Until teachers and administrators work together in shared partnerships involving the significant facets of education (curriculum, instruction, leadership, and governance), the profession will be driven by external interests and constituencies. In this special issue, teacher and administrator educators begin a conversation about merging preparation…

Purpose: Aims to explore the role of Principals in producing outstanding education outcomes in Years 7 to 10 in New South Wales (Australia) government schools. Design/methodology/approach: Sites where "outstanding" educational outcomes were believed to be occurring were selected using a variety of data including performance in…

Kerry and Murdoch (1993), analysing the essential characteristics of leaders and school principals, raised two key questions: (1) What kind of leadership will schools require to help them face the next ten years?; and (2) How equipped are managers in school to provide that leadership? Traditionally, aspiring school principals emerge from the…

This article draws on the experiences of a range of Australian schools engaging with a teacher-centred process of whole-school renewal known as IDEAS (Innovative Designs for Enhancing Achievement in Schools). IDEAS enhances the professional capacity of teachers to improve school outcomes such as student learning, relationships with the community,…

Those who explore the topic of leadership will soon find a consistent theme: Leaders must focus on and accept responsibility for results. The increasing emphasis on measuring results using state and national tests has led some school leaders to focus on raising test scores. Yet data is not what drives educators to change or improve. In this…

New DEEL does not refer to a specific policy or reform, but rather to an ideology, unencumbered by international borders and domestic politics. In this paper, we first endeavor to identify the rhetoric of New DEEL and social justice, and the reality of its implementation in schools today; spending time on the NCLB Act which we postulate is a major…

Teacher leadership is increasingly being seen as a key vehicle for school improvement and renewal. However, research on this phenomenon is limited, especially outside of the US. This article presents findings from an empirical study of teacher leadership in the UK, aimed at exploring both the ways in which teacher leadership can influence school…

Purpose: The authors adapted distributed cognition theory to provide a detailed account of how school leaders use knowledge of the new programs, existing initiatives, and school contexts to guide policy implementation. Research Design: The study used distributed cognition theory to show how policy implementation studies provide an occasion to…

This report pays tribute to the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Rural Systemic Initiatives (RSIs), an investment of more than $140 million to improve mathematics and science education in some of rural America's most impoverished communities. The report illustrates the impact of NSF's RSI program on a national scale. Each RSI planned a project…

Beginning in September, 2001 when the Portland Public Schools received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Urban Systemic Program (USP) initiative, the district focused, accelerated and strengthened its efforts to improve mathematics and science education K-12. Since its inception the authors at Inverness Research…

Teachers and administrators of Ogden Elementary School (Ogden, Kansas) had a problem--the school had had a pattern of poor student performance at least since 1991, when the Kansas State Assessment was implemented. Ogden had failed to reach the state standard of excellence (25% of tested students scoring in the "exemplary" category; 5% or…

This publication of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Educational Laboratory is dedicated to articles on educational leadership. This issue contains the following articles: "Educational Leadership: Reports and Recommendations From a National Invitational Conference" (Joseph Murphy, JoAnn B. Manning, Herbert J. Walberg); "Redefining Educational Leadership:…

This report presents information from discussions by the Institute for Educational Leadership Task Force on Teacher Leadership, highlighting dilemmas surrounding teacher leadership and suggesting that education's policymakers should exploit the experience and capacity to lead today's schoolteachers. Overall, the system has not been organized to…

This report has two main purposes: to examine the perceived impact of teacher leadership, and to explore the conditions in schools that support or constrain teacher leadership. It discusses peer-nominated, nonadministrative leaders; leadership practices; and sources of power. The report is based on a multisite case study of three schools, serving…

This paper discusses the emerging national issues surrounding supervision of paraeducators in the classroom and provides initial guidance on practical ways to supervise effectively. It begins by describing the current situation in the U.S., focusing on two important issues: the training of teachers as supervisors and training for paraeducators.…