This study investigated the extent to which the science of reading instruction components and five science of learning principles were addressed in undergraduate elementary education required reading courses in the State University System (SUS) of Florida institutions. A document analysis of textbooks and syllabi was completed and evidence recorded in The Matrix for State University System (SUS) of Florida Scoring©. The results were reported in summary tables and an analysis of the data was conducted on the extent to which each science of reading component and science of learning principle were labeled explicitly, indirectly stated, or not present in syllabi and textbooks. Data showed that the science of reading instruction components were addressed in undergraduate elementary education reading courses and the five selected science of learning principles were not. These findings may inform elementary teacher preparation faculty in textbook selection and course syllabi development who are interested in assisting teacher candidates to adopt teaching practices consistent with how children learn.

While K-12 online education and cyber charter schools have existed for decades, the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 compelled nearly every professor and teacher globally to participate in this mode of instruction. Four years after the pandemic, many brick-and-mortar K-12 schools have retained cyber or online classes within the curriculum to offer students more flexibility and wider course availability. This study specifically examines the impact of online instruction on K-12 teachers regarding lesson planning, preparation, classroom management, and relationships with students. The research occurred at a large northeastern public school district and included mostly middle and high school teachers. The data collection through surveys and interviews included teacher demographics and open-ended questions about teacher experiences with online instruction before and after the pandemic. This study found that losing community and relationships in the online environment posed the greatest challenge for K-12 teachers. At the same time, the storage and organization of classroom materials offered some of the greatest benefits. Teachers suggested that school leaders provide more intensive professional development for collaboration with colleagues who instruct online and techniques for utilizing technology tools. However, more research is needed in the areas of effective online instructional practices and an exploration of in-service and pre-service certification programs to ensure teachers are prepared for this type of instruction. / Educational Leadership

K–12 leaders’ compliance mandates, challenges of adopting a continuous improvement approach to student success, and competing priorities often leave leaders feeling vulnerable and unprepared for the task. This basic qualitative study applied the continuous improvement framework (CIF) to research how improvement science penetrated an educational system. This basic qualitative study explored and described leaders’ commitment to employing the principles of improvement science at one California K–12 school district. An in-depth analysis of the interviewees’ transcriptions, persona, and experiences unveiled the following themes for continuous improvement: (a) transformational governance, (b) capacity building, (c) accountability, (d) limitations of transactional governance, and (e) outlier findings. Participants’ insights and experiences on the application of continuous improvement underscored the power of culture and affording leaders professional development to build their confidence and data literacy. The findings from this study could benefit K–12 leaders who wish to employ the principles of improvement as a system and everyday work.

The purpose of this study was to examine public school educators’ perceptions of factors driving teacher attrition and the variables studied in correlation to attrition issues in a select rural school district in the state of Mississippi. The findings of this study will inform local and district level school leaders through providing an indifferent perception on teacher attrition in one school district in the state of Mississippi while giving insight on why teachers are exiting the field. It will further serve as a guide for national leaders to revisit recruitment and retention methods currently used while identifying new and innovative methods for decreasing attrition rates and at the same time building a sense of stability within low performing schools. Both qualitative and quantitative data were compiled and synthesized while considering descriptive and inferential statistics to recognize emergent themes for implications of teacher retention. The findings of the study concluded that elementary teachers were more likely to be in greater agreement about teacher orientation programs than were high school teachers. Middle school teachers scored lower on teacher attrition than did teachers in elementary school, indicating that middle school teachers may be more inclined to think about leaving the teaching profession. Four of the attrition indicators (school culture, teacher evaluation accountability measures, academic learning outcomes, and instructional feedback) were statistically significant predictors of teacher attrition. The findings in this study also revealed that teachers with less experience are more inclined to leave the profession than those with more experience.

Since the days of Horace Mann, standardized testing has been used as a control mechanism by policy makers to determine who makes decisions about what will happen in public schools. A dynamic struggle for educational control and governance has continued since that time between the local, state, and federal levels. This struggle for control puts school principals in a unique organizational position where they are expected to use standardized tests within the school community with teachers, students, and parents to improve education but at the same time manage external accountability mandates from district, state and federal levels of governance. To further complicate the testing picture, multiple stakeholders from diverse backgrounds write about standardized testing, making the testing literature complex and seemingly contradictory. These competing narratives create distractions and confusion in the standardized testing debate. The purposes of this archival study was to (a) explore the literature about standardized testing to find patterns in the narratives that are being told in the disciplines of education, policy, economics, psychology/psychometry, and history; and, (b) analyze those narratives to determine what major themes emerged from each discipline so that principals can better understand the testing landscape. In each source we tracked first-author characteristics, one of which was author academic disciplinary background—the academic discipline the author primarily trained in during their formal education. With a better understanding of these disciplinary narratives, a principal is in a stronger position to understand and communicate more effectively about standardized testing within their school community, as well as manage the demands from external influences. This study used NVivo software to organize and analyze text from 147 documents from authors representing the five different disciplinary backgrounds. These documents were written by proponents and critics of testing. Patterns emerged that confirm that using standardized testing as a control mechanism is one of the most common themes in the testing literature. Each narrative is influential in unique ways, but the most important finding of this study shows that the two loudest narratives are those from education and policy. Both disciplines often focus on the reality that standardized testing is used as a control mechanism. Authors from the discipline of education wrote about this topic from a reactive and defensive position. Educators dominate the professional literature, but don't have nearly as strong of a voice in the mainstream media. On the other hand, the analysis demonstrated that authors in the realm of public policy write about standardized testing in a proactive and assertive tone, and they have a stronger voice in mainstream media. Understanding all five narratives can enable principals to more effectively and proactively take control of the standardized testing narrative in their own school community.

This study examines transformational and transactional leadership behaviours of heads of schools/departments, and the individual level cultural dimensions idiocentrism-allocentrism, as perceived by academic staff in Australian and Pakistani universities. The principal research aim was to investigate the relationships between academics??? attributions concerning leadership behaviours of heads of schools/departments and cultural norms in a collectivistic and an individualistic culture. Samples of academic staff were randomly selected from Australian and Pakistani universities. The Australian sample consisted of 117 academics, and the Pakistani sample comprised 120 academics. Analysis was carried out using exploratory factor analysis, multiple regression analysis, and discriminant analysis. Within the context of the research, the results suggested that Australian and Pakistani university academics had similar attribution patterns for entities related to transformational, transactional, and passive leadership behaviours, and the cultural dimension allocentrism. The results also suggested that the academics of both samples did not differentiate between various transformational leadership behaviours, and perceived the transactional leadership behaviour contingent reward as part of the transformational leadership behaviour proactive leadership. Further, the academics of both samples perceived the transactional leadership behaviour passive management-by-exception and laissez-faire leadership as a single dimension, passive leadership. Analyses identified some critical relationships between perceived leadership behaviours of heads of schools/departments and idiocentrism-allocentrism variables for the two samples. The transformational leadership behaviour participative leadership was positively related to allocentrism and self-reliance for the Australian sample. The transactional leadership behaviour active management-by-exception was positively related to positive-competitiveness and negatively related to negative-competitiveness for the Pakistani sample. Passive leadership was negatively related to leadership outcomes for the Pakistani sample. Moreover, active management-by-exception and positive-competitiveness discriminated between the two samples. Leadership of schools/departments in universities has been found to be a multifaceted phenomenon. The research suggests that academics??? perceptions of leadership behaviours, cultural norms, and context have important implications for school/department leadership in universities.

This research study was conducted as a case study method on four African American and European American female educational administrators. The qualitative research framework was adopted to gain an understanding of how these administrators in secondary educational leadership positions exercised and (re)interpreted (Dillard, 1995) their leadership. The intent of my case study was to broaden the limited research base relating to the lived stories and experiences of the principalship from those whose voices can inform others about pertinent issues of leadership through diversity. In order to develop a clearer understanding of the administrators' perceptions on diverse leadership as it related to student academic performance, this study investigated constructed meanings of the relationship between their lived experiences and the way they led, by employing the feminist and interpretive lenses. This qualitative study used the actual words of the participants to tell their story, as it provided a rich representation of the ideas presented. Data was collected through in-depth, open-ended interviews, and semi-structured face-to-face interviews through which the events, beliefs, and perceptions shaped the phenomenon under study. Analysis of the data occurred immediately after each interview and observation. Analytic conclusions were formulated by unitizing, coding, and then categorizing ideas or statements of experiences from the data to ensure that important constructs, themes, and patterns emerged. The results of this study yielded the following as it related to the voices of four African American and European American female principals and their leadership styles in a recognized urban school district: (1) many forms or ways of leading were practiced by the administrators; (2) their upbringing or developmental pathways were different, however, they were determined to positively impact the lives of others throughout their educational career; (3) mentoring played an instrumental part in the administrators' leadership practices; (4) high student academic achievement was a result of effective professional development initiatives for their faculties; (5) they held themselves accountable for the outcomes of student academic performance; (6) they viewed diversity in leadership as critical; and (7) three of the four administrators identified their belief in a higher being as significant in their way of leading.

This study examines transformational and transactional leadership behaviours of heads of schools/departments, and the individual level cultural dimensions idiocentrism-allocentrism, as perceived by academic staff in Australian and Pakistani universities. The principal research aim was to investigate the relationships between academics??? attributions concerning leadership behaviours of heads of schools/departments and cultural norms in a collectivistic and an individualistic culture. Samples of academic staff were randomly selected from Australian and Pakistani universities. The Australian sample consisted of 117 academics, and the Pakistani sample comprised 120 academics. Analysis was carried out using exploratory factor analysis, multiple regression analysis, and discriminant analysis. Within the context of the research, the results suggested that Australian and Pakistani university academics had similar attribution patterns for entities related to transformational, transactional, and passive leadership behaviours, and the cultural dimension allocentrism. The results also suggested that the academics of both samples did not differentiate between various transformational leadership behaviours, and perceived the transactional leadership behaviour contingent reward as part of the transformational leadership behaviour proactive leadership. Further, the academics of both samples perceived the transactional leadership behaviour passive management-by-exception and laissez-faire leadership as a single dimension, passive leadership. Analyses identified some critical relationships between perceived leadership behaviours of heads of schools/departments and idiocentrism-allocentrism variables for the two samples. The transformational leadership behaviour participative leadership was positively related to allocentrism and self-reliance for the Australian sample. The transactional leadership behaviour active management-by-exception was positively related to positive-competitiveness and negatively related to negative-competitiveness for the Pakistani sample. Passive leadership was negatively related to leadership outcomes for the Pakistani sample. Moreover, active management-by-exception and positive-competitiveness discriminated between the two samples. Leadership of schools/departments in universities has been found to be a multifaceted phenomenon. The research suggests that academics??? perceptions of leadership behaviours, cultural norms, and context have important implications for school/department leadership in universities.

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