We use the insights of firms' organizational economics to study school chains' organization. We match information on decentralization of activities for approximately 400 chains and 2,000 schools in England to student and school administrative records. Chains with a larger share of schools whose leadership background is aligned with the chain's…

Reflection is fundamental to teachers' agency, professional learning, and sustainable school improvement. This study investigates schoolteachers' conceptions of reflection and the factors they report as affecting their engagement in it. The study deploys Habermas' (1984) theory of communicative action, specifically the "lifeworld…

This article examines how principals socially construct the leadership configuration of principals and vice-principals in Singapore and what factors influenced the principal's shaping of this configuration. The qualitative study, involving the interview of 10 principals, sought to understand how principals made sense of their vice-principals roles…

This paper argues that school leaders and managers are being forced to abandon their educational purpose and that leadership and management activities of school leaders are now purposed towards satisfying the needs of a managerialist elite. As a result, the best interests of learners/ students are placed secondary to the interests of the…

In the wake of the focus on improving the quality of education in the international community, the development of the cause of education in mainland China has entered the stage of high-quality development. Currently, the construction of internal governance structures for primary and secondary schools in mainland China exhibits three areas of…

School choice policy shifts the responsibility of accessing high-quality schools from the state to parents, yet there is little research on how parents subjectively experience the burdens of choosing schools. In this case study, we conducted interviews and focus groups with 36 parents attending traditional public, charter, and private schools…

Partnering with governments to co-design pilot interventions and embed them in local bureaucratic systems is increasingly seen as "best practice" on grounds of scalability and sustainability. This paper reports on a pilot program that was co-designed with, and embedded within, the Elementary and Secondary Education Department in…

This paper provides a modest contribution to understanding how Fayol's principles can be contextualised and applied in the administration of school systems in Tanzania and beyond. A qualitative approach is adopted to review journal articles that analyse Fayol's 14 principles and compares their suitability to the current management of school…

This report sheds a new light on the history of the U.S. Department of Education (ED), its abuses of policy, and recommendations for a path forward. The report's evidence, and the long-term political dispositions of America's citizenry, supports the wholesale reform of ED, but not its elimination. The authors have structured their report in this…

In September 2022, CLE began a multi-phase study on the feasibility of creating a centralization entity (Educational Service Agency) to coordinate special education across New Orleans' decentralized system of autonomous charter schools. This executive summary of the study examines the interests and concerns of the New Orleans school community and…

States vary widely in their approaches to charter school regulation. We administered online surveys to charter school leaders in four of the most stringently regulated states and three of the least stringently regulated states to examine how their approach might influence perceived school goals and levels of goal agreement. Generally, survey…

This article aims to deepen our knowledge about the work and competences of local education authority (LEA) officials when implementing new policy directives for documentation in the decentralized Swedish school system. The results show that the LEA officials used strategies and actions that improved relevance for principals and schools through…

Chile is undertaking an ambitious public education reform, re-centralising the administration of municipal schools in larger territories. This reform is unprecedented, both for the size of the new intermediate-level services ("Servicios Locales de Educación Pública") and the escalation of their bureaucratic complexity, facing widespread…

Background: Subnational actors and organizations are crucial mediators of policy implementation due to their proximity to schools. However, in low- and middle-income country contexts, little is known about their management practices and factors that shape the adoption of these practices to improve education delivery. Purpose: We explore the…

The reported study investigates the emergence of teacher evaluation (TE) in Norwegian green papers between 1988 and 2019. We examine how knowledge dissemination and discourses in Norwegian official reports shape suggestions for TE and discuss implications for how teachers are "made by policy". Guided by Bacchi's (2009) approach to…