Search

The problems faced by many small city school districts are often overshadowed by concerns for big city and rural school districts. We focus on some of the challenges faced by three small city school districts in Massachusetts with high percentages of students from low-income homes. Comparisons are made between these districts and three relatively affluent, high-achieving districts along with three big city districts, also in Massachusetts. We found that the three small city districts with high percentages of low-income homes struggle to provide significant percentages of their students with a high-quality education. We hope policy makers and researchers devote greater attention to helping small city educators overcome their challenges.

Should the topic of judgment have a place in the preparation and development of school leaders? This question serves as the focus for an examination of the nature of judgment and obstacles to good judgment. Judgment is defined as the ability to arrive at and make a choice when faced with incomplete information, uncertain conditions, and/or competing goals and values. The article argues that judgment and the related topics of decision making and problem solving are critical components of leader preparation. Suggestions are offered concerning judgment-related curriculum content and how it can be taught in pre-service and in-service settings.

Reports on the low achievement of African American students tend to focus on Black-White achievement gaps. This study draws from official reports that also consider within-race achievement differences. An argument is presented that within-race comparisons are likely to reveal important causal factors that may go unnoticed when between-race comparisons are made. Examples of within-race comparisons for African American students include comparisons across districts, states, types of schools, and gender. Implications for efforts to improve African American achievement are discussed for each type of within-race comparison.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a rationale for organizational histories of schools and school districts and discuss the findings of selected examples of the genre. Design/methodology/approach: The author presents a vignette of an organizational history, discusses key elements of the methodology, and offers seven ways in which organizational histories address important issues in educational research. Findings: A case is made, using actual examples of research, that organizational histories of schools and school districts can contribute to testing existing theory, developing new theory, describing how educational change occurs, accounting for the sustainability of educational change, explaining organizational continuity over time, understanding school and district responses to persistent social issues, and balancing an over-emphasis on the impact of school and district leaders. Originality/value: The paper draws on the author's original contributions to organizational history as well as the contributions of his doctoral students and others.

Prompted by the need for leaders able to turn around chronically low-performing schools, states, universities, education groups, and school districts in the US have initiated a variety of principal development programs. Some programs focus on enhancing the skills of experienced administrators, while others target talented teachers and even individuals with no prior school experience. Nowhere has the quest for turnaround specialists been undertaken with a greater investment of resources or on a larger scale than in Florida, where the state Department of Education in concert with the Southern Regional Education Board has used generous funding from the federal Race to the Top initiative to launch the Florida Turnaround Leaders Program. This article presents an overview of the Florida Turnaround Leaders Program, including its Theory of Action and the Design Principles for Leader Development upon which it is based. Some background information is offered on the circumstances that have led to new approaches to principal preparation, such as the Florida Turnaround Leaders Program. Details are provided concerning the skill sets encompassed by the training and the key assignments required of all participants. Finally, issues and obstacles encountered in the process of designing and implementing the Florida Turnaround Leaders Program are also addressed.

Have efforts to improve schools neglected high achievers? A growing chorus of critics is voicing concern for the achievement gap, but not the gap between well-to-do and poor students, or white and non-white students. The gap that most worries them is the one between U.S. students and students in other industrialized nations. Among the 34 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), for example, the United States ranks 14th in reading, 17th in science, and 25th in mathematics. And the U.S. high school graduation rate of 76% falls below the OECD average of 80%. The author looks at how one of the nation's best schools helps its best students continue their advancement. (Contains 1 table.)

An unprecedented amount of attention in recent years has been focused on turning around low-performing schools. Drawing on insights from Tyack and Cuban's (1995) "Tinkering Toward Utopia," the article analyzes the forces behind the school turnaround phenomenon and how they have evolved since passage of the No Child Left Behind Act. The article concludes by considering whether turnaround efforts represent the kind of reforms that Tyack and Cuban characterized as tinkering.

Case studies of two high schools that have been turned around from failing to successful show different ways in which failing high schools can be made to succeed. Both high schools concentrated on first helping incoming freshman, and both reforms were driven by data. They differed in staffing and the focus of their first year of reform.

This study investigated teachers' beliefs about the changes needed to improve student learning in low-performing schools. The study employed a new instrument, the Need for Change Assessment (NCA), which solicited teachers' perceptions of the need for change in areas such as reading and math programs, classroom instruction, and school policies. Teachers in 15 elementary, middle, and high schools in four states participated (N = 320). Factor analysis revealed two factors and showed that the NCA possesses sufficient internal consistency to justify its use by researchers and practitioners. In the aggregate, teachers were more likely to identify change as necessary in areas that did not involve their own practice. A school-level comparison of survey results revealed that high school teachers were more likely to see the need for change in their schools than were elementary and middle school teachers. Perceptions of the need for change varied substantially between schools; no two schools were alike. Finally, the authors found that teachers and principals may differ in their perceptions of what needs to change. This study has implications for how low-performing schools may undertake improvement efforts, specifically regarding which stakeholders drive change and how they do so. (Contains 4 tables.)

One of the most important strategies for stopping school decline is recognizing its signs early on and promptly applying appropriate interventions. In this article, the author identifies 11 indicators of school decline that are associated with inadequate and inappropriate responses to the challenges of budget cuts, state and federal mandates, loss of key personnel, and an influx of at-risk students. These are: (1) Undifferentiated assistance; (2) Inadequate monitoring of progress; (3) Unadjusted daily schedule; (4) Alignment problems; (5) Ineffective staff development; (6) Lost focus; (7) Lack of leadership; (8) Hasty hiring; (9) Increased class size; (10) Overreliance on untrained helpers; and (11) More rules and harsher punishments. (Contains 6 notes.)

This study examined whether instructional policies at the local level are becoming standardized as a result of state and federal accountability initiatives. A stratified random sample of 21 Virginia school districts was used, and the policies reviewed covered seven topics: class size, student grouping, homework, remedial instruction programs, school-year programs for students who fail state tests, summer school programs, and retaking state tests. The authors found that the majority of the 21 districts adopted or amended policies in the wake of accountability initiatives instituted since 1995. Both similarities and differences were found in the districts' policies, but the differences did not appear to be substantial. (Contains 3 tables and 1 footnote.)

Principals can tap the tacit knowledge, or "deep smarts," of their teachers in a variety of ways, many of which are based on the notion that tacit knowledge is best sought indirectly. Coming right out and asking people to share what they have learned over the years can be intimidating and disconcerting, especially if trust has not yet been developed between teachers and the principal. Instead of deep smarts, the principal is apt to hear a safe or politically correct response. The key to effective leadership is not to be surrounded by people who tell leaders what they want to hear. Effective leaders understand the absolute necessity of having access to people's true feelings. In this article, the author discusses action strategies that are based on two premises: First, teachers are an enormous storehouse of untapped tacit knowledge that has the potential to greatly enrich the knowledge base upon which principals draw when making decisions and solving problems. Second, every school has unique organizational and group dynamics, and the only way to bring the nuances of context into sharper focus is to tap into the collective tacit knowledge of all the staff members. These strategies are doable and relatively cost effective in terms of both dollars and time. The authors hope that these strategies might convince principals of the value of deep smarts and act as catalysts for more widespread initiatives in the future.