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This article explores the utility of networked improvement communities (NICs) as an organizing structure for scaling character education across educational leadership programs through a case study of one network committed to integrating character education across varied institutions and contexts. In examining the improvement science process that guided NIC members’ development and implementation of character education approaches and their perceptions of and participation in NIC activities, this case study offers insights on the promise of structured collaboration across diverse institutions. Furthermore, it identifies the need for NICs to differentiate improvement science activities based on participants’ institutional readiness for character education.

As instructional reforms are shifting focus from reading and math achievement towards social–emotional learning and challenging coursework that prepares students for college, careers, and citizenship, this study addresses how leaders in two school districts actively served as mid-level implementers of global education, an instructional reform that extends teaching and learning beyond traditionally tested subject areas. This qualitative comparative case study of global education implementation in two school districts found that leaders in both districts strategically supported global education implementation by generating will, building capacity, and re-orienting the organization, but differed in specific strategies they deployed based upon preferences for top-down or top-and-bottom approaches to systems change. Common strategies found in both cases point to specific ways that district leaders can exert agency in supporting teaching and learning that prepares students with the twenty-first century skills needed to thrive in a pluralistic, interconnected world, and raises new questions about which district-level implementation approaches are most effective in enacting change in schools and classrooms.

Background/ContextThis study examines the implementation of an academic and social-emotional learning innovation called Personalization for Academic and Social Emotional Learning, or PASL. The innovation was designed, tested, and implemented using a continuous continuous-improvement model. The model emphasized a top-and-bottom process in which implementers played a central role in the innovation design, and adaptations were planned, tested, and refined based on local school contexts.PurposeThis study sought to understand what implementation integrity looked like in three high schools participating in a continuous continuous-improvement process that promoted deliberate, planned adaptations to PASL, and as well as to uncover factors that may explain differences in the integrity of PASL implementation across the three schools.Research DesignWe conducted embedded, qualitative case studies of three large, racially-, ethnically-, and linguistically- diverse urban high schools. Data collected and analyzed included interviews with school innovation design design-team members, student focus groups, and observations of teachers implementing PASL.FindingsEach school made site-specific adaptations to the PASL innovation before and during implementation. However, there was variation in the extent to which the schools demonstrated integrity to the PASL design and their own adaptations. A combination of local contextual factors helped explain differences in implementation integrity across the schools. These factors included the availability of resources and ongoing technical support, the will of local implementers, and perceptions about policy alignment.Conclusions/RecommendationsWhile PASL was implemented across the three school sites, the degree of implementation integrity varied, suggesting that encouraging program adaptation alone may not solve longstanding challenges associated with achieving depth of implementation. This is the first study of its kind in education, however, and more research is clearly warranted.

The last 5 years have witnessed growing support amongst government institutions and educational foundations for applying continuous improvement research (CIR) in school settings. CIR responds to the challenge of implementing effective educational innovations at scale by working with practitioners in local contexts to understand “what works, for whom, and under what conditions.” CIR works to achieve system improvement through the use of plan–do–study–act (PDSA) cycles, which are multiple tests of small changes. This comparative case study of two urban school districts examined how innovation design teams took up PDSA in their work to improve high school student outcomes, and their perceptions of PDSA as an approach to innovation development, adaptation, and implementation. Findings revealed both possibilities and challenges for implementing PDSA. Nearly all participants reported the value in PDSA, and participants pointed to connections to previous experiences and PDSA training as helping to build capacity. However, we found mixed levels of enthusiasm for actually conducting PDSA cycles, and capacity constraints regarding time and data collection.

Global migration, global markets, and technological advances have connected the world at an unprecedented scale and have diversified the communities with which people engage and the schools in which educators teach. This study explores the school leadership attributes that facilitate the learning of critical competencies needed to thrive in a diverse, interconnected world. Using agrounded theory approach to analyze in-depth interviews with eleven practicing school principals, ten globally minded leadership practices emerged from the data. These fell under the constructs of setting the direction, developing people, redesigning the organization, and situating glocally. Findings hold implications for how educational leadership programs and professional development providers can utilize this emerging framework to cultivate globally minded leaders.

On a muggy southern summer Monday afternoon, with thunderstorm clouds looming in the not-so-distant horizon, thousands of adults, teenagers, and children; men and women; black, white, and brown; st...

Purpose: Research indicates that a culture of learning is a key factor in building high schools that foster academic achievement in all students. Yet less is known about which elements of a culture of learning differentiate schools with higher levels of academic performance. To fill this gap, this comparative case study examined the cultures of learning among adults and students in two highly effective high schools and two less effective high schools with similar demographics in a single large, urban school district. Research Method: Using 135 interviews and focus groups with administrators, teachers, and students across four case study schools, the authors analyzed the extent to which various elements of a culture of learning was present within and across schools. Findings: Effective high schools had stronger cultures of learning with distinct structures and practices that distinguished them from the less effective schools. These included frequent opportunities for formal collaboration, shared goals centered on universal high expectations, structured opportunities for participatory leadership, and deliberate supports to help students engage and achieve in academics. Findings further revealed that certain structures were necessary though not sufficient in fostering effective cultures of learning, the active role of school leaders in reinforcing a culture of learning, and high leverage practices that addressed multiple elements of a culture of learning. Implications: This study provides implications for how school leaders can begin to create and improve on school-wide cultures of learning by drawing on the high leverage practices that distinguished the highly effective case study schools.

As classrooms become increasingly diverse and students need more complex skills for collaboratively addressing transnational issues, we need a better understanding of the factors that contribute to globally competent teaching. Education research has highlighted the benefits of study abroad and overseas teaching, as well as local cross-cultural immersion, but these options are not always feasible. We sought to identify the various means by which teachers develop global competence. Through this qualitative case study of 10 global educators, we found that international travel, though present in some instances, was not always necessary. In fact, it was an accumulation of experiences that prompted teachers to incorporate global perspectives, lessons, and skill development throughout their careers. Thus, globally competent teaching may be better conceptualized as a path, rather than as an end goal.

Factors such as weak early literacy skills and living in poverty may put young students at risk for reading disabilities. While home literacy activities and access to literacy materials have been associated with positive reading outcomes for urban and suburban students, little is known about home literacy environments of rural early elementary school students living in poverty and their relationship to foundational reading skills for struggling and nonstruggling readers. This study examined how home literacy environments might relate to rural kindergarten and first grade students’ reading performance. Parents of 1,108 kindergarten and first grade students in the rural Southeast completed questionnaires on the frequency of home literacy activities and access to literacy materials. Multilevel model analyses revealed that home literacy activities and access to literacy materials were positively related to basic word reading skills, passage comprehension, and spelling. Implications for families and educators are discussed.

This 2017 Politics of Education Yearbook focuses on the power of policymaking networks to set agendas and shape education policy. As the yearbook title suggests, we present a series of case studies...

There is growing concern among researchers and governmental officials that knowing what works in education is important, but not enough for school improvement. Sound evidence alone is not sufficient for large-scale, sustainable change, both because practitioners may consider it irrelevant to their own problems of practice or run into challenges when they try to implement. Failed attempts at replicating positive outcomes in new (or simply expanded) settings underscore the need for a different relationship between research and practice, one that takes a systemic perspective on improvement and transforms the role for research. In this article, we describe the new science of improvement and where it sits in the evolution of research on education policy implementation. We discuss the roots of the approach as well as its key features. We explain how the work differs from that of traditional research and end with illustrations of this difference from our experiences with the National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools.

Teach For America (TFA), an organization that places college graduates as teachers in low-income areas for 2 years, contributes to teacher attrition. With this mixed methods study in one urban region, we investigated teachers’ professional decisions at the end of 2 years. Respondents fell into categories in relation to the organization’s 2-year commitment, including leavers, lingerers, and lasters, and descriptors related to remaining at placement school or relocating to another school. Historical, environmental, and external factors impacted teachers’ professional decisions related to retention and attrition. Findings provide insight to improve retention of TFA teachers.