<p> The inspiration for this research came from a question asked of teachers, <i> why do we need to learn this?</i> Although John Dewey promoted the use of real world experiences over one hundred years ago, many mathematics classrooms are still void of relevant connections for students. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of nationally certified mathematics teachers on relevance in order to describe their instructional practice, analyze their motivations and barriers in providing relevant connections, and explain the gap between research-based knowledge and current instructional practices. </p><p> Twelve teachers participated in this research study. Six themes emerged from the data: approaches to relevance, accomplished practitioners, professional development, school culture, student apathy, and instructional planning. After conducting standard qualitative analysis, Bronfenbrenner&rsquo;s ecosystem emerged as an explanation for the external forces affecting students. However, a second similar ecosystem was uncovered that affected the classroom teachers. This expansion of Bronfenbrenner&rsquo;s ecosystem from one to two ecosystems explains the cultural forces impacting the interactions between teachers and students in the classroom. The barriers to effective research-based instructional practice reside in two sets of forces, Dual Ecosystems Affecting Learners and Teachers (DEALT). The implications for leaders desiring academic excellence include looking outside of the classroom to impact school improvement.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to investigate and examine the effectiveness the stakeholders of the Up with People program have in preparing students to become servant leaders. The purpose of this study also was to examine service-learning concepts that educators practice to evaluate conditions that promote values and ethics as an impetus for introducing servant leadership as a viable means of transformation across international educational facilities. The study was qualitative, emphasizing an evaluation of the Up with People organization. A purposeful sampling of eleven leaders were interviewed from the Up with People organization to answer the following research questions: What is the current status of Up with People&rsquo;s leaders&rsquo; knowledge, motivation, and organization influences needed to produce servant leaders? What solutions and recommendations in the areas of knowledge, motivation, and organizational resources may be appropriate for Up with People&rsquo;s leadership and service program? and, What components of the Up with People program are participants receiving in terms of leadership and service that cannot be found in a traditional education program? The outcome of the study resulted in the leaders&rsquo; knowledge, motivation, and organization being effective in producing servant leaders for twenty-three validated needs. One of the validated needs was that the leaders in the program know how to develop servant leaders as evidenced in their curriculum. The reinforcement of the service-learning component contributes to becoming a servant leader. An example of a non-validated need was that the leaders did not know how to develop the next generation of leaders for the organization. A solution to addressing the non-validated need is that a junior member of the Up with People program would become an integral member of the executive management team. The junior membership will result in an expansion of social media to advertise Up with People and how their mission will encourage the development of young people as servant leaders. </p><p>

<p> The compounding experiences of colonial miseducation of youth of color, neoliberal policies and logics in urban communities, colonial logics that render the role of spirituality in social movements as invisible, and adultism in legal and social institutions constrain the transformative possibilities of youth agency in social movements. This study explored (a) how educators working in youth movements can build a decolonizing paradigm and practice for transformative organizing and (b) new paradigmatic interventions and theoretical directions that can help inform a transformative youth organizing approach. The research was conducted through a decolonizing interpretive research methodology (Darder, 2015a) and utilized the interrelated lenses of critical pedagogy and decolonizing pedagogy, in order to gain a historicity of scholarly discussions about the logics of coloniality, social movement theories, and youth-organizing frameworks across various texts. By utilizing the decolonizing interpretive methodology and decolonizing and critical pedagogy theoretical frameworks, this study found that a decolonizing social movement framework for transformative youth organizing calls for (a) creating counterhegemonic havens that create solidarity spaces between youth and adults; (b) building authentic revolution through communion between youth and adults, community-building, and communion with indigenous peoples and the Earth; (c) cultivating a sense of love that sustains community bonds to facilitate healing; (d) promoting healing through engaging in dialectics and dialogue; and (e) creating opportunities for agency and creation to implement the praxis of transformative youth organizing. The findings support the need for adults seeking to authentically be in solidarity with youth to engage in transformative justice practices that help communities collectively heal from colonial violence and engage in a counterhegemonic praxis of creating new transformative and liberatory possibilities in communities. </p><p>

<p> <b>Purpose:</b> The purpose of this phenomenological research study was to describe the behaviors that exemplary elementary school principals practice to lead their organizations through conversation using Groysberg and Slind&rsquo;s (2012b) four elements of conversational leadership: intimacy, interactivity, inclusion, and intentionality. </p><p> <b>Methodology:</b> This study followed a qualitative, phenomenological methodology to describe the lived experiences of exemplary elementary school principals. A sample of 10 principals was selected from the target sample that included Mono, Inyo, San Bernardino, and Kern Counties in California. Interviews were conducted following a protocol developed by a group of peer researchers. Data from artifacts and observations were used for triangulation. NVivo coding software was used in the analysis of data. </p><p> <b>Findings:</b> Analysis of data resulted in 23 themes and 291 frequencies among the four elements of conversational leadership. From these 23 themes, seven key findings emerged. </p><p> <b>Conclusions:</b> The study identified the behaviors that exemplary elementary school principals practice within their organizations to create intimacy, interactivity, inclusion, and intentionality as identified by Groysberg and Slind (2012b) in their organizational conversation framework. The researcher drew four conclusions from the data and findings. Exemplary elementary school principals create conditions for school reform by (a) using personal stories and valuing relationships to build trust, (b) being accessible and implementing systems for two-way dialogue, (c) gaining commitment by listening, and (d) consistently communicating goals and keeping the mission at the center of the school culture. </p><p> <b>Recommendations:</b> Additional research in conversational leadership is necessary. Research to identify specific behaviors that principals practice to listen, develop trust, and communicate objectives to all members of their organizations should be conducted. It is also recommended that research be conducted to determine the behaviors teacher leaders use to engage colleagues in organizational conversation. In addition, research should be conducted to identify and describe the principal behaviors that have the greatest positive impact on teachers from the millennial generation. This study should also be replicated in other regions with different cultural values.</p><p>

<p> The power of union membership has declined in the United States substantially. Many manufacturers have moved many of their operations to new jurisdictions, to America&rsquo;s south and to other low wage countries, to take advantage of the tax incentives many jurisdictions have to offer in most instances, a nonunion workforce. Teachers&rsquo; unions have experienced other external factors, such as the results of Right to Work legislation, and the charter school movement.</p><p> This study researched the history of teacher labor union leadership and explored the internal and external factors that have affected unions over the past 50 years. This study included 3 research questions: (a) What are the qualities of an effective teach labor union leader? (b) What are the internal and external factors that have affected teachers&rsquo; unions for the past 50 years? Using the survey results and the literature, what model emerges that describes and effective teacher labor union leader? In spite of the adverse external factors that have affected teacher union members: the quality of labor union leadership has been a factor in the sustainability and strength of union membership.</p><p> The study found an effective teacher labor union leader must possess the following qualities: ability to collaborate, have a shared vision with the members of the organization, be influential, and possess an adaptive capacity, possess the intelligence to adapt to the internal and external factors that may impact their organization. An effective teacher union leader, must build and strengthen organizational capacity to alleviate member apathy and to increase member engagement.</p><p> Teacher union members must be able to identify the qualities of an effective teacher labor union leader and teacher union leaders must be able to know when they are effective. This study has suggested a systems model approach from the local school district to the State, CTA, as an assessment tool, where there is personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning and systems thinking, where individuals are working together at their best in order to build capacity to continue to learn in order to create the results the members and the organization envision for the future.</p><p>

<p> Since the 1980s, community leadership development programs (CLDPs) across the United States have been developing the capacities of citizens to become effective local leaders. Generally, CLDPs focus on three key areas: building and enhancing the leadership skills of their participants; increasing participants&rsquo; awareness and knowledge about their communities; and cultivating the participants&rsquo; relationships with each other and with other community leaders. However, when it comes to evaluation studies about the impact of CLDPs, most of the scholarly work has focused on assessing the change in the leadership skills of the programs&rsquo; participants. Only limited research focuses on how CLDPs impact the ability of local leaders to work together over time to achieve collective action. </p><p> This research study investigated a type of CLDP, the American Leadership Forum-Great Valley Chapter program (ALF-GVC). Through the lens of social network theory and the relational capacity framework, it examined how relationships that are cultivated during the ALF-GVC program impact the ways in which its senior fellows work together to address community issues. Insights from the collective experience of 30 research participants revealed that the ALF-GVC program does impact the relational capacity of its senior fellows. Specifically, evidence supports that the ALF-GVC program helps create a positive internal working environment for senior fellows. The program was associated with increasing the size, diversity, cooperation, and cohesion of the research participants&rsquo; networks. As such, by expanding our understanding of how local leaders build relationships and the ways in which those relationships impact how they work together over time to address community issues, the findings from this research study contribute to the literature and practice, all of which can be used to help sustain and strengthen civic engagement in the United States. </p>

<p> Teaching in an urban school that serves communities with a high concentration of poverty seems to involve the development of specific, contextually relevant teaching skills. For years, the particular challenges of teaching in under-served schools in the United States have contributed to the attrition of talented, experienced teachers, leaving many urban schools scrambling to find qualified teachers. For this and other reasons, urban charter school leaders frequently hire young, inexperienced teachers. Urban charter school leaders often seek to provide intense support to these teachers in an effort to increase the likelihood of retaining them and providing the students in their classrooms with a high-quality education. This study is grounded in a conceptual framework including three major strands of work: teacher professional development opportunities, professional development for first-year teachers, and teaching in urban environments. This practitioner research study involved collecting contextualized data about professional development opportunities from eighteen first-year teachers at two different points during their first year of teaching. The data from these interviews was used to ascertain how participants reported their experiences of professional development opportunities as influencing their teaching practice. This study&rsquo;s findings demonstrate that participants focused largely on how strategies that were immediately implementable influenced their teaching practice, especially those related to classroom management. Teachers also reported that their experiences of professional development were supported by the growth stance that exists regarding professional development at Explore Schools. In conclusion, this study offers rich data regarding how first-year teachers report professional development opportunities as influencing their practice and offers evidence to support the idea that first-year teachers in urban charter schools may benefit from opportunities that focus on information that can be immediately implemented. </p>

<p> Literature on teacher evaluation describes a flawed system that evokes wide-ranging attempts to &ldquo;get it right&rdquo;. This qualitative study is another effort that seeks to understand its legal and traditional constructs. The goal of this research is to identify growth-producing practices that will transform teacher evaluation into an organic and sustainable process that promotes professional growth. </p><p> Through the interview study design, 26 administrators and teachers shared their perceptions on growth-producing teacher evaluation practices in individualized 60-minute in-depth interviews. The findings revealed that administrators&rsquo; over adherence to rules and legal structures limits the process into mere compliance which challenges the growth-model. Teachers&rsquo; perceptions centered on feedback as a key element in improving practice, and on the effectiveness of the evaluation tool and the evaluator as pivotal elements in teachers&rsquo; professional growth. The overarching theme targeted a collaborative culture that would thrive in a Constructivist Professional Community (CPC), a conceptual framework that was envisioned at the initial stage of the study, and later confirmed to be a feasible teacher evaluation model based on the study&rsquo;s findings. Linda Lambert&rsquo;s Constructivist leadership theory and Wenger&rsquo;s theory on Communities of Practice guided the formulation of the CPC Model. </p><p> This study proposes a transformational culture that conforms with constructivist practices.</p><p>

<p> Education changed its focus to ensuring high school graduates are college and career ready. The Texas Education Agency and Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board set college and career readiness standards for administrators and teachers to emphasize. Since funding for fine arts in public schools has been fluctuating, school leaders in smaller districts should determine how best to utilize not only the mandated high school credit, but also additional fine arts offerings. The purpose of the current study was to examine high school graduates&rsquo; perceptions of the development of soft skills in a limited fine arts program and applying those skills as students transitioned to post-secondary education. Data collection included high school graduates&rsquo; interviews, fine arts teachers&rsquo; interviews, and an administrator interview. NVivo 10 was used for data management and for analysis. Data analysis revealed that graduate students involved in fine arts not only thought it possible to develop communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creative thinking, but that having been involved in band, art, one-act play, and speech events aided in their transition to college.</p><p>

<p> Teenage pregnancy greatly influences the probability of high school graduation for girls (Ng &amp; Kay, 2012; Solomon-Fears, 2015). Only 51% of women who give birth as teenagers earn a high school diploma by the time they are 22 years old, as compared to 89% of their non-teen-pregnant contemporaries (Ng &amp; Kay, 2012). The United States Department of Education reports that the median income of a person from 18 to 67 years of age in 2012 without a high school degree was about $25,000, as compared to $46,000 with a high school degree (Stark &amp; Noel, 2015). In a lifetime, that amounts to a personal loss of $670,000 because of the lack of a high school diploma and reflects a $250,000 loss to the national economy in reduced tax contributions, higher rates of illegal activity, and higher costs in welfare dependence (Stark &amp; Noel, 2015). The final goal of this study was to create a flow chart to provide suggested support for pregnant and parenting teenagers in South Louisiana high schools to ensure graduation. To accomplish this goal, this qualitative phenomenological study investigated the perceptions of women in South Louisiana who experienced a teenage pregnancy while in high school and went on to earn a high school degree, in relation to: (1) experiences in high school, (2) the effects of their individual attributes on high school experiences, (3) school-provided supports they found to be beneficial, and (4) what they believed to be their greatest support leading to graduation. Nine participants were interviewed, and the findings revealed that women who experienced a teenage pregnancy in South Louisiana and went on to earn a high school degree (1) felt some sense of shame or embarrassment during the pregnancy, (2) experienced a lack of understanding or compassion by school personnel and their peers, (3) if African American, were generally more resilient, (4) had educational aspirations and academic success prior to pregnancy, (5) may have opted to attend an alternative school rather than stay at their base school, and (6) valued connecting with others with similar experiences.</p><p>