This research examines the relationship between three leadership types exhibited by principals (instructional, distributed, and transformational leadership) and teacher academic optimism in order to reveal the differential effects of these leadership models on teachers' perceived academic optimism. The participants of the study included 225…

Purpose: Drawing from Occupational Socialization Theory, the purpose of this study was to examine a middle school physical education team's perceptions and experiences piloting standards-based teaching and grading within an organizational professional learning community (PLC). Method: Using an instrumental case study design, (n = 3) teachers and…

Building "happy schools" has been one of the key concerns by many countries in recent years with an aim to create a friendly, safe, and happy teaching and learning environment so that teachers and students can have more motivation in improving their teaching and learning achievements, thus bringing forth more happiness to the involved…

For more than 100 years, education communities have debated how best to educate the young adolescent. Proponents of both the junior high school model and the current middle school model have advocated for a specialized approach to educating adolescents that emphasizes the developmental needs of students. To accomplish this, various organizational…

Districts are increasingly investing in coaching programs to improve teacher practice and student outcomes. However, merely providing schools with the funding for a coaching position is not enough. To maximize the return on the investment of coaching, our research on the Dynamic Learning Project (DLP) shows that districts need to ensure that they…

This study highlighted the school collaboration and process involved in implementing Tier 1 reading instruction in a rural school in New Mexico and measured the efficacy of this model on student outcomes. Our participants included seven elementary grade teachers, two special educators, one principal, and 106 students in Grades K-6. Our process…

Purpose: This conceptual paper explores a novel model explaining teachers' perceptions of their effective leader through the lens of implicit leadership theory (ILT), using the concepts of school principals' sense-making and cognitive complexity (CC). Design/methodology/approach: The sense-making framework and CC theory were used to explain ILT,…

Of the myriad responsibilities of the building principal, the most recognized and critical activity is overseeing and ensuring student success in the classroom. Considering the diverse population of professionals that building principals have under their supervision that directly impact students' classroom learning, the authors posit that a…

In this study, we apply a distributed leadership framework to better understand the nature of leadership practices distributed in schools by grade configuration. In this analysis we examine the following research question: What are the differences between school-level grade configuration (elementary school or secondary school) and the extent and…

This article presents findings from a study of the minimum conditions needed to scale a previously successful model of high school reform in New York City. Most studies of scale work backward to identify conditions that were in place when scale was successful, rather than identifying those that were minimally required, and thus more likely to be…

This paper presents new evidence on the benefits of decentralization in public education, focusing on a Chicago policy that granted school principals more control over budgeting and operations. Meta-analysis of similar policies shows a small average effect with significant variation across settings. To explain this heterogeneity, I adopt theories…

The objective of this paper is to determine the extent to which adopting Nonaka's SECI knowledge-creation processes enhances strategic planning capacity in the context of Hong Kong school education. A quantitative questionnaire survey is conducted to examine the predictive effects of the knowledge-creation processes of the SECI model on strategic…

Improving conditions of learning is a priority for schools, communities, states, and the federal government. Students are the stakeholders with the most to gain or lose and should be consulted about their classroom experiences as a basis for continuous school improvement planning. The population of 461 students from a rural public high school in…

This study aims to analyse the relationship between students' mathematics achievement in Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012 and the instructional climate-related factors in the index of principals' perceptions (learning hindrance, teacher morale and teacher intention). As preliminary analysis procedure, the chi-squared…

While education research has explored the role of the principal in the advent of No Child Left Behind (2001), quantitative and qualitative studies fail to describe and explain the ways in which principals' leadership practices are shaped by their conditions. These conditions include the school culture and climate in which they work; their own…