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,…

Theorists agree that the risk of folding changes as organizations age, but there is little consensus as to the general form or generative processes of age-dependent mortality. This article investigates four such processes (maturation, senescence, legitimation and obsolescence), which have been taken as competing accounts. Using two analytical…

This paper documents Pittsburgh's transformation from a typical, adversarial district-union dynamic to one of deep, substantive collaboration over the course of several years. This work has catapulted Pittsburgh to the vanguard of efforts to improve teacher effectiveness, and helped secure more than $80 million in philanthropic and federal grants.…

The data are clear: Unless the nation can find a better way to accelerate improvement in the quality of education and implement it in the next 10 years, this nation will lose its competitive edge against other nations and another generation of children will be lost. Eighty percent of Illinois high school graduates are not capable of doing the…

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…

There is excitement in the air at Clarke Central High School in anticipation of a $28 million renovation planned on its 27-acre, urban campus located just minutes from the University of Georgia in Athens. This extensive construction aims to fulfill a board of education mandate to provide equity among the Clarke County school facilities and will…

Based on two years of extensive data collection in four urban elementary schools, this paper examines the role of principals in the implementation of the Together Initiative (TI), a school reform model for schools labeled low-performing per state accountability standards. The reform model aims to increase school autonomy from district mandates and…

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…