It takes strong leadership skills to successfully run an entity as large and complex as an urban school district, much less turn around one that is low-performing. Most people don't realize that many urban school systems are as large as the biggest companies in America. Yet, most school district leaders and school board members have no specific…

The Center for Information and Communication Sciences graduate program commenced at Ball State University in 1986 with a specific focus to train graduate students to be leaders in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry. The Center is the manifestation of a vision birthed out of creativity and resourcefulness. This study…

This paper describes the signature role played by accomplished, experienced teachers in professional learning communities, and the importance that these practitioners make their teaching public and shared. In so doing, the authors describe how accomplished practices can be shared between classrooms and between practitioners with varying levels of…

Traditional professional development focuses on declarative and procedural knowledge. That is, participants usually learn what to do and how to do it rather than when to do it and why it is important. In McREL's leadership development program, they focus first on providing participants with an overview of research findings found in their…

Definitions are central to both the practice and the power of leadership. This deceptively simple supposition was the basis for an elective doctoral leadership seminar at Illinois State University designed and taught by Lyman in Fall 2005, and replicated by Gardner in Spring 2007. The authors featured the same texts and stimulated students'…

This discussion focuses on a research project designed to identify critical leadership behaviors and characteristics of very successful elementary school principals. The project which ultimately became a book published jointly by the National Association of Elementary School Principals and Corwin Press used research methodology inspired by…

The major purpose of this study was to examine the role of top-level women leaders in the 21st century. The study was conducted in Spring, 2005 as a part of the WS History Month Program. Five prominent women leaders were invited to a university campus as a community outreach initiative. The panelists included: one 4-year college president of a…

The purpose of the study was to advance a model for evaluating educational administrator preparation programs at the individual course level in a Texas university. Results indicated that, of the two preprogram and seven program core principal preparation courses examined, only two had a significant impact on the pass rate on the TExES Principal…

National attention to a possible superintendent shortage has created concern about the changing nature of the superintendency, particularly new challenges, and how superintendents are prepared. Through 23 focus group interviews, superintendents across the country described the challenges they faced when new, how these have changed in recent years,…

Trainers and developers of school leaders across the globe are currently searching for models of best practice leadership development programmes. Are there generic features and principles of design underpinning such programmes? This article argues that corroborative evidence of what works in leadership training and development--to influence…

Some of the key elements that have brought success in Community College of Philadelphia's first 4 decades may not be as effective in the coming 40 years. Due to substantial funding decreases and changes in enrollment patterns, the college's operating context has fundamentally changed. This is so even as the institutional leadership holds fast to a…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to propose one possible framework for conceptualizing the preparation of leaders for social justice. To this end, three central questions guided this conceptualization: "What are the common themes in the literature and research on preparing leaders for social justice?"; "How can this framework serve as a…

Despite years of research and endless theorizing, little is known of what leadership really is. A distinction is made between leadership and the related constructs of creativity, management and group dynamics. A useful definition of leadership is provided, and a four-stage program for actually providing for the emergence of leadership is…

This article discusses need for creative leadership and better supervision in educational situations. There is a need for better understanding of adolescents and their needs. The Supervisor today must know who he is and who he should be. (Author/EK)