Improving principal leadership is a vital component to the success of educational reform initiatives that seek to improve whole-school performance, as principal leadership often exercises positive but indirect effects on student learning. Because of the importance of principals within the field of school improvement, this article focuses on…

This instrumental case study explores how the Ethic of Care is experienced within one Midwestern school system as an alternative approach to traditional school system hierarchical infrastructures. Through the qualitative tradition of portraiture (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997), this study documents the caring leadership actions, behaviors…

School leaders are increasingly being asked, whether by rhetoric or policy, to measurably improve student achievement. The resultant need to assist school leaders in their ability to improve teaching and learning for all students in their schools led to the establishment of the National Institute of School Leadership's (NISL's) Executive…