During the colonial and apartheid eras, higher education played an historically strategic role in shaping South African society. As higher education continues to play a significant role as an agent of the state in shaping the social transformation process toward a new democracy, the leadership of higher education in the form of university Vice-Chancellors, continue to play a critical role in this process. The new democratic government policy relating to education reform and institutional restructuring highlights the social accountability of institutions and emphasizes transformation. In political and social spheres, transformation has become a rhetorical term for all change and democracy. Transformation has emerged as the mantra of all change in preference to the term reform. Understanding the phenomena of transformation and the role of leadership in higher education is critical to understanding higher educations' future role in the national, social change process. This study applies phenomenological phenomenographic methodology and in-depth interviews to explore the conceptions of the Vice-Chancellors of Historically Black Universities in South Africa. The research focuses on the phenomena of transformation, leadership and social change. The assumption is that synergistically, Vice-Chancellors' tacit conceptions will frame an African notion of Transformative Leadership in higher education. The research findings are that although Vice-Chancellors shared an interesting and diverse range of conceptions of leadership and transformation, the conceptions were not sufficiently congruent to define a singular, homogeneous African mode of Transformative Leadership. A further finding was that although higher education is conceptually located within a process of social transformation, the research proceeded from a skewed assumption that the common mode of leadership of transformation would be transformational. Lastly, it emerged that conceptions of a single, explicit mode of African leadership was not possible, or desirable to define. The role of VC in HBU's is enormously complex and challenging and the new Ministry may need to re-conceptualize the role and function of the Vice-chancellor in Higher Education in South Africa.

This case study illustrates how agency bureaucrats within the Connecticut State Department of Education played a prominent role in crafting a comprehensive education policy agenda, launched by the Education Enhancement Act of 1986. This was an example of bureaucratically-driven state education reform in which leadership, a clearly articulated policy agenda, and a policy making model embedded in the notion of ideas and persuasion were instrumental in establishing, implementing, and sustaining that policy agenda over time. It is out of this case study that a theory of bureaucratic entrepreneurship emerges—that is, when non-elected public managers and professional staff devise successful strategies to persuade legislators and other constituency groups to accept their policy agenda, develop and sustain policy innovations over time, and devise policy instruments that rely on inducements and capacity-building to leverage changes in educational practice at the local school district level. This case study examines bureaucratic entrepreneurship within two contexts. First, a comparison of two state-level education reform attempts is made: the first a successful bureaucratically-driven policy initiative culminating in the Education Enhancement Act (EEA) of 1986 and the second being a largely unsuccessful reform effort launched by the business community in the early 1990s through the Commission on Educational Excellence in Connecticut (CEEC). Second, the development and evolution of Connecticut’s teacher standards initiatives, an outgrowth of the EEA of 1986, is examined to illustrate the prominent features of bureaucratic entrepreneurship, including the exercise of leadership, opportunistic behavior in the face of rapidly changing environmental circumstances, and engagement in “creative subversion” and risk-taking in order to pursue innovative research and development. This study concludes that (1) successful bureaucratically-driven education reform requires strong leadership and technical capacity, (2) bureaucratic entrepreneurship is critical to sustaining policy innovation over time, (3) bureaucratic entrepreneurs can be “grown” by creating a climate within an organization conducive to innovation, learning and group problem-solving and fostering conditions for “team entrepreneurship,” that is, when a collection of individuals combine their efforts to produce innovations, and (4) there is a strong role to be played by state departments of education in shaping educational public policy.

The purpose of this research was to determine what secondary school principals across the United States know about public school law as it relates to student rights and teacher rights and liabilities. The research further attempted to determine how often principals are legally threatened and sued, to what degree they are adjusting their behaviors in response, and how they both obtain and disseminate legal information. Simple statistics, analysis of variance, and correlations were used to determine how variables were related and, specifically, how each may influence legal knowledge. Using the National Association of Secondary School Principals' database, 493 principals representing all but two states responded to the 57-question, Principals' Education Law Survey. It was determined that law knowledge was less than the 70% proficiency target with an aggregate score of 58.71% correct, and subtest scores of 65.27% on the student rights section and 56.60% correct on the teacher rights and liabilities section. There were significant effects of gender, school type, school size, school population, time spent preparing for legal challenges, public versus private, educational level, law training, sources of legal knowledge, and law training rank on legal knowledge. Principals disseminate information, regularly provide legal advice to their staff, and feel there is a need for more training in the areas of special education, limited English proficiency education, and student due process and discipline. Eighty-five percent of participants would change their behaviors if they knew more about public school law. These results suggest that principals know more about public school law than teachers, but knowledge is still inadequate. As a result, principals are changing behaviors based on missing information and misinformation. However, highly rated training and job embedded practice positively impacts legal knowledge. In response, principals must assume the role of school law leader with systematic support from state departments of education, schools of education, and professional organizations. A fundamental pre-service training program, combined with regular on-going training and easy to use resources can help the school leader share legal knowledge with school staff, thereby building organizational law literacy in order to support preventive law practice within the schoolhouse.

New school accountability policy alters how the state department of education (SDE) and underperforming school interact by creating a direct connection between the two. The "beginning of intervention" is when the SDE and the underperforming school commence their working relationship. Challenges to the development of a relationship include limited capacity at the SDE level and the local educators' perceptions of new school accountability as a deterrent policy. The working relationship is the vehicle for bridging the state's externally imposed and school's internally pre-existing accountability systems; to negotiate the implementation of the policy for the dual purpose of making sense of the policy for the school and the SDE and meeting the end goal of the policy by improving the educational outcomes of the school; and to alter educators' perceptions of new school accountability policy from that of a deterrent and threatening policy to one which is enabling and empowering of local educators. Document analysis, observations, and interviews of Massachusetts state education administrators, local district administrators and underperforming school educators were used to gain an understanding of how the state and local levels perceive one another during intervention. Results from the qualitative study were analyzed using Scheberle's (1997) "Working Relationship Typology" which uses trust and involvement levels as variables to determine the type of working relationship between organizations. Findings indicate that the working relationship between the SDE and the school improves during the beginning of intervention, but remains distant. The surprising finding is that the district is seen as the key lever for improvement by those in the underperforming school and SDE. The existing relationship between the district and school, however, was negative, as the elementary school educators blamed the district for neglecting their schools. Giving the district capacity to facilitate school improvement, the SDE designed a system of early intervention that places a "fixer" (Bardach, 1977) at the district level whose sole purpose is to work with underperforming schools. The findings indicate that this contributed to dramatic improvement in the working relationship between the district and the underperforming school as well as the relationship between the SDE and the district.

The purpose of this study is to identify institution-specific variables that impact assessment on campus and to determine the ways in which these variables influence campus approach to assessment. The importance of this study lies in its ability to inform assessment policy, to influence assessment practice, and to support assessment research. Results from this study provide broader parameters within which to discuss assessment beyond the traditional accountability or improvement model. Results also offer a systematic three-step process for campus self-analysis using institution-specific variables as a means of identifying campus response to assessment. This process facilitates focus on those campus variables that promote or prevent effective assessment, while informing potential changes in policy and practice tied to those variables, and providing an opportunity for an intentional review of assessment to optimize institutional effectiveness. Research for this study was conducted using case study analysis of three institutions to collect and classify data, to describe the data, and to make inferences about what the data reveal. From the results of this study it is fair to conclude that assessment on campus is shaped and influenced by an interplay of variables unique to each college or university. This research also suggests that a campus's response to assessment is directly impacted by the nature and focus of the interplay of these campus-specific variables. The findings from this study point to significant policy and practice implications wherein a campus may identify the forces that push the campus closer to accountability or closer to improvement and develop interventions to make assessment more effective vis a vis the institution-specific framework in which assessment evolves.

This dissertation investigates Vermont principals' perceptions of leadership attributes linked to the role of the principal. It is guided by four research questions: (1) are there any clusters of participants who sorted the principal leadership attribute items similarly and differently; (2) how are the principal leadership attribute items within each factor ranked by the participants; (3) to what extent do the participants within each factor similarly describe the leadership attributes; and (4) to what extent do the participants within each factor find leadership attributes to be most/least characteristic of their roles? Consequently, thirty-five Vermont principals participated in Q-sort activities, which involved sorting forty-five leadership statements from the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ). The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire had been validated in previous studies. Participants' sorts were subjected to factor analysis to identify similarities and differences among sorts. The analysis of the data revealed the presence of two factors. Factor A members consisted of eighteen subjects who placed high value on leadership items linked to collective mission, purpose, and goal. Factor B members consisted of sixteen subjects who ranked high leadership attributes linked to collegiality and collaboration. The qualitative data provided further insight into factors' perceptions of leadership attributes. Because of the ways the factors sorted and reacted to leadership attributes, the two Factor A members were assigned the name mission-oriented, and Factor B members were assigned the name collaboration-oriented. The findings of this investigation revealed the emergence of the mission-oriented collaborative leadership. Under the mission-oriented collaborative leadership, school leaders witness individuals in their schools engage in fluid, genuine, reverential, and open conversations about the organization and processes group members will use to achieve community, state, and federal accountability expectations. The mission-oriented collaborative leadership style provides a synergy for meeting both the needs of the organization and the individuals who provide the human capital. Future research studies should focus on the effects mission-oriented collaborative leadership approach has on teachers' productivity, local reform efforts in the schools, and student achievement as measured by state accountability systems.

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and the Governor of Massachusetts have identified the need to strengthen the state’s education system through the development of regional centers of support. In 2007, DESE drafted a proposal for a Massachusetts system of support to improve student performance. The proposal called for the establishment of educational service cooperatives to provide targeted assistance to schools and districts and to serve as intermediaries between the Department and school districts. In 2008, the Governor’s office assembled the Readiness Finance Commission and charged it with presenting a variety of alternative means to achieve sustainable education funding for current and future needs. The Commission recommended strategies that include significant restructuring measures to realize cost savings and efficiencies. These measures specifically delineate the enhanced use of educational collaboratives. This study examines the perceptions of education leaders at the state and local level regarding the current performance of educational collaboratives in Massachusetts and the potential role educational collaboratives could play in state and district efforts to improve educational effectiveness and increase efficiencies. Interviews and the Collaborative Evaluation Survey were used to analyze the programs and services that school districts purchase from educational collaboratives and the perceived quality and cost-effectiveness of collaborative programs. In addition to interviews with school superintendents, data from interviews with collaborative directors, state education agency leaders, and a state legislator were analyzed to explore the potential role that educational collaboratives could play in state and district education improvement efforts. The study found: (1) school districts in Massachusetts continue to use educational collaboratives for the same purposes as they did when collaboratives were first created; (2) the majority of school district leaders have positive perceptions of collaborative programs and services; (3) school district input, perceived cost-effectiveness, and collaborative responsiveness are major factors that influence school district utilization of educational collaboratives; and (4) unstable funding and the absence of a structured statewide network constrain the capacity of educational collaboratives. The study also identified the need for more research on the cost-effectiveness and impact of programs educational collaboratives offer. Without additional research, policy makers in Massachusetts risk creating duplicative regional systems of support. State leaders also risk assuming that collaboratives have the capacity to address problems when evidence may indicate otherwise.

The purpose of this study was to probe the attitudes of elementary teachers with respect to teacher autonomy, perceived and desired, and its relation to job satisfaction. It was also the purpose of this study to probe the attitudes of dissatisfied elementary teachers as to the nature and degree of their dissatisfaction. Specifically, the study was to answer the following research questions: (1) To what degree do elementary teachers perceive they have autonomy in their work, as measured on the Perceived Teacher Autonomy Scale, (2) To what degree do elementary teachers desire autonomy in their work, as measured on the Desired Teacher Autonomy Scale, (3) To what degree is there discrepancy between the perceived and desired degree of autonomy afforded elementary teachers in their work, as measured by the difference between scores on the Perceived Teacher Autonomy Scale and Desired Teacher Autonomy Scale, (4) What is the likelihood that elementary teachers who perceive low autonomy, but desire high autonomy, will experience low job satisfaction in their work as measured on the Job Satisfaction Scale, and (5) Is there a greater likelihood that elementary teachers who perceive low autonomy, desire high autonomy, and have low job satisfaction, will be planning to leave the teaching profession than teachers who have lower desire for autonomy and greater job satisfaction? Results from an initial questionnaire indicated that teachers who perceived low autonomy but desired high autonomy were less satisfied with their work than other teachers. In addition, these teachers indicated a greater likelihood of defection from teaching. Ten follow-up interviews further indicated that the areas of autonomy teachers were most concerned with were input into the decision making process that affects their classroom instruction and teacher evaluation as it relates to their professional development. Data gathered in this study clearly show the desire of teachers to have greater autonomy in their work. Such a lack of autonomy increased the likelihood of teacher defection. The findings indicate the need to address teacher job satisfaction and their implications for organizational and staff development.

The affirmative action officer is the key figure in establishing, implementing, and sustaining an affirmative action program. This study was directed toward the perceptions of actively engaged affirmative action officers in higher education. The affirmative action officers responded to their perceptions of their functions, duties, and responsibilities as these variables impacted their role in affirmative action. The purpose of this study was to focus on the actual and ideal functions, duties, and responsibilities of the affirmative action officer. More specifically, the questions that guided this study were: (1) How does the affirmative action officer view his/her role? (2) What are the prioritized functions, duties, and responsibilities of the affirmative action officer as seen from the perspective of the affirmative action officer? (3) Is there a common core of functions, duties, and responsibilities shared by affirmative action officers? If so, what are those common characteristics that ensure the probability of success in the role? A mail questionnaire was designed. The questionnaire consisted of two sections. Section I gathered information on the affirmative action officers' perceptions of their functions, duties, and responsibilities. This section was divided into seven major areas: Promotion, Personnel, Procedures, Process, Recruitment, Goals and Timetables, and Grievances. The affirmative action officers rated statements in Column I (Actual--current role) and in Column II (Ideal--what their role should be) on an eight-point scale. Section II of the questionnaire gathered demographic data from the affirmative action officers. This section was divided into three major areas: (1) Personal Data, (2) Affirmative Action Data, and (3) Present Position as Affirmative Action Officer. The questionnaire was mailed to both four- and two-year private and public institutions of higher education. Forty-five percent of the surveys were returned by the affirmative action officers. Among the conclusions drawn from the data received, the following appeared to be evident: (1) Affirmative action officers could achieve a greater maximum in the performance of their functions, duties, and responsibilities if they would be able to spend more time and effort on those items that were addressed in each of the seven major areas (Promotion, Personnel, Procedures, Process, Recruitment, Goals and Timetables, and Grievances) of the questionnaire; (2) more Whites were affirmative action officers than any other ethnic group; (3) females tend to serve as affirmative action officers than males; and (4) usually affirmative action officers were between thirty to thirty-nine years of age.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between the level of collegiate administrative support and the extent of nursing faculty practice. A questionnaire developed using Dicken's operationalization of House's social support theory, along with additional evidence of support from the literature, was mailed to administrators of all National League of Nursing accredited baccalaureate nursing programs in the United States. Three hundred and six completed questionnaires (71%) were received by the cutoff date and data from the structured questions were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. Written responses were recoded into the structured categories or were classified and summarized. Chi-square analysis revealed that there was a significant relationship between nine demographic variables and the percentage of faculty in practice. Guidelines for practice as evidence of instrumental support, was found in only 20% of the programs, but this was significantly related to the percentage of faculty in practice. Two variables reflecting instrumental support, which included team taught courses and release time for practice, were the only ones significantly related to faculty practice. For all three variables, as the availability for that support increased, the percentage of faculty in practice increased. No appraisal or emotional support variables were significantly related to practice. More than half of the administrators had direct control over flexible teaching schedules and team taught courses. All supports were significantly related to the administrators ability to control or influence that support. Financial constraints was the most frequently reported reason for the unavailability of supports. Faculty practice was used as a criterion for promotion/merit and tenure decisions in the fewest number of programs and was the least important criterion in almost half of them. More than half of the written comments indicated that administrators would like to include practice in these decisions and increase its importance. All benefits of faculty practice found in the literature were reported to be observed by administrators and almost all administrators would be encouraged to continue or initiate support based on these benefits.