As middle managers in higher education, department chairs play a critical role in the university structure while operating in an ambiguous location between faculty and senior administration. This paper will take a closer look at the role of department chair, how chairs are selected and prepared for the position, what the job entails, qualities of…

Purpose: This study examines the deployment of excellent retired principals (ERPs) as system leaders to facilitate systemic professional capital building in Taipei City, Taiwan. It explores the unique approach of the Taipei City government and contributions of ERPs in driving educational reforms. Design/methodology/approach: This study combines…

This article reports on research into headteacher performance management in England. The English school system couples organisational autonomy with close scrutiny of educational outcomes. The management of the performance of headteachers is a central aspect of such a system. The research involved a systematic literature review and the collection…

This mixed-method study evaluates P-12 principals' and district officials' experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic amid the abrupt change to virtual leadership. Professional learning needs are identified in relation to the three domains of leadership as seen in literature: school management, instructional leadership, and program administration.…

This report focuses on systems thinking and its place in education transformation. It reflects on key published literature and on specific outputs from the Education Development Trust's own programme of research. The report offers an overview of the evolution of systems thinking and the relevance for policymakers and practitioners as they tackle…

Systems thinking (ST) is an approach advocating thinking about any given issue as a whole, emphasising the interrelationships between its components rather than the components themselves. This article aims to link ST and school leadership, claiming that ST may enable school principals to develop highly performing schools that can cope successfully…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how effective school principals use systems thinking, aiming to present the systems school leadership (SSL) approach -- an approach where principals lead schools through the systems thinking concept and procedures. Design/methodology/approach: Participants were 28 Israeli school principals, selected…

"Great teachers and school leaders hold the key to America's children getting a first-rate education, but we do a spotty job of preparing them." Citing these words of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Vivien Stewart plunges into a fascinating account of how top-performing countries are developing strong school leaders. While…

The purpose of this study was to identify strategic thinking skills that distinguish effective school leaders in Hong Kong. Three constructs framed the study: strategic thinking skills, organizational-personal characteristics, and school leader effectiveness. This study used a quantitative non-experimental design, and univariate and correlation…

There's a lot of work happening all over the country to "turnaround" schools. Federal stimulus programs, including Title 1 Improvement Grants and Race to the Top, have caused many states and school systems to focus on how to address schools trapped in a cycle of failure and "turn them around." On the school level, there are…

Harold Kwalwasser has put together a call to action for education reform that makes a clear case for what has to be done in order to educate all children to their full potential. He visited forty high-performing and transforming school districts, charters, parochial, and private schools to understand why they have succeeded where others have…

This study aims to be a contribution to a theoretical model that explains the effectiveness of the learning and decision-making processes by means of a feedback and mental models perspective. With appropriate mental models, managers should be able to improve their capacity to deal with dynamically complex contexts, in order to achieve long-term…

The implementation of programs and practices that reflect the best available research and evaluation is a new and very promising development in the out-of-school time field. However, successfully implementing a new, evidence-based program or practice is a major challenge for practitioners. This challenge is due, in large part, to a lack of…

The implementation of high-quality evidence-based practices cannot occur without facilitative administration, systems-level partnerships, and decision-support data systems. The authors believe that understanding "what works" in program "implementation" is just as important as understanding "what works" in a program "model." Recently, researchers…

This paper seeks to explore the notion of risk as an organisational logic within schools, the impact of contemporary accountability regimes on managing risk and then, in turn, to posit a systems-based process of risk management underpinned by a positive logic of risk. It moves through a number of steps beginning with the development of an…