The idea behind public charter schools was to develop flexible models of public schools and to incubate innovative ideas that then could be shared with the district's public schools. Today, almost 20 years since the first public charter school opened its doors in Minnesota, one still does not see consistent, productive collaboration and shared…

Last February, members of ISTE's Special Interest Group for Teacher Educators (SIGTE) traveled to New Zealand as part of a SIG-sponsored study tour. While there, the 13-member group visited seven schools and attended the Learning@School 2010 conference. In this third and final installment about their trip, they share observations about New…

This article aims at analysing and discussing student participation in Portuguese higher education institutions and, specifically, in university governance. In a first moment, it describes this participation under both the previous (1988-2007) and the new legal frameworks (since 2007). A discussion of the changes introduced by this last framework…

This case study presents data to support the notion that turnaround school policy can improve the efficiency of how traditionally low-performing schools function. The schools that were successful in implementing the UVA Turnaround Program training developed a clear understanding of the expectations for participating in the UVA Turnaround Program…

As the student success movement has come of age at America's community colleges, much effort has gone into state-level reforms coupled with college-level efforts, on the theory that relying on individual institutions alone to bring change at scale across states and the nation will take too long and cost too much. But if centralized authority is…

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of principals who have met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) with the special education subgroup. This was a qualitative study, utilizing interviews to answer the research questions. The first three research questions analyzed the areas of assessment, building-level leadership, and curriculum…

The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the perceptions of distributed leadership held by 15 administrators of special education and 15 special education teacher leaders invited to perform a Q-sort, rank ordering 40 statements representing distributed leadership attributes. The research questions that guided this investigation included:…

The purpose of this study was to address a high-volume problem for the Delaware Department of Education Office of Professional Accountability (OPA). This problem was addressed by sharing the certification decision with qualified personnel located at each of the four teacher preparation programs located in Delaware at Delaware State University…

Horizontal governance is an umbrella term that covers a range of approaches to policy development, service delivery issues, and management practices. A horizontal initiative may take place across levels of government, across boundaries between units of a single department or agency or among multiple departments or agencies, or across public,…

This article aims at providing insight into ways of constructing leadership for learning within a Norwegian context. The focus is on how a Norwegian principal talks about educational leadership and learning. The principal's story is juxtaposed with references to how her deputies and a group of teachers frame their experiences about leadership for…

Children's lives in today's culture are filled with numerous decisions in a pressure-cooker atmosphere of frequently self-destructive peers and overly materialistic, sexually exploitive, and violent media that affect their daily welfare. As a result, too often tragedies result from children's lack of healthy judgment and choices. The case for…

Based on a study of observable changes author-users made to three Wikipedia articles, this article contends that Wikipedia supports notions of revision, collaboration, and authority that writing studies purports to value, while also extending our understanding of the production of knowledge in public spaces. It argues that Wikipedia asks us to…

Purpose: This article aims to validate the Leadership Daily Practice (LDP) log, an instrument for conducting research on leadership in schools. Research Design: Using a combination of data sources--namely, a daily practice log, observations, and open-ended cognitive interviews--the authors evaluate the validity of the LDP log. Participants: Formal…

The purpose of having fun in the English language arts (ELA) classroom is twofold: (1) build community; and (2) alleviate the monotony, drudgery, and anxiety that reading, speaking, and writing often produce, especially in struggling students and any and all who are future members of Garrison Keillor's Lake Woebegone Professional Organization of…

This article features American educator administrator Arne Duncan, whose seven-year tenure as the head of the 408,000-student Chicago school district has been marked by innovations to improve the quality of teachers and principals and a focus on basic reading and math skills. His low-key, collaborative style was a key to his success in Chicago,…