Teachers' professional learning is regarded as one means through which to improve instruction and student achievement, but how teachers' learning experiences actually translate to improved outcomes is not clearly understood. This is particularly true for novice teachers, who, through a combination of induction programs, broader professional…

In the past 50 years, the share of students enrolled in U.S. Catholic schools has declined from approximately 12% to 3%. In reaction, many urban Catholic schools have closed and subsequently reopened as public charter schools in order to receive governmental funding and to increase enrollment. As public schools, these Catholic- affiliated charter…

During recent decades, the rise of the global economy launched a wide array of social, economic, and political changes in nations throughout the world. Heightened concern about the quality of schools launched what is arguably the most pervasive, intense, and protracted attempts at educational reform in recent history. Examinations of the…

The current study builds on earlier leader succession research, focusing on a school where the "insider"--who was believed to be strong before being hired as the formal school leader--drew sharp criticism after assuming the principalship. Interviews with staff members who worked with the insider leader in her role as teacher and…

This practical resource highlights the critical importance of diagnosis and design in the work of leading and managing for school improvement. The authors maintain that today's school leaders and managers, under intense pressure to improve student learning, cannot simply adopt and implement pre-packaged reforms manufactured outside the school.…

Every day in America more than 50 million children go to neighborhood public schools. Parents send them off with every hope they will be safe while there. And yet, as has been the case in too many cities, violence shatters that hope. The Council of Educational Facilities Planners International (CEFPI) seeks to lead in the effort to bolster schools…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature on student trust and to examine the relationship between student trust, behavior, and academic outcomes in high school. It asks, first, does trust have a positive effect on high school outcomes? Second, does trust influence student behavior, exerting an indirect effect on…

This study of student affairs leaders who have left senior roles used an interpretive qualitative approach to explore these lived transitional experiences. The context of the departure, its immediate impact, the ensuing emotions, the change navigation process, and the envisioned future appear to shape the departing leaders' perceptions of the…

In this paper, we survey the UK-based literature on school structures and school autonomy to identify settings in which alternative and more autonomous school arrangements can improve the educational attainments of pupils in the bottom tail of the achievement distribution. We also present new evidence on the effect of school academies on the…

Media portrayals and education policies have combined with anecdotes about charter school successes to produce a favorable assessment of charter schools by two-thirds of Americans. Such media celebrations often group an array of charter school types together, thereby disguising their differences. Indeed, the public seems unaware there are…

In large-scale educational reforms, many actors play their roles. The diversity of contributions and lack of harmonization prove to be frequently found to cause educational reform failures. Many explanations for these failures focus on differences between the actors and on differences in their contributions to the reform process. In this article,…

School reform on a large scale has largely been unsuccessful. Approaches designed to document and understand the variety of organizational conditions that comprise our school systems are needed so that reforms can be tailored and results scaled. Therefore, this article develops a configurational framework that allows a systematic analysis of many…

Collegiality is often advocated as the best way in which to run a successful school subject department. This article explores this proposition in the light of power relationships within hierarchical organizations. Rather than viewing collegiality merely as a management model, it looks at the power relationships which condition the working lives of…

In 1996, the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future's (NCTAF's) first groundbreaking report made five bold recommendations that changed teaching and learning across the country. "What Matters Most" challenged the nation to provide every American child with his or her educational birthright: access to competent, caring,…

This article revisits the Eight-Year Study, which was a set of simultaneous experiments in secondary education carried out by 30 schools from 1933 to 1941. These schools were free from the usual subject and unit requirements for college admission for a period of eight years, beginning with the class entering college in 1936. Freed from the demands…