As the national policy community has coalesced around the priority of graduating all students ready for college and careers, the challenge of improving the lowest-performing high schools serving the most challenged populations remains. This policy brief examines the limitations of previous high school reforms and describes new approaches showing…

This article is based on a study that explored the professional lives of eight leaders of continuing education in Canadian universities, with a focus on their administrative role, to provide a deeper understanding of how they live within their practice (lived experience). A practical listing of 56 horizons of experience was identified, useful as…

Using a post-structural approach this article investigates the working lives of frontline managers in VET and how they negotiate change in their day to day practices and decision making. The article is organised around accounts made by managers from different types of Vocational Education and Training (VET) organisations, namely: Technical and…

This article considers some of the findings of research undertaken for a PhD into the changing educational agenda and its impact on the role of primary headteachers in England. During the course of the study from 2005-2009, as a result of government policy new roles for headteachers both inside and outside their school increasingly emerged. The…

In England, the governing body of each school has duties in relations to special educational needs (SEN), and these have recently been extended. It is common practice for responsibility for this area to be delegated to an individual governor or subgroup of governors. Clearly, such arrangements are dependent upon an effective relationship between…

In this study, we examine how the Educational Leadership Program for Aspiring Principals (ELPAP) at the University of Pennsylvania uses a guided inquiry experience, the Focused Observation, to facilitate role conceptualization and identity development for pre-service leadership students. Focused Observations involve university faculty, current and…

With the global increase in networked forms of organizations come new challenges for the conceptualization and practice of management and leadership. Universities have a networked organizational form being composed internally of multiple groups with both complementary and conflicting characteristics and expectations, and interfacing externally…

The purpose of this paper is to inform administrators and organizational leaders that a change in the support offered to faculty and the environment of research administration is desirable. This recommendation is supported by the results of a Delphi study that was undertaken to gather expert opinions and recommendations from research faculty…

Conflict in school settings continues to be an area of concern for school administrators, teachers, and parents. Conflict between and among students in their school environment is followed by aggressive behavior that contributes to violent actions. The aggressive behavior may range from verbal attacks to physical attacks that may end up with the…

Competency education, an educator-led reform, is taking root in schools and districts across the country. In some states, state leadership has cleared the path with policies to advance competency education. This paper seeks to map out the terrain of the district implementation strategies being used to convert traditional systems into personalized,…

Leadership succession planning is a means to identify the need for systematic and purposeful change in education. Policy, planning, and research suggest that there is an acute shortage of school leaders globally. By illumination of these facts, we detail and describe what is happening within a Canadian context, and this we argue is similar to what…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of leadership on student achievement and sustained school success, especially in challenging, high-poverty schools. Design/methodology/approach: The paper combines a review of the leadership literature with findings drawn from longitudinal studies of the International Successful School…

Purpose: In an effort to better understand the political dimensions of organizational learning, this paper aims to examine learning processes in an organizational context--namely renegotiation of pay and performance management arrangements--where the interests of organizational members are threatened. Design/methodology/approach: Data were derived…

Engaging families and communities in physical activities for the benefit of children is an extension of the role of a physical education instructor. Although it is possible for a physical educator to generate ideas that encourage families and communities to move, a certified director of physical activity (C-DPA) would be better trained to…

This paper examined principals' management of conflicts in public secondary schools in Ondo State, Nigeria. As a descriptive survey, the study population comprised all the 281 public secondary schools in the State. Out of this population, a sample of 80 schools was drawn while 340 respondents (80 principals and 260 teachers) were selected through…