This article describes the results of the author's doctoral dissertation research in educational leadership. Her quantitative study aimed to explore the relationships between art education, leadership skills, and creativity through research and existing literature. This research is vital because, art educators, use leadership skills to teach…

This article draws from the first phase of a larger, qualitative and developmental study with educational leaders (n=50), as well as nearly three decades of research and teaching, to explore how constructive-developmental theory offers new insights about enacting and supporting social justice leadership in our schools and districts. Specifically,…

In their plans to carry out the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), states universally recognize what New Leaders has long known: "leadership changes everything." In fact, every single state has committed to directing some portion of its federal funding into investments in leadership--from teacher leaders to principals and…

Many books have been written about various leadership characteristics, styles, outcomes, and purposes in schools. Much less has been written about followership. But, in order to have leaders, we must have followers. Understanding the leadership-followership dynamic in the school may promote inclusivity, transparent interaction, and authenticity…

According to research on the career cycle of teachers, leadership experience is one of the factors that may influence how teachers think about their career goals. This has implications for schools and districts that seek to retain and recognize the most successful teachers. One urban school district sought to expand leadership roles by creating an…

Improved student achievement requires the distribution of leadership beyond one individual. Given their daily connection to students, leadership opportunities distributed to classroom teachers are key to school improvement. Complicating the development of classroom teacher leaders are attrition rates and low teacher efficacy among novice…

The provision of customized black and minority ethnic (BME) leadership courses and programmes is one of the measures being employed to address the under-representation of teachers and school leaders from minority ethnic backgrounds. This strategy has always attracted controversy as opinions have been divided about its value and benefits. Yet there…

At the heart of democratic leadership rests a deep respect for what it means to be human, the cultivation of the common good, and the need to act according to one's own direction. If democratic leadership aims to create an environment in which people are encouraged and supported in "aspiring to truths about the world" (Woods, 2005, p. xvi), then…

Six high-performing/high-poverty schools provide insights into what it takes to make a dramatic turnaround. School leaders had to make tough calls--and many of those decisions were about how to use resources. The budget in a high-performing, high-poverty school is a moral document, reflective of the school's beliefs about the conditions necessary…

Recent obituaries and testimonials to Coretta Scott King and Wendy Wasserstein are reminders of the leadership legacies of these women. About Coretta Scott King (1927-2006), Burch in "The Miami Herald" (February 1, 2006) stated "Coretta Scott King built a legacy from pain and progress, first as the wife who stood tall next to a man bent on…

This report reveals that about 100 Chicago schools suffer from chronically high rates of teacher turnover, losing a quarter or more of their teaching staff every year, and many of these schools serve predominantly low-income African American children. In the typical Chicago elementary school, 51 percent of the teachers working in 2002 had left…

Kerry and Murdoch (1993), analysing the essential characteristics of leaders and school principals, raised two key questions: (1) What kind of leadership will schools require to help them face the next ten years?; and (2) How equipped are managers in school to provide that leadership? Traditionally, aspiring school principals emerge from the…

Suggests strategies for mobilizing more leadership and power in the early childhood profession including: (1) getting teachers, providers, and directors to the table; (2) taking time to reflect and raise questions; (3) using a constructivist, empowering pedagogy; and (4) forging relationships of integrity and respect. (SD)

This is the story of Barbara Shoemaker and her work as an Appalachian Rural Systemic Initiative (ARSI) Teacher Partner in Oneida, Tennessee. It is the story of what she values and the experiences that shaped her approach to education. In particular it is about what she learned from her experience with the Appalachian Rural Systemic Initiative, and…