The ambitious goals of standards-based reform call for both technical and adaptive leadership to address problems of practice involving the technical and adaptive alignment of teachers' instruction to the standards. Thus, standards-aligned curriculum implementation necessitates both types of strategies; otherwise, adaptive challenges will persist.…

The Teacher of the Year (TOY) program is the longest-standing teacher recognition program in the United States. The purpose of this study is to describe the characteristics of state and national TOY awardees and the schools in which they teach. To accomplish this aim, we develop a new data set including the characteristics of all TOY awardees and…

Teacher evaluation systems treat instructional quality as generic. Principals often observe elementary teachers in one subject and generalize assessments to all subjects. However, there is little empirical work to justify these decisions. This study provides needed evidence about whether elementary teachers engage in comparable instruction across…

Districts make and implement policies aiming to improve structures, practices, and outcomes. Instructional coaching has become a popular lever to catalyze instructional improvement efforts. However, many questions remain about the alignment between coaching and reforms. This article draws on coupling theory to analyze the relationship between…