School principals should lead for social change, particularly in support of vulnerable or marginalized students. An important social justice issue in which principals must provide strong leadership, but may not be adequately prepared in university training, is creating positive and inclusive school environments for lesbian, gay, transgender,…

In the face of principal turnover, a common approach taken by staff is to simply wait until the new school year begins and hope that the new administrator will continue to support current programs. It is our experience that this passive strategy is not as helpful, because there are proactive approaches that are more likely to be successful. The…

This study investigates head teachers' perspectives of the school dropout problem at public secondary schools in rural Punjab, Pakistan. The study is based on qualitative methods and included interviews to collect primary data. Sixteen districts of the Punjab where secondary school dropout rate is above 20% were purposively selected for the study.…

This article discusses strategies used by Arab principals and teachers in Israel to cope with dilemmas involved in education for national identity stemming from conflict between two national narratives. While the Israeli Ministry of Education expects the Arab education system to educate students according to the Jewish State's values, Palestinian…

Although a decade has passed since passage, few have noticed that section 9528 in No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandates schools to assist military recruiting. This article focuses on administrators' responsibility to inform parents of their privacy rights and the struggle to manage recruiting in schools. I highlight two conclusions with policy…

This article reports findings from qualitative research conducted in 17 New York City schools to better understand why many school leaders--particularly principals--have recently dismantled their school's bilingual education programs, as part of a significant citywide trend during a restrictive period in US language policy. A main finding is that…

The data in this brief come from the nationally representative 2011-12 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) Public and Private School Principal Data Files and the Public and Private School Data Files. Principals who participated in SASS provided information about the percentage of time spent on various tasks by answering the question: "On…

An exploratory qualitative case study of 10 government secondary schools (Grades 7-12) in New South Wales (NSW), Australia, was conducted to investigate the extent to which the revised NSW gifted and talented policy (2004) has contributed to gifted program quality and scope. Findings from the qualitative analysis of in-depth interview data with…

This paper explores a theoretical dilemma that arose during a study of risk-taking in decision-making for public school principals in Western Australia. Western Australia is one of six Australian States. It is geographically diverse, including extremely remote schools serving Indigenous communities. The governance mechanism for public schools in…

Discussions about human capital and school improvement typically center on teachers, not administrators, and that's a mistake. Principals, who are responsible for selecting and developing the teachers they know are so important, are a critical driver of school success. So it is imperative that states do everything they can to find, deploy, and…

Incorporating social media tools into your professional practices does not have to be intimidating as long as you are willing to tackle five action steps. It is far easier to articulate the strengths--and to imagine the possibilities--of social media spaces as tools for communication and professional development when you are actively using those…

This article explores the critical role of school leaders in language policy change, and specifically in shifting their language education policies and practices from monolingual to multilingual. We examine the process of language policy change in three schools that were involved in a project aimed at increasing the knowledge base of school…

The 2015-16 National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS) is a nationally representative sample survey of public K-12 schools, principals, and teachers in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. This report presents selected findings from the Public School Teacher Data File of NTPS. NTPS is a redesign of the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS).…

Although research has explored the effects of protective factors on fostering resiliency within "individuals," the same level of inquiry has not emerged investigating the causes of why high-risk "organizations" are resilient to serious violent delinquency. One type of organization that seems particularly appropriate for…

This volume contains selected papers submitted to the 20th Jubilee Annual International Conference of the Bulgarian Comparative Education Society (BCES), conducted virtually in June 2022. The 20th BCES Conference theme is "Towards the Next Epoch of Education." The theme is focused on problems, discussions, changes, solutions, and…