President Bush signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (NCLBA) on January 8, 2002, which represented his education reform plan and contains the most sweeping changes to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) since it was enacted in 1965. The principals’ role is critical to success as public schools strive to meet the challenge of implementing the new No Child Left Behind Act requirements. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the perception of teachers and administrators regarding the “readiness” of school principals to implement the multicultural requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act policies (Title I and Title III) for Latino students who are limited English proficient.

<p> The objective of this study was to explore, identify, and gain an understanding of the experiences and contributing factors that affect Latino male students&rsquo; (LMS) attainment of a community college education or transfer to 4-year institutions. Hidden Hills College (HHC; pseudonym) is a large California community college located in an urban setting in Southern California. HHC is primarily a commuter campus and a Hispanic serving institution, regionally accredited by Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC). </p><p> This qualitative study included 22 interviews of currently enrolled students at HHC. The participants, selected based on the sampling criteria, consist of Latino males who had completed at least 24 units and were seeking an AA/AS or transfer to a 4-year institution (California State University, University of California, private). The students were between the ages of 18&ndash;24. Additionally, through the literature review, aspirations, familial support, persistence, and challenges were summarized and analyzed, which provided an opportunity to learn about the different contributing factors that support or hinder the transfer or degree attainment of Latino males. </p><p> The major findings showed that in relation to challenges experienced by LMS in the pursuit for an associate&rsquo;s degree or transfer to a 4-year institution are cultural expectations, parents&rsquo; lack of understanding, financial hardship, lack of time, and lack of academic preparation. The study also revealed that in relation to strategies used by LMS in their efforts to pursue an associate&rsquo;s degree or transfer to a 4-year institution are aspirations for a better future, family support, motivation, and campus resources. Recommendation for policy and practice focused on improving and promoting higher education for Latino males, as well as recommendations for further studies are presented.</p>

This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between the quality of school building maintenance and student achievement. Variables such as school age, size of campus, enrollment, and instructional configuration were examined. Additionally, the location of the school in DeKalb County, the board districts in which a school was located, and socioeconomic status of the school’s community were selected for study to determine if school location and demographics affected overall student achievement when grouped along with building condition. The Pearson Correlation of Coefficient tested twenty-seven variables for significance level. Twenty-one of the twenty-seven null hypotheses were accepted; six were rejected. A one-way analysis of variance was conducted on these six null hypotheses. These variables-socioeconomic status, school geographic area, school enrollment, board districts, portable units, and frequency of floors swept-were analyzed in relation to test scores using a multiple regression analysis. The conclusion of the study is that building condition is not related to student achievement for third grade students in DeKalb County. The data show that student achievement is more related to socioeconomic status, location, and enrollment than to maintenance issues.

<p> The purpose of this study was to discover if a relationship existed between cultural intelligence (CQ) and conflict management style preferences for community college faculty who work with culturally diverse student populations. Drawing from a sample of full- time community college faculty, this study used the 20-item cultural intelligence scale instrument that measures the four components of CQ, including motivational CQ, behavioral CQ metacognitive CQ, and cognitive CQ (Ang et al., 2007). This study used Rahim's Organizational Conflict Inventory Il (Rahim, 2010) to measure five styles of conflict management, including integrating, dominating, compromising, avoiding, and accommodating. The results of this study indicate that of the four factors of CQ, motivational CQ was the highest and cognitive CQ was the lowest in community college faculty. Factors such as number of languages spoken, academic discipline, and travel outside of the United States were predictors of CQ. The results of this study indicate that community college faculty have a preference for an integrating style of conflict management and that academic discipline, gender, and years teaching predict conflict management style preferences. The findings in this study also indicate that the four factors of CQ correlate with faculty conflict management style preferences. When controlling for gender, age, and ethnicity, there are significant correlations among the four factors of CQ and three of the conflict styles. The four factors of CQ combined correlated with integrating, dominating, and compromising conflict styles, and avoiding and obliging were nearing significance. Individually, metacognitive CQ and motivational CQ positively correlated to an integrating conflict style. Motivational CQ negatively correlated to dominating conflict style. Behavioral CQ correlated to a dominating conflict management style. None of the four factors of CQ individually predicted avoiding and obliging conflict style, though in both cases it was approaching significance. Based on the findings of this research study, there are four recommendations for practitioners in higher education: Expand research on cultural intelligence and conflict management within the domain of higher education; integrate cultural intelligence and conflict management into higher education curriculum; establish institutionally supported ongoing professional development in cultural intelligence and conflict management; and develop student-centered campus-level cultural intelligence and conflict management initiatives.</p>

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This is the supporting documentation submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by publication. The research explores shared leadership and investigates its component parts in terms of leader and organizational longevity. A collection of the presented papers represent separate published research projects culminating in a 6D framework. Leadership – Default, Discretion, Dilemma, Deliberative Inquiry, Dialogue and Direction. The framework is equally divided into Individual and Corporate focus. It presents a collection of skills sets and attitudes which enable the modern leader to achieve more sustainable personal and organizational success. The methodology uses a balance of empirical and conceptual approaches which included a mix of primary interview and survey with a leaning towards qualitative data extraction. In depth semi-structured interviews from diagonal samples were used. These came from both local and international sources. An applied research approach was maintained for most relevance to leaders and the provided comment formed an inductive route on which to derive new theory. The results were analysed with an interpretivist approach. The research findings and conclusions show that developing a distinct awareness of leadership self and reactions contributes highly to the ability to serve the organizational need. Additionally, the research showed that considered approaches to achieve higher quality information from staff contributed to a better level of strategic alignment. The published shared leadership concepts and models benefitted from peer review in the academic community, in journals and at conference. These resulted in more robust contributions to modern opinions on distributed/collaborative leadership. The 6D framework, along with other original models from the author, have been used extensively with business people at different levels of leadership. Their use has contributed to the leadership impact and further understanding during times of great economic pressure, social and technological change.

No description available.

<p> As a result of increased principal responsibilities in terms of complexity, accountability, and demands for improved student achievement, sources have concluded that in order for school districts to undertake transformations that improve teaching and learning, schools must be aligned to best practices, and have a functioning professional learning community and shared leadership (Copeland, 2003; Dufour, 1997; Elmore, 2004; Gronn, 2008; Lambert 2002; Murphy, Smylie, Mayrowetz, &amp; Louis, 2009). Most elementary schools have only one principal; therefore, the impact on teaching and learning led by one person may not result in organizational reform even if that individual is an instructional leader, due to the multitude of responsibilities carried by that individual as a result of the influence of other leaders (formal and informal) within the organization (Lambert, 2002; Shivers-Blackwell, 2006; Spillane 2005, 2006, and 2010). Districts take a variety of approaches to address this challenge, ranging from efforts to improve the content knowledge of their leaders to setting up formal structures to distribute instructional leadership in the form of formal teacher leaders (Timperley, 2005; Sherer, 2008). </p><p> This study determined, through analyzing decision-making styles of lead teachers and their perception of their principals, principals were more participatory and less laissez-faire than lead teachers. In addition, lead teachers utilize many leadership practices; however, they do not utilize them equally or consistently. The theory of distributed leadership and literature reviewed conclude that when leadership is distributed, schools have the ability to build capacity and grow initiatives around instructional improvement. Distributed leadership implies interdependency of leaders sharing responsibility with followers (Harris, 2003). This study has provided additional information for future researchers to use as the academic community continues to define the behaviors and practices that support a distributed leadership model. Recent studies express the way leadership is distributed in schools, suggesting the question is not if teachers lead along with the principal and district officials, but how (Katzenmeyer &amp; Moller, 2001; Margolis, 2008).</p>

<p> The purpose of this study was two-fold: to identify an echo chamber in superintendent shortage studies and to conduct an exploratory analysis of the Southeastern Pennsylvania superintendent labor market and, in turn, identify influences on the market(s) based upon the creation of an eight county (Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, Berks, Lehigh, Lancaster, and Northampton) superintendent repository. This study utilized the bibliometric tools of Web of Science and Google Scholar/Metrics to identify an echo chamber and found evidence in cross-citation mapping of the existence of an echo chamber. This study then applied UCINET software to conduct a social network analysis to identify superintendent labor market(s) in Southeastern Pennsylvania.</p><p> This study found that a shortage of superintendents does not exist in Southeastern Pennsylvania and that several inter-changeable and intra-changeable labor markets exist exhibiting both homophily and non-homophily characteristics. Although predicted due to anticipated baby-boomer retirements, turnover played a cogent role in labor market dynamics as evidenced in comparative data from 2013 and 2016. The implications of this study suggest the need to re-conceptualize the framework of the superintendent shortage studies on the relationship between incentives and pipeline to better understand the agents that drive and influence the superintendent labor markets. Further implications suggest the need for additional research on turnover not as a negative trait but rather as a vehicle of change that affords career advancement for women and people of color. This study is a modest first step to promote superintendent labor market studies as a means to measure accurately the viability of the pipeline and network.</p>

The purpose of this thesis is to quantitatively analyze the relationship between midshipmen leadership and morale at the United States Naval Academy. The goal is to determine if there is a specific set of leadership characteristics that directly contribute to positive company morale within the Brigade of Midshipmen. The study is quantitative and uses the Naval Academy Brigade Climate survey as its primary instrument. The results of this effort indicate that leadership characteristics that are centered on equality and fairness have a statistically significant influence on a unit's morale. Additionally, the thesis provides recommendations for clarifying the definition of morale in a military context along with recommendations for shaping survey questions when attempting to measure morale.