This research study, using institutional theory as a framework, examines the role of superintendents in promoting and impacting innovation in Virginia's public schools. The study engaged fourteen current Virginia superintendents in semi-structured interviews, exploring their perspectives on fostering an innovative culture within their school…

Partisanship influenced learning modality after the pandemic's onset, but it is unknown whether partisanship predicted other aspects of educational operations. We study the role of partisanship, race, markets, and public health in predicting a range of operations--from modality to family engagement to social-emotional support to teacher…

The George W. Bush Institute's School Leadership Initiative (SLI) District Cohort Research Project is a five-year effort with four school districts to test two frameworks--Principal Talent Management (PTM) and Effective Implementation. This collaboration is designed to improve how districts prepare, recruit, support, and retain principals. This…

This retrospective study by SCOPE Associate Director, Ann Jaquith, chronicles the progression of the Canterbury Learning Collaborative (CLC), first within the Collaborative and then later within the district in which the CLC resided, and shows how its development has supported instructional change. The story of the CLC provides lessons about how…

For much of the last two decades, beginning with the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2002, the top political leaders have shown concern about children stuck in failing public schools. NCLB required districts to do something -- not enough, but something -- about those schools. Millions of children still languish in low-performing schools,…

This phenomenological investigation examines the lived experiences of school principals to discover how principals hired from within their school division perceive and make meaning of their organizational socialization experiences--their thoughts, feelings, beliefs, values, and assumptive worlds. Nineteen public school principals participated in…

Social media's established power to communicate and engage with mass audiences, combined with its largely free and easy-to-use platforms, makes it an irresistible lure for private, nonprofit and government institutions. What is murkier, but more important than ever, is solving the problem of properly planning and creating a structure so that…

New principals need support and assistance during the formative years of their careers. School districts can provide some level of support but there are organizations that offer programs to help new principals learn the knowledge, skills, and strategies they need in order to be successful on the job. One such program, The Recently Appointed…

This study investigated teacher attrition and retention in seven Virginia school divisions representing urban, suburban, and rural localities. Focus group interviews of teachers who stay in their school divisions and telephone interviews of teachers who migrated to another school division or who left the teaching profession revealed a hierarchy of…