It is a challenge for schools with large populations of students from low-income, migrant, and international families to ensure that every student reaches proficiency on challenging state academic achievement standards and state academic assessments. Traditionally, schools across the country have tended to cope with this challenge by offering a…

This article explores a reciprocal relationship between leadership capacity and collective efficacy in a pre-K-8 school in the Southern United States that continually advances as a professional learning community. Survey data from this mixed methodology study showed significant positive correlations among subgroup scales measuring leadership…

Creating learning communities in low-performing districts and schools is especially daunting in an era of accountability and standards-based assessment. This article describes research that informed application of Southwest Educational Development Laboratory's Working Systemically model for increased student achievement. The article highlights 4…

This article offers information about a district's school improvement efforts to reculture as a professional learning community, which we believe exemplifies the school and district levels of Fullan's (2004b, 2005) tri-level model. We use Fullan's eight elements of sustainability to organize the data gathered in interviews with school and district…