Principal leadership significantly impacts student performance, and principal turnover may severely harm student and institutional success in various ways. It is worthwhile to explore how the selection criteria for school leaders can be improved to increase school leader tenure. Existing research on school leadership selection has emphasized that…

When March 2020 brought with it not only the initial signs of spring, it also brought the reality of the global pandemic to be known as COVID-19. This global pandemic impacted society in many facets. People lost loved ones to the illness, others are still dealing with "long-COVID" affects, and many people lost their jobs due to the…

This qualitative phenomenological study explored the approaches of newly appointed principals in New York State to build capacity through their Instructional Leadership Team (ILT). Interviews were conducted with 16 newly appointed principals to dive into their lived experiences using ILTs in their schools. Two approaches were identified: general…

This dissertation consists of three papers. In each, I use applied econometric methods and economic theory to study the American teacher workforce. The first paper evaluates a novel policy to address teacher shortages by promoting experienced school staff to be teachers of record. Controlling for demographics and baseline scores, I find that…

Educational reforms have occurred throughout the history of public education. In 2009, the federal Race to the Top initiative was born and included many educational reform models. To have these reform models gain traction at the state level, a call was made by the U.S. Department of Education (Race to the Top Program Executive Summary, 2009) for…

The COVID-19 pandemic required schools to be more flexible in relation to their selection of an instructional modality, adopting virtual or hybrid schedules for instruction if face-to-face instruction was not possible (Rogers & Ishimoto, 2020). This change led to educators conducting classrooms virtually and interacting with students and…

This phenomenological research delves into the complex reasons behind Chinese translation graduates' reluctance or decision to leave the translation industry, despite the field's growth and critical global role. It aims to untangle the intricate factors influencing these career trajectories, drawing on the lived experiences of graduates from their…

Today's education reform movement is funded heavily by a network of wealthy elite that often prize neoliberal and free-market interests. Within this network, Teach for America (TFA) is at the nexus of overlapping interests in an educational marketplace where corporate values become the norm for defining both progress and success. Students labeled…

The importance of change to any organization is essential to growth, and it is the responsibility of leadership to explain both why change is required and how the change will take place to the organizational culture. Leaders should always be available and should seek out those essential methods of communication with the culture around them in…

The decline in the number of liberal arts colleges since the mid-1950s has been precipitated by a number of factors, most prevalently the increase in larger comprehensive and research universities as well as the demand for job-ready degree programs. Since liberal arts colleges are largely tuition-driven, the lack of student interest has forced…

Situated within the context of globalization, the purpose of this historical policy analysis study was to identify and describe the ways in which multiple actors shaped national higher education internationalization policy within the U.S., and to capture the emerging direction in higher education internationalization policy at the national level…

The past two decades have seen the idea of internationalization move into the mainstream of higher education policy and practice, on a global scale. In countries like the US and UK however, higher education is widely perceived as a hierarchical field, where high- and low-status universities are differentiated from one another: serving different…

The central office manages and directs a school system. In the wake of district and school reforms, the impact of the central office on schools and quality instruction has not been fully dissected. This study explores the role of the central office in the support of high quality instruction. Further, it analyzes the perceptions of those central…

Producing students that are prepared for the world of work or higher education is the goal of every public school. Having highly effective school leaders in each building is vital for accomplishing this goal. The state of North Carolina outlined one method of building school leadership through the use of school transformation coaches. The purpose…

This discourse-oriented ethnographic case study, using constant comparison, critical discourse analysis (CDA) and cultural-historical-activity theory (CHAT) within a Foucauldian framework, investigates how the pedagogical practices of 2 teachers of English learners were (trans)formed over the course of 1.5 academic years, and how their…