Providing commentary on this "Journal of School Leadership's" special issue, "Constructing a Bridge Between Law and Social Justice: An Ethical Journey," has been not only a daunting task because of the complex nature of this topic but also a humbling experience because of the superior quality of these articles. At the same time, it is most…

Many school districts struggle to recruit sufficient high-quality principals for their schools. A variety of conditions contribute to this challenge, including the retirement of the baby boom cohort and diminishing interest in administrative careers due to the expanded responsibilities of school principals. In response, districts enact a range of…

The notion of "success" is narrowly defined and appropriated within an educational context. Typically limited to objective measures of organizational productivity, effectiveness, and efficiency, "successful" principal practices, we argue, engender action and attention to a broader array of issues and interrelationships. In this study, we conducted…

This discussion focuses on the intersection of two dissonant concepts of importance in today's educational scene--democracy and accountability. In this article, we describe how these conflicting ideologies might be resolved, theoretically and practically, through democratically accountable leadership--that is, the dual necessity of educational…

This study examined the relationships among the authentic leadership style of school principals and the trust and engagement levels of their teachers in a county school district in a Southeastern state. The authenticity of the school principal was found to be significantly positively related to teacher trust and teacher engagement levels. The…

Examines taxonomy for understanding and applying various facets of ethical argumentation and conceptualization to administrative practice. Stresses importance of developing conceptual analysis approach from scientific, conceptual, general normative, and applied normative ethics strands of literature. Offers prescriptive approach to ethics and…

Education is a fundamentally moral enterprise. Educational administration must change to reflect ethics at its core. Traditional educational administration is informed by constructs of power and leadership and has developed knowledge bases on modest theoretical grounds. Together these elements dominate discourse and inhibit the dialog necessary…

Numerous studies have used the power metaphor in the physical science sense to describe power in the organizational sense. This paper views school as an electrical distribution system to illustrate how power operates in schools and offers eight lessons for administrators desiring to effect positive empowerment results in school settings. (26…

School structures need not be rigid, controlling, and coercive; in fact, they can be just the opposite. Enabling school structures are centralized and formalized in ways that promote problem solving, collaboration, flexibility, change, and professional judgment. The current research demonstrates the importance of "both" collegial…