The purpose of this case study was to identify effective leadership practices of an African American principal in a high achieving school, and the relationship to those the leadership practices found in the literature. This study focused on an African American female principal, located within the Piedmont geographical area of a southern state. The…

Over the past couple of decades, K-12 schools have courageously struggled with the concept of shared, or distributed, leadership; however, the basic landscape of K-12 school leadership remains heavily hierarchical. Nonetheless, teachers can share leadership. This article explores productive forms of teacher leadership that are models of…

For school improvement, more teachers need to function as leaders. Understanding the various dimensions of teacher leadership is requisite knowledge for encouraging the development of more teachers as leaders. Teacher leaders can fulfill multiple roles as they encounter obstacles in schools. The author addresses the challenge of supporting…

Generative Leadership is a case study of how two New York City High Schools sustain and develop leadership. The study explores their system of school governance, its rationale and beliefs, the leadership structures and how their collaborative leadership practice insures that no leader stands alone and that replacement leadership is available at…

In the fast paced, fluid contemporary world, and in a headlong rush to invent the future, there is a tendency to jettison aspects of the past as flotsam and jetsam, unworthy of a place in steerage into the future. This paper argues that is some respects the ordinary heroes and heroines who enact school leaderships, and from their practice…

The expectation for schools to continually improve outcomes for students underscores the importance of tapping teacher leaders' contributions in school improvement and renewal efforts. As National Board (NB) certification has become a common feature of state and district policies to improve teaching and learning, it is worthwhile to explore how…

Increasing student achievement is at the forefront of the school reform movement. Today's educators are called upon to raise academic standards to the highest level in history with common core standards that align with international benchmarks. One of the most rapidly-growing improvement efforts in today's schools is the development of…

Principals are critical to the success of any school improvement effort--from increasing academic rigor toward college- and career-ready standards to teacher evaluation and support. They ensure this success by building a strong, shared vision and leading effective implementation for staff, students, and families. The federal government has an…

In the 2007 edition of the NCPEA Yearbook, Zigler and Allen allude to the principalship and its associated training as being at a "tipping point," a reference to Malcom Gladwell's (2000) book, "The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Difference" (2007, p. 139). Zigler and Allen contend the current principal paradigm is…

Over the past decade, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) in Maryland has focused on improving teacher capacity as a strategy to address achievement gaps and promote "college-ready" standards in what has become an "urban suburb" with significant pockets of high-need students. As part of this focus on quality teaching, the…

With the global economy becoming more integrated, the issues of cross-cultural relevance and transferability of leadership theories and practices have become increasingly urgent. Drawing upon the concept of parallel leadership in schools proposed by Crowther, Kaagan, Ferguson, and Hann as an example, the purpose of this paper is to examine the…

In this article, the role that formal leaders play in helping distributed leadership take root and flourish in schools is explored. The focus of the study is an urban middle school, one of six cases in a larger three-year investigation of distributed leadership in two mid-Atlantic states. Using interview and document-based data, the authors…

This study presents a description and analysis of a ninth-grade integrated science curriculum developed and implemented by teachers within a high school science department and subsequently sustained for over 25 years. The Integrated Science Program (ISP) at Lakeside Southwest High School depicted here offers a unique example of longitudinal…

In 2011, AISD worked with the nationally recognized New Teacher Center (NTC) to create a comprehensive survey to help the district to better understand how teachers and school staff feel about critical issues that can influence educator retention and effectiveness. This report provides a district summary of staff survey results. A separate report…

In this article we investigate educational leadership as a site of practice, utilising the notion of "practice architectures" as our lens. The latter shifts Etienne Wenger's more individualising notion of 'learning architectures' to a broader study of the systems and organisations that prefigure educational practices and potentially,…