Administrators can create a climate of caring in today's schools despite negative characterizations toward education. This article describes attempts to improve school climate at an inner-city school in Durham, North Carolina. Cooperative learning, increased community participation, and action research facilitated by a partnership with the…

This article reports the results for the first cycle of an action research study about a district-university partnership. Two district facilitators and two university facilitators co-constructed a principal preparation program for an inner-city school district to help prepare the next generation of building leaders. Twenty-two students…

Federal, state, and district policy mandates are increasingly affecting primary grade teachers--especially, those in at-risk schools, given that they face more mandated curriculum and professional development. This study investigated K-3 teachers in two inner-city schools as they navigated through various mandates. Qualitative and quantitative…

Conceptualizes faculty loyalty as a multidimensional construct with at least four levels of loyalty, to the district, principal, colleagues, and the association. Discusses a New Jersey study probing organizational factors that facilitate development of faculty loyalty in urban elementary schools. School properties predicting one aspect of loyalty…

Although leadership for social justice and distributed leadership have separately garnered a great deal of interest among educational administration scholars, no studies have explored the possible conceptual and empirical links between these important and promising areas of inquiry. This study draws from extant literature to suggest an exploratory…

Examines urban high-school teachers' professional-development experiences through the lenses of personal teaching efficacy and professional learning, highlighting interview responses of 20 teachers with highest and lowest scores. Degree of personal teaching efficacy influences how individual teachers experience professional development. Programs…

Describes planning and first-year implementation of a doctoral cohort program for urban principals involving collaboration between Texas A & M University and the Austin Independent School District. Discusses the program's guiding vision, organization, and curriculum and contributions of other groups and individuals. Startup recommendations are…

Based on interviews with newly appointed urban principals, this study concludes that internal and external factors interact to influence leadership behavior. External factors (role models, district expectations, and personal and organizational support) influence principals' sense of self-efficacy, which in turn affects their interpretation of…

A case study demonstrates how urban school board members resolved a community crisis precipitated by the board's critical evaluation of the superintendent. Issues are analyzed through symbolic, political, human resources, and structural frameworks. The importance of establishing evaluation procedures when the superintendent is first hired is…

Summarizes a study to identify the sources of job satisfaction, job benefits, sources of self-fulfillment, and personal strengths that women bring to the superintendency. Based on 51 interviews with urban and rural women superintendents, results showed that both groups have similar leadership characteristics befitting a new model that values…

This teacher recruitment study was conducted in one of the largest school districts in the United States. The participants (N = 152) were newly hired teachers. Findings revealed the participants considered economic (e.g., teacher salary schedule), school (e.g., location), and community (e.g., cultural opportunities) attributes important in their…

This is a mystery story. It is about a district that apparently did the right things but seemed not to get commensurate results across all classrooms and schools. In this article, we look closely at the details and discover an important lesson about districtwide reform. The district is York Region District School Board, which is a large…

Presents a staff-development model for implementing a schoolwide conflict-management plan. Discusses an urban middle school's ongoing conflict-management plan to illustrate a conflict prevention and management strategy shaped by the school's culture and climate realities. Program effectiveness improves when a philosophical orientation is…

Examines effects of the National Urban League's Systemic Initiative reforms in four cities: Chicago, El Paso, Memphis, and Miami, based on an analysis of interviews with 47 principals. Principals must balance the demands of systemic math and science reforms with those of multilevel accountability policies. Such alignments may be unachievable.…

Describes VIA 2000, an innovative, highly collaborative program involving a research university and a large urban school system. The goal is to prepare talented teachers with leadership potential to become the next generation of New York City school leaders. Program features include affordable cost, clinical field experience, and team teaching.…