Purpose: To fill the gap in theoretical and empirical knowledge on late career in principalship, the aim of this study was to explore the career experiences, needs, and behaviors of principals at this stage. Research method: Life history and semistructured interviews were conducted with 20 late-career principals, 20 schoolteachers, and 10…

In this article we discuss students', teachers' and school principals' perceptions of democratic school leadership reforms in Kenya. The article is based on a study that was conducted in two phases. In phase one (conducted between September and December 2007), interviews were undertaken with 12 school principals in which understandings of…

This study was conducted to determine how instructional supervision was carried out in schools. The study begins with a brief outline of the decentralization of the inspection system in Botswana. It proceeds to present a brief global historical background of instructional supervision before findings on instructional supervision are discussed.…

There is an inextricable link between democracy, education and the law. After 15 years of constitutional democracy, the alarming percentage of dysfunctional schools raises questions about the efficacy of the system of local school governance. We report on the findings of quantitative and qualitative research on the democratisation of schools and…

The INCLUD-ED project's case studies of successful schools in Europe reveal that there are advantages involved in opening schools to all kinds of women as far as educational and social inclusion is concerned. "Other Women"--those whose voices have traditionally been silenced in academic settings--help in crucial ways to improve education…

A cross-case analysis of five case studies of team-based technology leadership in middle schools with laptop programs identifies systems of practice that organize teams' distributed leadership. These cases suggest that successfully implementing a complex improvement effort warrants a team-based leadership approach, especially for an improvement…

For nearly three decades, the quality management philosophy known as Six Sigma has brought competitive advantage to organizations implementing it. The typical approach, however, has been to have leaders from operations, engineering, quality, and marketing manage this strategic initiative. Human resource's role has been to default to the…

Teachers encounter countless obstacles to ensure their needs are met when represented by the traditional union-administration working relationship. Unions hold established opinions and ideas on school policy about matters in the public school arena. The tradition of unions and district officials keeping one another placated in an adversarial…

The author's career experiences--as an impartial observer of community building, as an advocate working from within urban communities, and as a catalyst working from the outside--have given him a unique perspective into the dynamics of institutional/community engagement. "Basically, they have left me with three overriding convictions. First,…

In the fast paced, fluid contemporary world, and in a headlong rush to invent the future, there is a tendency to jettison aspects of the past as flotsam and jetsam, unworthy of a place in steerage into the future. This paper argues that is some respects the ordinary heroes and heroines who enact school leaderships, and from their practice…

A collaborative school-based intervention aimed at modifying relationships among administrators and teachers was implemented in three middle and junior high schools. Across the intervention schools, teachers were active collaborators in identifying problems and then articulating and implementing customized interventions to redress those problems.…

Institutional researchers can extend their dexterity in assessing the decision-making process at a university by developing a more robust array of organizational frames. The application of four organizational frames (structural frame, human resource frame, political frame, and symbolic frame) "deepens one's appreciation and understanding of…

Many authors (Kezar, 2005; Duke, 2002; Keeling, Underhile, and Wall, 2007; Matier, Sidle, and Hurst, 1994) propose a new model of higher education organizations or a style of decision making whose central component is collaboration. This key characteristic helps make full use of all of the institution's resources to increase the likelihood that it…

This article presents an interview with Ray Landers, the 2009 MetLife NASSP Middle Level Principal of the Year. Landers talks about how he and his staff members put programs in place to erase poverty gap at his school. He stresses the need to make sure that principals empower teachers so that collaborative decision making can take place.

This Wallace "Perspective" summarizes a decade of foundation research and work in school leadership to identify what it is that effective school principals do. It concludes that they carry out five key actions particularly well, including shaping a vision of academic success for all students and cultivating leadership in others. The…