Little progress has been made in the last 20 years toward developing and sustaining effective inclusive programs for students with severe disabilities. An article by Agran and colleagues examines factors that contribute to this lack of progress and provides some initial discussion regarding alternatives for addressing this seemingly intractable…

Principals and superintendents are regularly required to write improvement plans. These are typically derided as being "left on the shelf" when they are supposed to be "living documents". The implication is that educational leaders are not working on their plans the way they are supposed to. Isobel Stevenson suggests that the…

Des Moines (Iowa) Public Schools is one of six urban districts participating in an effort to redesign the role of principal supervisors. The Wallace Foundation's Principal Supervisor Initiative provides four years of support for these districts to transform the role, which has traditionally focused on operations and compliance, into one that…

While collective teacher efficacy has potential to improve teacher practice and student learning, there's a risk this concept will be used to further burden teachers through assuming a positive, confident attitude can overcome all barriers to learning--even without good conditions for teaching in place. France argues that collective efficacy must…

This article presents an interview with Kulvarn Atwal, headteacher at a primary school in London. Mr. Atwal discusses the challenges of post-graduate study and the impact of his studies on his professional practice. He explains how he discovered workplace learning theories and communities of practice during his studies and how he incorporated…

In this webinar, Dr. Stephanie Hirsh, Executive Director of Learning Forward, presented the research on effective PLCs and shared her experiences in creating, assessing, and leading PLCs. This Q&A addressed questions participants had for Dr. Hirsh following the webinar. The webinar recording and PowerPoint presentation are also available.

21st century school leadership is not for the faint of heart and as with any organization a school is only as successful as their leadership. The acknowledgment that a "different" reality exists for school principals is of utmost importance when identifying the conditions, situations, and roles that one will engage in. In this article Dr. East…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present the author's commentary on the special issue of "Journal of Educational Administration" entitled "Systemwide Reform: Examining Districts under Pressure". Design/methodology/approach: In framing her reflections, the author has looked across the five articles in the special issue,…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss the role of principals in light of public management reforms taking place in the German educational system and in reference to the empirical patterns uncovered by the papers contained in the Special Issue. Policy makers have created new expectations and new technologies that seem to suggest to…

The history of leadership in educational settings that has a principal focus on student learning is one dominated by Western cultures, particularly those in the USA; also, it has developed two near-identical models of leadership commonly known as "instructional" or "learning-centred". This paper explores the relevance of these…

Today's reform landscape transcends instructional leadership and data-based decision-making skills. This is not to say that those behaviors are not essential to a principal's success, but they no longer suffice. Principals do not need to be curriculum experts, but they do need to lead their schools with full knowledge of the Common Core State…

In this webinar, Dr. Carol Tomlinson of the University of Virginia presented the research base supporting the practice of differentiation and described the characteristics of effective differentiation. She led a discussion of how quality preparation can build and strengthen teachers' knowledge and skills in implementing differentiated instruction…

William Boyd's contributions to the education field's understanding of the political nature of school leadership are formidable. In this article, I describe the growth and development, over a roughly 30-year time span, of his key insight that successful school leaders should have the capabilities of a "political strategist" and that the…

From returning phone calls to traversing the political landscape to building trust, American Association of School Administrators (AASA) president Mark Bielang covers a lot of territory as he describes the public relations challenges confronting today's school administrators. Having just concluded his term as AASA president, Mr. Bielang has served…

In this article, the author has equated the principal's relationship with the president of the teachers' union as a dance where each wants to lead and yet there is, as in most relationships, a mutual dependency that makes each person realize that there is a time when one leads and a time when one follows. The author presents the details of when…