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PurposeThis study extends research on one of the most frequently cited school leadership frameworks by examining the psychometric properties of the instrument designed to assess many of the practices included in that framework.Design/methodology/approachUsing data collected from 1,401 teachers the study examined the instrument’s measurement invariance, score reliabilities, as well as construct and predictive validities. Polytomous latent trait models (Many-Facet Rasch model), scale and principal component analysis using second-order Confirmatory Factor Analysis, and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)-Path modelling were used for these purposes.FindingsFindings report levels of score reliability and valid score inferences. Results concerning the predictive validity of the instrument indicate a complex set of relations among the domains of leadership practices measured by the instrument, variables selected as mediators of leaders’ influence, and their direct and indirect effects on student learning.Research limitations/implicationsThis study provides researchers with a reliable and valid instrument for use in their future research. Data for the study were provided by elementary teachers in one US state. The extent to which results of the instrument are valid across different cultural and organizational settings remains to be determined.Practical implicationsLeadership developers may find the instrument useful for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of those participating in their programs while leaders themselves many find the instrument useful for self-diagnosis.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the development of school leadership measures by including Rasch modeling among the methods used for examining the instrument’s psychometric properties.

Chapter 1: Organizational Learning in Schools: An Introduction Kenneth Leithwood and Karen Seashore Louis Part I Chapter 2: Creating Community in Reform: Images of Organizational Learning in Inner-City Schools Karen Seashore Louis and Sharon D. Kruse Chapter 3: Informal Learning Communities and their Effects Miriam Ben-Peretz and Shifra Schonmann Chapter 4: Leadership and other Conditions which Foster Organizational Learning in Schools Kenneth Leithwood, Doris Jantzi, and Rosanne Steinbach Part II Chapter 5: Talking about Restructuring: Using Concept Maps Jean A. King, Jeffrey Allen, and Khahm Nguyen Chapter 6: Organizational Consequences of Participatory Evaluation: School District Case Study J. Bradley Cousins Chapter 7: Professional Development Schools as Contexts for Teacher Learning and Leadership Linda Darling-Hammond, Velma Cobb, and Marcella Bullmaster Chapter 8: Learning about Organizational Learning Coral Mitchell and Larry Sackney Part III Chapter 9: Team Learning Processes Kenneth Leithwood Chapter 10: Intellectual Roots of Organizational Learning J. Bradley Cousins Chapter 11: School Development and Organizational Learning: Toward an Integrative Theory Janna C. Voogt, Nijs A.J. Lagerweij, and Karen Seashore Louis OL_FM 16/10/2000 10:57 Page 5 Part IV Chapter 12: Organizational Learning and Current Reform Efforts: From Exploitation to Exploration Sam Stringfield Chapter 13: From Organizational Learning to Professional Learning Communities Karen Seashore Louis and Kenneth Leithwood Author Index Subject Index

This paper reviews the results of 63 empirical studies and reviews of research in order to identify those school leadership practices and dispositions likely to help improve equitable school conditions and outcomes for diverse and traditionally underserved students. Guided by a well-developed framework of successful school leadership, results indicate that most of the practices and dispositions in the framework can be enacted in ways that contribute to more equitable conditions and outcomes for students. A handful of these practices and dispositions appear to make an especially significant contribution to the development of more equitable schools as well as several additional practices and dispositions associated with equitable leadership merit mastery by equitably-oriented leaders. Among the especially significant practices are building productive partnerships among parents, schools, and the larger community as well as encouraging teachers to engage in forms of instruction with all students that are both ambitious and culturally responsive. Leaders are likely to be more effective when they adopt a critical perspective on the policies, practices, and procedures in their schools and develop a deep understanding of the cultures, norms, values, and expectations of the students’ families. The paper concludes with implications for practice and future research.

Purpose: This study tested a set of variables mediating school leadership’s influence on students referred to as “The four paths model.” Each path in the model includes variables with significant direct effects on student learning and which are malleable to practices included in an integrated model of effective school leadership. Research Design: Evidence for the study were responses to a survey by 1,779 teachers in 81 Texas elementary schools about the status of school leadership and all 13 variables on the four paths. Student achievement data were provided by results of state tests combining all subjects and all grades, while the count and percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch was used to estimate socioeconomic status. Confirmatory factor analysis, regression analysis, and structural equation modeling were used to analyze the data. Findings: Results uncovered a more nuanced and complex set of relationships among the four paths and their component variables than was specified in the original version of the model. School leadership significantly influenced student learning only through variables on one path, while variables on the other three paths influenced student learning only through their contribution to variables on that one path. Conclusions: Results point to the value of future research about the relationships among variables on the four paths, as well as efforts to identify latent variables among the observed variables in the study. Results of the study can be used by school leaders to more productively focus their school improvement efforts.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to test the effects of nine district characteristics on student achievement, explored the conditions that mediated the effects of such characteristics and contributed to understandings about the role school-level leaders play in district efforts to improve achievement. Design/methodology/approach Data for the study were provided by the responses of 2,324 school and district leaders in 45 school districts to two surveys. Student achievement evidence was provided by multi-grade provincial measures of math and language achievement. The analysis of these data included calculation of descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis and regression mediation analysis. Findings Seven of nine district characteristics contributed significantly to student achievement and three conditions served as especially powerful mediators of such district effects. The same three conditions, as well as others, acted as significant mediators of school-level leader effects on achievement, as well. Practical implications District characteristics tested in the study provide a powerful framework for guiding the district improvement work of senior educational leaders. The organizational improvement efforts of both district and school leaders would be substantially enhanced by a better understanding of how to diagnose and improve the status of those conditions acting as significant mediators of the effects of both district and school leadership on student achievement. Originality/value This is one of a very few large-scale quantitative studies examining the extent to which characteristics frequently identified by district effectiveness research explain variation in student learning. It is also one of the very few studies identifying classroom, school and family variables that mediate district effects on such learning. The study also adds to a growing body of evidence about variables which mediate school leaders’ effects on such learning.

In 2008 we published an article in this journal entitled Seven Strong Claims about Successful School Leadership (Leithwood, Harris, and Hopkins 2008). The article was based on a major literature re...

This postscript uses a framework explaining the influences on principals' practices in order to highlight key findings from the four papers in this journal issue and to surface five insights relate...

Purpose: Replicating and extending earlier research, this mixed-methods study inquired about the characteristics of effective school leadership networks and the contribution of such networks to the...

Purpose This study is a quantitative exploration of a new construct the authors label as “academic culture (AC).” Treating it as generalized latent variable composed of academic press (AP), disciplinary climate (DC), and teachers’ use of instructional time, the purpose of this paper is to explore the potential of this construct to be a key mediator of school leaders’ influence on student learning. The study is guided by three hypotheses. Design/methodology/approach Responses by 856 elementary teachers from 70 schools to an online survey measured the three components of AC along with school leadership (SL). Provincial tests of writing, reading, and math were used as measures of student achievement (SA). Social economic status (SES) was used as control variable for the study. Data were summarized using descriptive statistics and correlations were calculated among all variables. Analyses included intra-class correlation analysis, regression equations, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling. Findings Evidence confirmed the study’s three hypotheses: first, AP, DC, and instructional time formed a general latent construct, AC; second, AC explained a significant proportion of the variance in SA, controlling for student SES; and third, AC was a significant mediator of SL’s influence on SA. Concepts and measures of academic optimism (AO) and AC are compared in the paper and implications for practice and future research are outlined. Originality/value This first study of AC explored the relationship between AC and SA. Although at least two AO studies have included measures of distributed leadership, minimal attention has been devoted to actually testing the claim that AO is amenable to the influence of explicit leadership practices (as distinct from enabling school structures) and is a powerful mediator of SL effects on student learning. Addressing this limitation of AO research to date, the present study included a well-developed measure of leadership practices and assessed the value of AC as a mediator of such practices.

This paper addresses a wicked problem faced by leaders wanting to be evidence informed in their choices of school improvement priorities and the most productive leadership practices to enact in pur...

This special issue of the International Journal of Education Policy & Leadership (IJEPL), Research in the Canadian Context, marks a significant milestone for the journal. Throughout our twelve-year history, we have sought to publish the best research in leadership, policy, and research use, allowing authors to decide the topics by dint of their research. While this model still serves as the foundation for IJEPL content, we decided to give researchers a chance to engage in deeper conversations by introducing special issues. In our first special issue, researchers discuss their work within the scope of education policy, leadership, and research use within the Canadian context. While many aspects of leadership, teaching, and learning can be seen as similar across contexts, there are also issues of particular concern within national, regional, provincial, or local spheres, particularly when looking at policy and system changes. The researchers featured in this issue provide an important look into education in Canada.PolicyIn the policy realm, Sue Winton and Lauren Jervis examine a 22-year campaign to change special education assessment policy in Ontario, examining how discourses dominant in the province enabled the government to leave the issue unresolved for decades. Issues of access and equity play out within a neoliberal context focused on individualism, meritocracy, and the reduced funding of public services. While Winton and Jervis highlight the tension between policy goals and ideological contexts, Jean-Vianney Auclair considers the place of policy dialogues within governmental frames, and the challenge of engaging in broadly applicable work within vertically structured governmental agencies. One often-touted way to move beyondResearch useWithin the scope of research use, Sarah L. Patten examines how socioeconomic status (SES) is defined and measured in Canada, the challenges in defining SES, and potential solutions specific to the Canadian context. In looking at knowledge mobilization, Joelle Rodway considers how formal coaches and informal social networks nserve to connect research, policy, and practice in Ontario’s Child and Youth Mental Health program.LeadershipTurning to leadership, contributing researchers explored the challenges involved in staff development, administrator preparation, and student outcomes. Keith Walker and Benjamin Kutsyuruba explore how educational administrators can support early career teachers to increase retention, and the somewhat haphazard policies and supports in place across Canada to bring administrators and new teachers together. Gregory Rodney MacKinnon, David Young, Sophie Paish, and Sue LeBel look at how one program in Nova Scotia conceptualizes professional growth, instructional leadership, and administrative effectiveness and the emerging needs of administrators to respond to issues of poverty, socioemotional health, and mental health, while also building community. This complex environment may mean expanding leadership preparation to include a broader consideration of well-being and community. Finally, Victoria Handford and Kenneth Leithwood look at the role school leaders play in improving student achievement in British Columbia, and the school district characteristics associated with improving student achievement.Taken together, the research in this special issue touches on many of the challenges in policy development, application, and leadership practice, and the myriad ways that research can be used to address these challenges. We hope you enjoy this first special issue of IJEPL!

Conducted in British Columbia, this mixed-methods study tested the effects of nine district characteristics on student achievement, explored conditions that mediate the effects of such characteristics, and contributed to understandings about the role school-level leaders play in district efforts to improve achievement. Semistructured interview data from 37 school administrators provided qualitative data. Quantitative data were provided by the responses of 998 school and district leaders’ in 21 districts to two surveys. Student achievement data were district-level results of elementary and secondary student provincial math and language test scores. All nine district characteristics contributed significantly to student achievement. Three conditions served as especially powerful mediators of such district effects. The same conditions, as well as others, acted as significant mediators of school-level leader effects on achievement. This is among the few large-scale mixed-methods studies identifying characteristics of districts explaining variation in student achievement.

This mixed-methods study inquired about characteristics of districts which influence changes in student achievement and how those characteristics are developed. Staff in 49 Ontario districts were surveyed to estimate the status of nine district characteristics on changes in provincial tests of math and language achievement over five years. A cross-case analysis of interview data collected in three high-performing districts provided in-depth descriptions of each of the nine district characteristics. Results indicated that most of the nine district characteristics had significant effects on student achievement. Implications for policy and practice are suggested.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to inquire about the characteristics of effective school leadership networks and the contribution of such networks to the development of individual leaders’ professional capacities.Design/methodology/approach– The study used path-analytic techniques with survey data provided by 450 school and district leaders in Ontario to test a path model of effective network characteristics. Variables in the model included network leadership, structure, health, connectivity, outcomes and unintended challenges.Findings– Results confirmed that the model was a very good fit with the data, and as a whole, explained 51 percent of the variation in network outcomes. Network leadership had the largest total effect on network outcomes (R2=0.56), followed closely by the effects of network health (R2=0.49) and network connectivity (R2=0.46).Research limitations/implications– The study was limited to leadership networks intentionally organized within districts, not networks organized by school leaders themselves or networks arising spontaneously by their members. Results cannot be generalized to other types of networks.Practical implications– In addition to a focus on single unit leadership development in districts, systematic initiatives should be designed to help prepare network leaders to foster the forms of collaboration that are so central to professional capacity development.Originality/value– Results of the study offer explicit guidance to network leaders about how to improve the contribution of network participation to their colleagues’ capacities; it is one of a very small number studies in educational contexts to provide such guidance.

This review of research was prompted by the widespread belief that at least in a significant number of secondary schools, department heads are an underutilized, if not untapped, source of instructional leadership, the type of leadership critical to secondary-school improvement initiatives. Forty-two methodologically diverse empirical studies were used to inquire about department and department-head contributions to secondary-school improvement. Results indicate that department and department-head effects on students are consistently positive, practically meaningful and larger than school effects. Well-functioning departments are powerful centers for improvement. But significant hurdles to effective department-head leadership often minimize its effect, for example, some secondary teacher cultures, some teacher union policies, and some heads’ own conceptions of their roles and responsibilities. Conditions enabling successful department-head leadership are identified.

This study reviews evidence about the overall influence of direction-setting leadership practices (DSLPs), 1 of 4 major categories of practices included in a widely known conception of effective leadership (e.g., Leithwood & Louis, 2011) and a focus of many other such conceptions, as well. This study also inquires about how direction-setting practices influence distal organizational outcomes, including student achievement, conceiving of such influence as traveling along (or influencing variables on) 4 “paths”. Standard meta-analysis, narrative review, and effect size summation and averaging were applied on 110 studies involved in this review. The findings of this study, as one in a related series of investigations, inform the further development of a model of successful school leadership practices.

School leaders’ influence on student achievement is largely indirect. Using systematic review techniques, this chapter assesses the impact that leaders have on their students when they focus their improvement efforts on those teacher emotions or dispositions known to have direct effects on teaching and learning in the classroom. Building on an earlier conceptions of how leadership influences student learning and based on a review of research over the last 25 years, this chapter identifies four distinct teacher emotions which have significant effects on student learning – collective teacher efficacy, teacher commitment, teacher trust in others, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior. This chapters also describes leadership practices likely to foster productive teacher emotions, most such practices reflecting a transformational approach to leadership.

This chapter provides a brief overview of the Ontario Leadership Framework (Leithwood, K, The Ontario leadership framework with a discussion of the research foundations. Institute for Educational Leadership, Toronto, 2012), a comprehensive description of those leadership practices and personal leadership resources the “best available evidence” suggests contribute either directly or indirectly to student learning and well-being. Developed for the Ontario Ministry of Education, the Framework outlines standards and expectations for educational leadership in the province and is widely used within the province as a guide for leadership selection, development and self-appraisal.

This chapter describes the third and final stage of a large scale study about the nature and consequences of distributed school leadership. Assuming considerable variation in patterns of distributed leadership in schools, the first stage and aimed to identify those patterns; four distinct patterns were identified and are described in this chapter. The second stage assumed that the four different patterns of distributed leadership would have substantially different associations with one of the school conditions (academic optimism) that compelling recent evidence suggests positively influences student achievement; we found that one of the four patterns (“planful alignment”) did have significant positive associations with academic optimism. As the final stage in our project, the study described in this chapter aimed to determine the extent to which planful alignment, mediated by “academic press” or emphasis, a key condition on the Rational Path, contributes to student achievement in mathematics.

PurposeTrust among teachers in schools is significantly related to student achievement and trust in school leaders is an important influence on such trust. The purpose of this study is to identify leadership practices which teachers interpret as signs of trustworthiness on the part of their principals.Design/methodology/approachEvidence for the study was provided by post‐observation interviews with 24 randomly selected teachers in three “high trust” and three “low trust” schools selected from a much larger sample of schools included in a national study. Coding of interview data was guided by a framework of trust antecedents identified through a wide‐ranging review of empirical research.FindingsResults demonstrated that teacher trust in principals is most influenced by leadership practices which teachers interpret as indicators of competence, consistency and reliability, openness, respect and integrity.Originality/valueThese results, generally consistent with previous research, specify, in much greater detail than has been reported to date, leadership trust‐building practices.

Based on a synthesis of unpublished transformational school leadership (TSL) research completed during the last 14 years, this study inquired into the nature of TSL and its effects on student achievement using review methods including standard meta-analysis and vote-counting techniques. Results identify a wider range of TSL practices than typically has been measured in previous TSL research. Results also suggest that TSL has small but significant effects on student achievement, some TSL practices are especially powerful explanations of these effects, and a large handful of variables both moderate and mediate TSL effects on students.

Background: Using meta-analytic review techniques, this study synthesized the results of 79 unpublished studies about the nature of transformational school leadership (TSL) and its impact on the school organization, teachers, and students. This corpus of research associates TSL with 11 specific leadership practices. These practices, as a whole, have moderate positive effects on a wide range of consequential school conditions. They also have moderately strong and positive effects on individual teachers’ internal states, followed by their influence on teacher behaviors and collective teachers’ internal states. TSL has small but significant positive effects on student achievement. Research Design: This synthesis of unpublished research results is accomplished by a systematic series of meta-correlations and is compared with the results of earlier systematic reviews of published TSL research. Findings: Among the conclusions arising from the study is that several of the most widely advocated models of effective educational leadership actually include many of the same practices. Conclusions: More attention by researchers, practitioners, and researchers needs to be devoted to the impact of specific leadership practices and less to leadership models.

Purpose: This article describes and reports the results of testing a new conception of how leadership influences student learning (“The Four Paths”). Framework: Leadership influence is conceptualized as flowing along four paths (Rational, Emotions, Organizational, and Family) toward student learning. Each path is populated by multiple variables with more or less powerful effects on student learning. Leaders increase student learning by improving the condition or status of selected variables on the Paths. Research Methods: Evidence includes teacher responses to an online survey (1,445 responses) measuring distributed leadership practices in their schools ( N = 199) and variables mediating leaders’ effects on students. Grade 3 and 6 math and literacy achievement data were provided by the province’s annual testing program. The 2006 Canadian Census data provided a composite measure of school socioeconomic status. Path modeling techniques were used to test six hypotheses. Results: The Four Paths model as a whole explains 43% of the variation in student achievement. Variables on the Rational, Emotions, and Family Paths explain similarly significant amounts of that variation. Variables on the Organizational Path were unrelated to student achievement. Leadership had its greatest influence on the Organizational Path and least influence on the Family Path. Implications: School leaders and leadership researchers should be guided much more directly by existing evidence about school, classroom, and family variables with powerful effects on student learning as they make their school improvement and research design decisions.

This article presents the results of research into the impact of principal turnover on schools, and the ability of schools to mitigate the negative effects of frequent turnover by distributing leadership in the schools. The findings from this qualitative and quantitative analysis show that rapid principal turnover does indeed have a negative effect on a school, primarily affecting the school culture. Where there is high principal turnover, taking a coordinated approach to leadership distribution appears to mitigate at least some of the negative consequences of leadership turnover.

This article identifies characteristics of school districts that have been exceptionally successful in closing gaps in achievement among diverse groups of students, including students in challenging circumstances. Evidence for the paper was provided by 31 studies. These were studies, published in the past ten years, which reported original evidence about the association between one or more district characteristics and some valued set of outcomes, or described one or more practices within a district previously found to be high performing. Ten district characteristics are described and several implications for future policy, research, and practice are outlined.

This study examined data use and conditions influencing data use by typical principals and teachers, as well as the relationship between data use and student performance. The analysis drew upon a multi-method investigation of leadership at the school, district, and state levels. The findings emphasize the leadership of principals in establishing data use purposes and expectations, opportunities, training, access to expertise, and follow-up actions. Principal and teacher use of data is strongly shaped by district leaders in the context of state accountability systems. Statistical evidence linking patterns of data use to achievement test results was weak, and limited to elementary schools.

This review examined 57 post-1990 empirical studies of school size effects on a variety of student and organizational outcomes. The weight of evidence provided by this research clearly favors smaller schools. Students who traditionally struggle at school and students from disadvantaged social and economic backgrounds are the major benefactors of smaller schools. Elementary schools with large proportions of such students should be limited in size to not more than about 300 students; those serving economically and socially heterogeneous or relatively advantaged students should be limited in size to about 500 students. Secondary schools serving exclusively or largely diverse and/or disadvantaged students should be limited in size to about 600 students or fewer, while those secondary schools serving economically and socially heterogeneous or relatively advantaged students should be limited in size to about 1,000 students.

Purpose: This study aimed to estimate the impact of collective, or shared, leadership on key teacher variables and on student achievement. As well, it inquired about the relative contribution of different sources of such leadership and whether differences among patterns of collective leadership were related to differences in student achievement.Methods: Evidence included 2,570 teacher responses from 90 elementary and secondary schools in which four or more teachers completed usable surveys. Student achievement data in language and math averaged over 3 years were acquired through school Web sites. Data were analyzed using path-analytic techniques.Findings: Collective leadership explained a significant proportion of variation in student achievement across schools. Higher-achieving schools awarded leadership influence to all school members and other stakeholders to a greater degree than that of lower-achieving schools. These differences were most significant in relation to the leadership exercised by school teams, parents, and students. Principals were awarded the highest levels of influence in schools at all levels of achievement.Implications: Influence seems to be an infinite resource in schools. The more those in formal leadership roles give it away, the more they acquire.

Purposes: This study aimed to improve our understanding of the nature, causes and consequence of school leader efficacy, including indirect influences on student learning. We asked about district contributions to school leader efficacy, whether leader self- and collective efficacy responded to the same or different district conditions and the effects of leader efficacy on conditions in the school and the learning of students.Methods: Evidence for the study was provided by 96 principal and 2,764 teacher respondents to two separate surveys, along with student achievement data in language and math averaged over 3 years. Path analytic techniques were used to address the objectives for the study.Findings: In this study, school leaders' collective efficacy was an important link between district conditions and both the conditions found in schools and their effects on student achievement. School leaders'sense of collective efficacy also had a strong, positive, relationship with leadership practices found to be effective in earlier studies.Implications: These results suggest that district leaders are most likely to build the confidence and sense of collective efficacy among principals by emphasizing the priority they attach to achievement and instruction, providing targeted and phased focus for school improvement efforts and by building cooperative working relationships with schools.

PurposeThe goal of this study was to examine the relationship between four patterns of distributed leadership and a modified version of a variable Hoyet al.have labeled “teachers' academic optimism.” The distributed leadership patterns reflect the extent to which the performance of leadership functions is consciously aligned across the sources of leadership, and the degree to which the approach is either planned or spontaneous.Design/methodology/approachData for the study were the responses of 1,640 elementary and secondary teachers in one Ontario school district to two forms of an online survey, xx items in form 1 and yy items in form 2. Two forms were used to reduce the response time required for completion and each form measured both overlapping and separate variables.FindingsThe paper finds that high levels of academic optimism were positively and significantly associated with planned approaches to leadership distribution, and conversely, low levels of academic optimism were negatively and significantly associated with unplanned and unaligned approaches to leadership distribution.Originality/valueThis study provides as‐yet rare empirical evidence about the relationship between distributed leadership and other important school characteristics. It also adds support to arguments for the value of more coordinated forms of leadership distribution.

In this paper the authors provide a synopsis of their results to date by organising them in response to four questions. These are questions about: leadership actions that account for sustained improvement or effectiveness in their school over at least several years; how the influence of these actions is exercised; differences among heads’ leadership associated with school sector, phase of work and student intake characteristics; patterns of actions taken by heads toward school improvement. For each of these questions they also point to additional research that would be valuable, and their own next steps as well as the research of others.

The past 15 years have witnessed a remarkably consistent, worldwide effort by educational policy-makers to reform schools by holding them more publicly accountable for improving pupil performance o...

This study, based on interviews with 31 principals, was undertaken in response to quantitative evidence from a larger mixed-methods project that found school leaders’ collective efficacy to be a crucial link joining district leadership and conditions to school conditions and student learning. Results of this study suggest that districts contribute to building-level leaders’ sense of efficacy by establishing clear, widely shared purposes; awarding priority to the improvement of instruction; and ensuring that teachers and administrators have access to appropriate amounts of meaningful professional development aimed at developing the capacities needed to achieve the shared purposes.

Policy makers and leadership developers now admonish both aspiring and practicing educational leaders to base what they do on evidence of “best practice”. Some argue, however, that today’s best practices stand a reasonably good chance of being unsuitable for schools in the future. Unfortunately, effective leadership in future schools is empirically unknowable. This paper unpacks the arguments about “best” and “next” practices concluding that there is an empirically defensible foundation for current and future leaders.

In this study, we inquired about patterns of leadership distribution, as well as which leadership functions were performed by whom, the characteristics of nonadministrative leaders, and the factors promoting and inhibiting the distribution of leadership functions. We consider our account of distributed leadership in this district to be a probable example of “best practice” at the present time—not perfect, but likely more mature than average by a significant degree. The most noteworthy detail to emerge from our study was the critical part played by formal school and district leaders in helping to foster apparently productive forms of distributed leadership.

Parent involvement in their children’s learning is widely acknowledged as having a positive effect on student academic success. Of particular relevance is the finding that the influence of parent engagement can mitigate differences in socioeconomic status (SES) and family background. Family background is a multi-dimensional concept that includes the family’s “educational culture” (including for example, parenting style, parental expectations for children’s work at school, direct instructional support for school learning, active parent interest in the school’s curriculum, and the monitoring of children’s engagement with their school work). It is these features of a child’s home environment that directly influence much of the social and intellectual capital students need to be successful at school. This paper summarizes a quasi-experimental field study which explored the relative effects of alternative types of school interventions on parent engagement. All of these interventions aimed to further engage parents in the education of their children as a means of both improving student achievement and closing gaps in achievement for students living primarily in challenging social and economic circumstances. Initiatives by school staffs aimed at helping those families struggling to build productive educational cultures in their homes would appear to be a very promising strategy for closing achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students. The study provides eight lessons other districts might take heed of as they embark on their own parent engagement interventions.

This multimethod study generated and tested a “best evidence” model of school improvement processes (SIP) capable of improving student achievement. Initially developed through the review of a comprehensive body of previous empirical research, the model was further refined through a 2, 5-year longitudinal study in 10 schools. A quantitative test of this refined model was then conducted using survey evidence from administrators, teachers, parents, and students in 100 elementary schools. The model as a whole explained modest but significant amounts of variation in student achievement across schools. School leadership and SIP implementation processes accounted for the largest proportion of explained variation.