The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of a professional learning intervention on conceptual coherence and inquiry orientation for teachers and leaders participating in a K-12 Mathematics Committee (N = 18). This 9-month mixed methods single case study, conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, was designed using the principles and…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides guidance and expectations to state education agencies. We examined the intersection of improvement science and ESSA through a qualitative analysis of the state guidance documents. Utilizing six principles of improvement as a conceptual framework, we identified three themes: improvement as an outcome;…

A growing body of work regarding teacher learning and implementation of reform has pointed to the significant role organizational contexts play in shaping teachers' engagement with reform and their implementation decisions. Within science education, the adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and standards reflective of the…

All over the globe, educational technology (EdTech) is being sold to schools as a central mechanism for improving access to quality learning for high poverty populations. There is a growing scholarship that interrogates the institutional drivers of the 'EdTech craze'. Building on this work, this paper examines how technocentrism as a specific…

Culturally responsive practice (CRP) is a popular approach educators utilize to improve the gaps in achievement and discipline within U.S. schools. Current research provides insight into singular experiences of both school leaders and teachers working individually to enact CRP (Khalifa, Gooden, & Davis, 2016; Ladson-Billings, 2009). Although…

Educational reforms are often translated in and implemented through artifacts. Although research has frequently treated artifacts as merely functional, more recent work acknowledges the complex relationship between material artifacts and human/organizational behavior. This article aims at disentangling this relationship in order to deepen our…

Appreciative Leadership is unique among leadership theories both past and present. This uniqueness includes its strength-based practice, search for the positive in people and organizations, and the role this plays in organizational innovation and transformation. What follows is a summary of Appreciative Inquiry and the five main principles on…

Partnerships between teachers and parents from nondominant communities hold promise for reducing race- and class-based educational disparities, but the ways families and teachers work together often fall short of delivering systemic change. Racialized institutional scripts provide "taken-for-granted" norms, expectations, and assumptions…

This article looks at the role of school leadership vis-à-vis the curriculum. First, it offers a brief overview of school leadership in Germany. Next, curriculum development and curriculum research in Germany is briefly recapped. We present empirical data on school leadership preferences, strain experience, and practices as to curriculum work.…

One social science base for educational administration proposed in the Baron and Taylor collection was organisation theory. In the event this expectation turned out to be over-optimistic. Organisation theory was much too contested and insufficiently pragmatic for the British taste. Major developments in this field occurred mainly in the USA.…

This chapter examines the charter school policy and planning network and how this network is helping to grow urban charter schools and related advocacy organizations across the United States.

The assumption that rational choice dynamics will lead to diversity of school supply is at the heart of K-12 school choice arrangements. Yet as the field of school choice becomes more established, there will be the "inexorable push toward homogenization." If vouchers, tuition tax credit scholarships, and education savings accounts become…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present the author's commentary on the special issue of "Journal of Educational Administration" entitled "Systemwide Reform: Examining Districts under Pressure". Design/methodology/approach: In framing her reflections, the author has looked across the five articles in the special issue,…

One of the more frequently cited cultural dimensions within the field of cultural research is that of cultural strength (Cameron & Ettington, 1998). Early published works on organisational culture argue that there is an absolute need for a "strong" culture for organisations to be effective. This study has examined the contradiction…

The headquarters of an organisation, both the building and staff who work in it, has a key role to play in the way in which it operates and portrays its character. After presenting a brief history of the buildings the Association for Science Education (ASE) has occupied during its 50 year history, this article reflects on the role of ASE…