This book shows how school leaders at all levels "from the most senior manager to the classroom teacher" can help to build learning communities through collaborating and negotiating with their colleagues, students and students' parents and carers, as well as with external agencies and local communities, to sustain and develop the…

To develop high-performance teams and improve student learning and achievement educators are making changes in the way they interact with colleagues. Educators are participating in various school teams-grade level teams, vertical teams, school leadership teams, study groups, and school improvement teams. This book translates what social scientists…

Many school reform initiatives now require school leaders to make curriculum and resourcing decisions on the basis of evidence about their likely impact on student achievement. In this paper, we discuss the implications of this policy demand in the context of a descriptive study of schools' capacity to collect, analyze, and use collective…

Designed as a guide for practitioners, this book draws on over 600 sources to discuss school restructuring definitions, trends, and issues; achievements of a few select schools; and implementation techniques and strategies. Two overarching, indirectly stated issues pervading the reconceptualization of schooling are multiculturalism and a caring…

Employs the image of "contested ground" to characterize tensions surrounding the evolution of teacher leadership in order to illuminate the ways in which traditions of subject specialism shape assumptions about the exercise of leadership among secondary teachers. Challenges the stereotypes of the "subject-centered" teacher and…

In the 1980s, the National Geographic Society launched a multi-million dollar campaign to improve teachers' knowledge of geography through the establishment of geographic alliances--networks of geography professors, teacher educators, and elementary and secondary teachers. To coordinate reform efforts in geographic education, the Society provides…

This paper synthesizes the results of three case studies that focus on urban and suburban elementary teachers who are engaged in new roles: as learners, as clinical educators, and as leaders. Results of the studies suggest that epistemological issues; workplace contexts; and an ethic of care, which is especially noticeable in collegial…

Consistent with education reform, the chapters in this book examine how to better prepare teachers for leadership roles in the profession. Following the introductory material, the volume is organized into four sections. The first section, "Contexts for Leadership and Change," provides an introduction, "Contexts: Overview and…

This article reports on a 3-year longitudinal case study of a school-based project designed to restructure and reculture the school's teaching and learning environment. Using a participatory action research framework, groups of teachers from the school worked together to develop a community of inquiry focusing on core teaching values, student…

Findings from a study, which examined the development of leadership skills and roles among the teachers in a professional development school (PDS), indicate the emergence of a nontraditional teacher leadership paradigm at the PDS. In contrast to typical teacher leadership models, in which carefully selected and screened teachers are placed in…

This study examines how 12 teacher leaders from five school districts negotiate access to classrooms and encourage instructional change in light of teacher resistance. Drawing from observations and interviews, the findings indicate that, in order to gain access to teachers, teacher leaders frequently compromise their instructional improvement…

The creation of multiple small schools from a single comprehensive high school elevates the necessity for many, rather than few, to assume leadership for various functions associated with helping each school to thrive. The nature of this effort calls for a view of leadership that moves away from reliance on administrative hierarchies and toward a…

A study was conducted to determine which of the following modes of professional practice is the dominant mode used by Ohio family and consumer science (FCS) teachers when implementing a refined critical science based curriculum: technical-rational; reflective-ethical; and process-oriented. The target population consisted of 1,013 secondary…

This book is key reading for all trainee secondary school teachers. It covers the range of core professional skills that student teachers need to acquire irrespective of their subject specialism or their training route. It also considers recent developments in teaching, exploring the opportunities and challenges they present for those about to…

Through their visits and conversations with students, teachers, and administrators involved in the Appalachian Rural Systemic Initiative (ARSI) over the past decade, the people at Inverness Research Associates came to believe that ARSI served as an important leadership capacity-building effort for improving mathematics and science education in…