Education Commons^™

Relational Leadership: Reconceptualizing How School Districts Address Teacher Attrition, Nila J. Burt, Joseph R. Jones

Journal of Educational Leadership in Action

American education is in crisis. Teacher attrition rates are astronomical and continue to rise post-pandemic. In his executive summary, Pelfrey (2020), a policy and research analyst in the Georgia governor's office, revealed that new teachers are abandoning their careers at steadily increasing rates within the first five years of service. As such, we must further examine teacher retention and the influence of school administrators. In this capacity, this study utilized a qualitative methodology to examine teacher attrition in a high school in Georgia. Specifically, narrative inquiry provided the framework to examine the lived experiences of teachers in this southern school. …

Shared Academic Governance : A Historical Perspective, Domenick Pinto

School of Computer Science & Engineering Faculty Publications

Shared academic governance is a key to ensuring that faculty and administration can work collaboratively to reach strategic planning outcomes, maintain excellence and show continued growth and collegiality in higher education. This workshop will elaborate on experiences I have had in both a university senate and academic assembly, present scenarios that the group can brainstorm on, and conclude with suggestions on how all faculty can become involved.

Next-Level Leadership: Preparing Assistant Principals For Campus Leadership, Jerry R. Burkett

Journal of Educational Leadership in Action

The workload of campus leaders continues to increase with new expectations for evaluation and supervision, changing legislative mandates, and mounting pressures for improved school accountability. Educational Leadership preparation programs are built on national and state standards related to principal leadership and competency. However, while principal preparation programs have focused intently on instructional leadership development for future principals, most educational leadership candidates do not immediately enter the principalship but rather start their administrative careers as assistant principals. School districts can implement a comprehensive training protocol for their emerging principals using research-based practices to ensure assistant principals have the training, coaching, and …

Applying Derailment Advice: How Educational Leaders Can Use Job Loss Lessons To Navigate The Covid-19 Crisis, Jeff Strietzel, Ryan W. Erck

Journal of Educational Leadership in Action

The COVID-19 pandemic has upended life and work for people around the globe. This upheaval has created new challenges for those serving in or studying at higher education. College administrators have been forced to adapt, and many have used wisdom gained from past crises as proxies for the current crisis. After many months in a pandemic, however, many leaders are still searching for effective frameworks and mental models to guide their efforts. In this article, we offer the concept of derailment as a proxy for leaders in challenging times. We examined interview data from a recent in-depth study of 25 …

School Personnel And Leadership Collaboration Model For Ideal Work Contexts, Brandis M. Ansley, Melanie Blinder, Josephine Demere, Kris Varjas, Gwendolyn Benson, Susan L. Ogletree Dr.

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

This article describes the school personnel and leadership collaboration (SPLC) model, a shared-responsibility framework for faculty, staff, and administrators. Prior research consistently demonstrates the need for (a) administrative support for teachers and other school personnel and (b) collegial support among staff. The SPLC model represents an amalgamation of this research and, moreover, integrates personnel support for leadership. In the managerial sciences, leader–member exchange (LMX) is a well-known relationship-based leadership approach that focuses on a dyadic or two-way relationship between supervisors and their employees. Though managers are responsible for overseeing operations, personnel contribute ideas, participate in decision-making, and follow through with …

"The Inevitability Of Playing Politics As Chair: Advantages And Pitfalls" 2019, Domenick Pinto

School of Computer Science & Engineering Faculty Publications

Politics is a term often frowned upon as it pertains to the role of an academic leader. However as chair for almost 30 years it has become an essential yet sometimes unwanted aspect of the daily rigors of the position. This workshop explores the advantages and pitfalls of “playing politics” as a department chair and allows interactivity among participants in “what if” scenarios.

Terms Of Time For Composition: A Materialist Examination Of Contingent Faculty Labor, Jesse Priest

Academic Labor: Research and Artistry

Bruce Horner’s seminal book, Terms of Work for Composition: A Materialist Critique provided Comp-Rhet WPAs with a methodology for infusing our conversations about work and labor with a holistic understanding of how these reflect on the lived experiences of students, teachers and administrators. Drawing on empirical data including surveys of contingent faculty at a large northeastern research university, as well as textual analysis of teaching material and an NCTE position statement, I propose the inclusion of a materialist-oriented conceptualization of time to the discussion began by Horner and others. Using the lens of how time is allocated, I argue for …

Branding Strategies Of A Private International School, Balasubramanian Varadarajan, Timothy Malone Dr.

The Qualitative Report

Demand for international K-12 schools in India is growing, and this is causing competition between them. The purpose of this paper was to explore the branding strategies that private international school leaders in India use to enhance the school brand. Case study method was used where fifteen participants were interviewed from an international school in Southern part of India. Interviews were conducted with five school leaders, five teachers, and five parents using a semi-structured interview method with open-ended questions related to branding strategies. Brand-oriented organizations have internal approaches to developing their brand based on vision, mission, and values. As education …

School Principals’ Views On Administration Work, Their “Frequent Turnover” And Its Effects On Their Work, Aydin Balyer

The Qualitative Report

School administrators’ “frequent turnover” has been discussed intensively in the Turkish Educational System recently. Currently, principals are selected for 4 years after an interview conducted by a committee of directors of national education. After that period, they either go back to their classes or are chosen for another 4 years for the last time. This frequent turnover can be disruptive for schools. This study was conducted to determine school principals’ views on administration work and this frequent turnover. The study employed a qualitative research design. The participants were 20 principals chosen with maximum sampling method. The data were analyzed with …

Hbcus: Accreditation, Governance And Survival Challenges In An Ever-Increasing Competition For Funding And Students, Jerry Crawford Ii

Journal of Research Initiatives

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are facing challenges to their continued existence on several fronts. One is fiscally, as federal funding for education has been cut and the responsibility for paying for higher education has been levied on students and parents. Another challenge is the amount of endowment dollars available to them and lastly, there are questions today as to if HBCUs are still needed in a society that has allowed African-Americans to enroll in Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs). Both of these challenges are contingent on the most critical issue – accreditation. The loss of accreditation of units and …

Faculty Observables And Self-Reported Responsiveness To Academic Dishonesty, Robert T. Burrus, Jr., Adam T. Jones, William H. Sackley, Michael Walker

Administrative Issues Journal

Prior to 2009, a mid-sized public institution in the southeast had a faculty-driven honor policy characterized by little education about the policy and no tracking of repeat offenders. An updated code, implemented in August of 2009, required that students sign an honor pledge, created a formal student honor board, and developed a process to track and hold accountable, repeat offenders. Self-reported data on faculty vigilance to detect and punish cheating is collected both prior to and after a change in the honor code at a mid-sized public institution in the southeast. We find that, at the time of the first …

An Education Ceo: Robert Furek '64 Brings Accountability To Hartford Public Schools, Rick Green

Colby Magazine

Armed state troopers standing by his side, an ashen-faced Robert Furek '64 waded carefully through the jeering crowd lining the hallway of the ornate Hartford city hall.

"Racists and fascists!" some yelled. Furek, chairman of the board of trustees running the Hartford, Conn., public schools, quickly left the building, the taunts and finger-pointing. Furek and his colleagues had just voted to remove the district's superintendent of schools, an African-American woman some in this downtrodden community saw as a source of hope and inspiration.

Leaving The Dark Side For The Light: Twelve Strategies For Effective Transition From Academic Administrator To Faculty Member, Paul Sale

Administrative Issues Journal

Copious literature is available to provide nascent administrators with guidelines and advice for being a successful administrator. Likewise, faculty new to academia have many available resources both from the literature and from campus-based support services, such as new faculty development programs, mentors, and special internal funding programs. However, there is a paucity of academic discussion explaining the process of the return of an administrator back to faculty. The purpose of this paper is to delineate strategies for the transition back to faculty from the administrative ranks. Twelve pragmatic strategies for re-entering the world of faculty teaching, research, and service are …

How About The Real Responders' Perceptions? A Comparative Case Study On School Principals' Perceptions Of School Administration Through Metaphors In Usa And Turkey, Ibrahim H. Karatas, Harun Parpucu

Journal of Educational Leadership in Action

Expectations of school administration changed dramatically over the course of the 20th century. Today, the roles and responsibilities of school administrators must be re-defined for success in the 21st century. The current research aimed at revealing the perception of school leadership by school administrators who were expected to cope with problems and enable students to succeed in the U.S. and Turkey. Comparative case study design was used to analyze and compare the U.S. and Turkey school administrators’ perceptions of school leadership through metaphors. The study sample consisted of 47 school administrators employed in K-12 schools in Turkey and the U.S. …

The Application Of Basic Communication Skills To Higher Education Administration, Kelly Rocca Delgaizo, Ann Bainbridge Frymier, Timothy P. Mottet

Journal of the Association for Communication Administration

Communication skills are a core requirement for administrators in higher education. Evidence for this proposition can be found in the job announcements for administrators and in the conferences they attend. The Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences’ (CCAS) annual conference is a place for deans and other administrators from around the country to gather to work on becoming better at “deaning.” For the past few years, a pre-conference workshop titled “Conflict Management for Deans,” has been offered, and serves as a perfect example of the importance of our discipline to higher education administration. In a quick review of the …

Childhood Loss And Ad/Hd: Program Implications For Education Administrators, Helen Wilson Harris, Marlene Zipperlen

Administrative Issues Journal

Evidence-based practice and evidence-informed practice are not just buzzwords in education. It is essential that administrators encourage both the development and the application of new knowledge in the field. This study of 1755 elementary age children in Central Texas indicates a positive association between the experience of childhood loss and grief and a diagnosis of AD/HD. Implications of this information for administrators in education are explored, including the training of counselors and classroom teachers in grief interventions and accommodations for grief related attention problems in children.

Administrative Strategies For Preparing Teaching Candidates To Be Building-Level Technology Change Agents, Richard Rose

Administrative Issues Journal

Teacher education graduates in their early years of service are ill-prepared to act as building-level change agents who can advocate for the enhanced use of technology in the classroom. In this study, a group of experienced teachers seeking the M.Ed. in Educational Technology suggest that the lack of confidence which new teachers show in relation to technology can be traced back to the absence of rigorous technical skill-building in both their Introduction to Educational Technology class and methods classes. These tech-savvy mid-career teachers then identify obstacles to enhancing pre-service teacher education programs with more effective preparation in teaching with technology …

Teacher Shortage: Are Teachers Their Own Worst Enemy?, Sarah Worsham, Michael Arnold, Kevin Schriver, Eric Moore

Essays in Education

This article reviews some of the past research that has explored the teacher shortage, and describes a study conducted to identify reasons current educators entered the field of education and reasons why they would encourage their own children to enter that field. Additionally, this article looks at the reasons current educators would not encourage their own children to enter the field of education. By looking at the data, it is the position of the authors that a factor in the teacher shortage may be directly traced to teachers not encouraging their own children to enter the field of education.

Militarism Goes To School, Laura L. Finley

Essays in Education

While there are many influences that shape how schools are structured one that has been largely ignored is the influence of militarism. Militarism refers to a set of values or ideologies that include hierarchical relationships and domination. This piece discusses the ways that schools are militaristic, including their authority, physical, academic, and athletic structures, the processes used by administrators and in classrooms, and the curriculums taught.