The changing context of community colleges today is enough to make even the most versatile and experienced administrator's head spin. The constancy of change and the ways in which traditional responses fall short in addressing current challenges seem to relegate leaders to a place where they have a toolbox of strategies from which to draw in hopes…

This paper provides an overview of research that I have conducted during my career using data sets collected by offices of institutional research. Many of the examples discussed in the paper deal with graduate education. The paper illustrates how valuable the data collection efforts by these offices are to academic researchers interested in…

The University of Minnesota's University Senate was established in 1912. At the time the proposal to expand it was developed in 2003, the senate had two subordinate bodies, the Faculty Senate and the Student Senate. Although the subordinate bodies could and did take action on their own, most of their actions were subject to final approval by the…

This article draws on a reanalysis of findings from two separate qualitative studies that examined a possible relationship between school board members' and curriculum directors' conceptions of power and the way they made decisions (Mountford, 2001; Ylimaki, 2001, respectively). The findings from both studies were then compared to the extant…

This article critically examines the extent to which one emerging NGO facilitates the participation of its beneficiaries and other stakeholders in the decision-making processes at the identification, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of basic education programmes in Malawi. The author argues that despite the comparative advantage of this…

On 29 November, 2004, NCSL held its first distributed leadership conference. A website, and pack of materials complemented this event. The pack comprises a variety of research findings on distributed leadership in school and materials to support schools in their development of this management concept. In this article, the author presents a summary…

Because the national education agenda is focused on standards, testing, and accountability, schools are at risk of narrowly defining their mission as improving test scores. In this environment, it is easy to forget that public education serves a larger civic mission. Preserving and promoting a democratic society was the founding precept of the…

In the United States, the concept of youth-adult partnership remains innovative. The notion that youth and adults can collaborate on issues of importance runs counter to prevailing societal norms, public policies, structures and standards of practice. There is not much cultural or policy support for managers seeking to integrate youth-adult…

Formative assessment refers to a system of more frequent summative assessments administered at regular intervals (often quarterly) to determine which students have not yet met state standards--an early warning system. On the one hand, it helps to identify students who need help when there is still time to help them. On the other hand, while this…

This article scopes some of the key political elements in the higher educational use of the read/write web, or Web2.0 as it is commonly known. It investigates ways in which these tools can be used to enhance deliberative democracy, the associations between individuals and their capability for decision-making. The structuring of spaces in which…

This study investigated the ways in which family members of students in a Hawaiian language immersion program were involved in their children's education and identified the effects of and barriers to involvement. A sociocultural theoretical approach and Epstein's framework of different types of involvement were applied. Participants included 35…

Ken Klingenstein has led national networking initiatives for the past 25 years. He served as director of computing and network services at the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1985-1999, and today, Klingenstein is director of middleware and security for Internet2. Truth is, this networking innovator has participated in the development of the…

This paper discusses the sociological issues raised by a recent study on school councils in England. This study revealed a lack of clarity among policy-makers and schools regarding the purpose of provision for pupil voice. The paper argues that this allows important questions about the functions of pupil voice to be avoided. While suggesting ways…

This digest summarizes some of the recent research regarding school-based management (SBM). In particular, it addresses two questions: (1) Is SBM working, and (2) What can schools changing to an SBM system do to ensure success? Information is presented on what type of SBM system works best, research on SBM success, the kinds of problems…

This paper presents findings of an interim evaluation of a site-based management (SBM) project involving three elementary schools in Toledo City Schools (Ohio). A survey of all teachers in the three schools elicited 52 responses, a 98 percent response rate. Teachers reported that relative progress had been made in the areas of collaboration,…