This supplemental text for educational policy, administration, and program evaluation courses provides a framework for examining the following crucial questions. To what extent have state and federal initiated policies actually been implemented during the past 25 years? and To what degree does implementation lead to effectiveness? At a time when critical understanding of the issues is essential for good decision making, this volume provides a valuable tool for teachers, students, and makers of educational policy.

This book presents a series of related empirical studies about the thinking and problem solving processes of expert educational leaders. It describes the nature of expert thinking and provides substantial explanations for the cognitive processes associated with expert thinking. Differences in the thinking and problem solving of male and female; novice and experienced; elementary, secondary, district administrators are all explored. In addition, the book provides a glimpse of the school administrator's world from a problem solving perspective and clarifies the kinds of experiences that give...

School districts in both Canada and the United States provide the sites for this research. Many of these districts were in the midst of reform or restructuring initiatives and these initiatives became an important context within which to understand the work of district leaders. The authors describe how effective superintendents work with their immediate staffs, elected trustees, and school-based administrators. Each chapter examines the meaning of effective district leadership from different perspectives. Common to almost all of the chapters is an appreciation of the exquisitely "political"...

Thomas Jefferson High School faced court-ordered busing, student unrest, white flight, district-sponsored alternative schools, high school consolidation, budget crises, closure threats, magnet programs, and co-existence with a Governor's School. Each event impacted the culture of academic excellence that had been painstakingly crafted during the school's first thirty years. This book offers a history of Tee-Jay from its inception in 1930 through its "glory days," covers the school's efforts to deal with the challenges of the post-integration era, and concludes with a discussion of what the...

For scholars and practitioners who are interested in or are concerned about knowledge-based issues, this book provides a needed antidote to narrow discussions of foundational issues.

The superintendency offers the most powerful and prestigious positions in K-12 public school systems. Few superintendents of these systems in the United States are women, although the majority of teachers are women and many women have leadership positions in schools. There are also increasing numbers of women in administrative preparation programs at institutions of higher education.

This study of 27 highly qualified women in top-level administrative positions in public education was designed to find out what it is like to be a woman aspiring to the executive leadership position. Research...

In 1909, when she became the superintendent of the Chicago schools, Ella Flagg Young proclaimed that women were "destined to rule the schools of every city." After all, women accounted for nearly eighty percent of all teachers by 1910 and their ascendance into formal school leadership positions could not be far behind. After World War II, however, a backlash against single women educators and a rigid realignment of gender roles in schools contributed to a rapid decline of women school administrators across the country, a decline from which there has been little recovery to the present....

This book provides a more comprehensive discussion of collaborative school efforts than any other single source currently available. Specifically, multiple disciplinary perspectives are presented, addressing the complexity or "promises and pitfalls" of school collaboration efforts. The book is organized in terms of major considerations in school collaboration initiatives--the organizational structure; the change process; inter-agency and intra-school collaborative efforts; and implications for instruction, leadership, and leadership preparation. Also, the book informs the design of educator...

Values and Educational Leadership extends beyond the presentation of expert opinion to blend theory, research, and practice for a comprehensive examination of values in educational leadership. It analyzes personal values manifested by individuals, professional values of administration, and collective values exhibited by groups, societies, and organizations.

The book merges the collective wisdom of some of the best known and most respected philosophers, theorists, and researchers currently working in the field, including: Derek J. Allison, Paul T. Begley, Paul V. Bredeson, Elizabeth...