Background: Few "intervention agnostic" strategies have been developed that can be applied to the broad array of evidence-based practices (EBPs) in schools. This paper describes two studies that reflect the initial iterative redesign phases of an effective leadership-focused implementation strategy--Leadership and Organizational Change…

This research-practice partnership (RPP) focused on developing and testing metrics and tools to foster improved evidence-based budgetary decision-making. The expectation was that research findings would directly influence decisions about program expansion, contraction, or elimination. Instead, unexpected findings led to unexpected uses: changes in…

Our research-practice partnership (RPP) focused on developing and testing metrics and tools to foster improved evidence-based budgetary decision-making. We expected our research findings to directly influence decisions about program expansion, contraction, or elimination. Instead, unexpected findings led to unexpected uses: changes in program…

Purpose: A growing number of school districts have recently added a position to the superintendent's cabinet, often titled chief equity officer. While the chief equity officer position is still in its early stages, we have an opportunity to examine insights from this work in the higher education context--both to support the adoption and…

While social emotional learning (SEL) school-based initiatives can benefit student well-being and learning, a need remains for a more nuanced understanding of aspects affecting systemic SEL integration within under-resourced learning environments. This study considered factors affecting implementation of a community initiative to provide…

Many school districts utilize a strategic plan to implement their district vision to accomplish goals important to their students, stakeholders, and community at-large. Often, however, school districts use student outcome data as the main success indicator of their strategic plan. This summative approach fails to capture interim successes, cannot…

One popular diagnosis for the problem of inequitable educational opportunities is the need for schools and schooling systems to undergo systemic change. While research shows that leadership support is essential for implementing system reforms, critical questions remain about how leaders help shift other's understandings and practices. Employing…

Purpose: This study aims to explore whether hierarchical position and organizational size affect perceptions of a learning organization (LO) during reform implementation. Design/methodology/approach: An electronic survey was distributed in four Norwegian police districts at an early stage of reform implementation. One of the objectives of the…

Systems, structures, and practices perpetuate disparities because they reinforce barriers that sort and separate students based on assumed success or failure. When students are disadvantaged in this way, the implicit message is that their learning doesn't matter. The counterpoint to these discriminatory systems is an asset-based approach, which is…

School leaders serving a school identified as high-poverty often face unique stresses and pressures to increase gains in student achievement, often in a relatively short amount of time. Leaders will make decisions to change the instructional framework or design of a school in hopes of meeting such pressure. There is abundant research that has…

In 2013, the state of Florida passed Senate Bill 1720, which reformed developmental education and gateway courses across the state of Florida. There was a gap in the research regarding how the institutions planned and implemented the changes necessary to comply with the bill. This basic qualitative study examined the strategies used by leaders to…

The study explored the implementation of a 1:1 iPad initiative with a focus on leadership. The distributed leadership model provided the framework using semistructured interviews as the primary source of data collection. Using the distributed leadership model, the researcher examined the role of school leaders. Four emerging themes were…

Principals and administrators are crucial to the success of an initiative such as the Leader in Me. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to identify the strategies, practices, and processes utilized by elementary school principals to initiate and implement initiatives or programs such as the Leader in Me. Eight elementary school…

This study identified the policy perspectives of "street-level bureaucrats" in higher education (in this case, community college personnel) and linked them to a typology of 4 policy implementation patterns. The context for this qualitative study is state legislation in Florida (Florida Senate Bill 1720, 2013) that fundamentally reformed…

Given the common problem of incoherence in district reform efforts, this qualitative study sought to understand what conditions enable (and/or constrain) the efforts of Technical Assistance Organizations (TAOs) to align their products and services with each other and with the specific goals of a district. This paper explores the complexity of TAOs…