personalized learning. The study involved six teachers from a competitive public school district…

By providing early access to education, early childhood and community-based programs are helping to close the achievement gap prevalent among children from impoverished homes.

The purpose of this mixed-methods case study was to examine the effectiveness of a blended learning community of practice model in providing professional development to improve K-12 teacher's self-efficacy in the implementation of personalized learning. Eighteen teachers participated in a nine-month professional development program focused on…

For eight years, more than a dozen district superintendents in New Jersey have joined together for a full day each month during the school year to listen to and learn from each other as a community of practice. Known as the New Jersey Network of Superintendents, this community of practice has a tight focus on advancing equity through improvement…

Beginning teacher resilience has become a topic of international interest, as all school districts are invested in retaining talented teachers. This study builds on extant literature on the role of mentors by examining the influence of mentoring on beginning teachers' perceptions of acceptance not only in the school but in the larger community…

The information age has revolutionized how people communicate, access information and learn. Today's students are locating, evaluating and using information in significantly different ways than they did just a generation ago (Holman, 2009). As students evolve their learning strategies, there is a need for teachers to evolve the way in which they…

In this article we describe the development, implementation, and some of the early impacts of Nurture thru Nature (NtN), an American after-school and summer program designed to introduce elementary school students in disadvantaged, urban public schools to natural science and environmental education. The program, which began operations in 2010 as a…

Public education funding relies on revenues from a variety of sources, from local taxpayers to federal programs targeting students with specific needs. The vast sum of funding collected--in excess of $600 billion annually--often masks which entities fund the education of our nation's youth. Questions of funding adequacy and equity across school…

The purpose of this study was to determine variance in mean levels of teacher self-efficacy (TSE) and its three factors--efficacy in student engagement (EIS), efficacy in instructional strategies (EIS), and efficacy in classroom management (ECM)--based on participation and time spent in professional learning communities (PLCs). In this…