This book investigates the localised effects of reform by exploring the impact of a school improvement policy agenda on the work of three experienced principals. It presents three longitudinal case studies within a shared specific leadership context in Queensland, Australia. The case studies enable an exploration of the way the principalship in this context has evolved over time, providing deep insights into the practices and beliefs of three experienced school leaders working in a period of rapid and urgent systemic reform. The nature of global reform policy borrowing means that the research and the findings within this monograph are relevant for international audiences. The book describes a new way to understand and theorise the effects of reform policies and associated pressures on school leaders. Using post-structural theory, it provides a better understanding of the specific effects of reform policy ensembles, particularly when combined with an analysis of the ways policy and discourse work together at a wider level to create an environment that disciplines the principalship. Further, it sheds lights on the means of complying with or contesting policy influences and how the work of leaders has changed over time.

Presenting international evidence, from school systems across the globe, this book documents patterns, causes, and effects of school principals' time use, building a case for the implications for school improvement, administration, and leadership. This edited volume offers an unparalleled set of chapters that delve into conceptual and methodological issues in researching principals' time use. Chapters consist of empirical studies that advance fresh perspectives and build empirical ground on how principals use time across different school systems in Africa, Asia, Europe, Middle East, Oceania, and North America. This unique book, is a useful resource for researchers and educators, capturing the geographically diverse contexts of principal time use. This work makes a significant contribution to the field of school improvement, administration, and leadership with both theoretical depth and empirical grounding.

Capturing insights from 20 successful principals, this illuminating book presents real-world strategies that help school leaders refine their administrative skills and generate dramatic improvements in schoolwide achievement.

This book explores the principal’s role in meeting high expectations for student achievement. It provides detailed tips and strategies to show you what principals need to do to: assess and promote a culture and climate for school improvement, build teams and support the work their work, create the conditions so that teacher leaders can emerge, and monitor school improvement efforts

-This text presents a step-by-step approach to problem diagnosis and school improvement. --

Uses charts and action steps to analyze a school's leadership capacity and explores how to sustain a learning community where everyone takes ownership of improvement efforts.

At the heart of the effort to enact and scale up successful school reforms is the need for more robust links between research and practice. One promising approach is design development, a methodology widely used in other fields and only recently adapted to education, which offers a disciplined process for identifying practical problems, assessing evidence of outcomes, accounting for variability in implementation and results, and establishing a foundation for broader understanding of the problem and proposed solutions. This exciting new book provides a practical guide for education leaders who are seeking to address issues of equity in their schools and want to pursue this approach. The book provides a step-by-step description of the process, augmented by case studies of four education leaders: Christine, a middle school principal who is concerned with the volume of disciplinary referrals in her school; Michelle, an elementary school principal who wants to address achievement gaps; Eric, an assistant superintendent who wants to improve the quality of principals’ instructional feedback to teachers; and Nora, a high school principal who is concerned about the use of racial and homophobic slurs in the hallways. The book follows each of these leaders as they formulate and refine interventions to address these problems. Design-Based School Improvement also includes a series of “excursions into theory” that discuss the research basis for design-based improvement. The author—a leading thinker about policy implementation and school reform—shows a profound appreciation for the complexity of work in schools and the deep and sustained thinking entailed in undertaking productive change. By bringing theory to life and putting it in the hands of skilled practitioners, this book promises to become an invaluable resource for education leaders seeking to solve problems of equity and social justice in schools.