Education Commons^™

Are Alternative School Leader Preparation Programs Really Needed To Prepare Next-Generation School Leaders?, Thomas J. Lasley, Emmy L. Partin, Jamie Davies O'Leary, Theodore J. Kowalski

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

The essays in this chapter focus on the issue of how best to recruit the very best administrative talent to leadership positions in schools. For years, the accepted practice has been for school leaders to be prepared through traditional school administration programs with higher education institutions. These programs, almost exclusively housed within colleges and schools of education, consisted of a range of courses from school law to school finance, often with associated and embedded field and clinical components. The focus on school leader preparation has emerged in partial response to the No Child Left Behind legislation. Clearly, there are expanded …

Can Students Be Disciplined For Off-Campus Cyberspeech: The Reach Of The First Amendment In The Age Of Technology, Charles J. Russo, Allan G. Osborne Jr.

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

The widespread use of technology in today's schools has ushered in a host of legal issues that educators and parents could not have contemplated just a few years ago. Within the past decade, students have had the unprecedented ability to send text messages and instant messages, create websites, post blogs, construct Internet profiles, and post messages on burgeoning social networking sites, most notably Facebook. Even when students engage in such speech-related activity off campus using their personal computers, their actions and posts on such social networking sites as MySpace and Facebook can have carryover effects into school and classroom environments. …

Disciplining Students With Disabilities: An American Perspective, Charles J. Russo, Allan G. Osborne Jr.

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

A significant interconnectedness exists between and among schools, parents, students with disabilities, and local communities. A topic of great interest in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and beyond, educators, working in conjunction with their attorneys, struggle with meeting their legal duty to meet the needs of students with disabilities, not only when they are in school but also when they leave formal educational settings since they must then sustain themselves for the rest of their lives. As educators seek to meet the educational needs of students with disabilities, an area that often presents a major controversy is discipline, particularly …

A Study Of Leadership Dispositions Of Transformational Leaders In Georgia High School, Todd Douglas Veland

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Education reform has reached new levels of urgency and accountability over the last decade. The role a principal plays in leading the direction of a school is of vital importance. Leadership theories suggest that transformational leadership is the best way to achieve the goals of schools in the 21st century. Educational leadership programs try to emphasize transformational leadership skill, but these schools need to identify transformational leaders before they enter into school leadership. Dispositions are innate qualities and not necessarily a skill that can be taught by educational leadership programs.

The purpose of this study is to identify dispositions of …

Positive Youth Development: A Resiliency Based Afterschool Program Case Study, Lindsey Brown, Eddie Hill, Amy Shellman, Edwin Gomez

Human Movement Sciences & Special Education Faculty Publications

This study examined the impact of an afterschool program on resilience in youth at an elementary school in Central NY. The goals of the program were to: (a) increase resiliency among participants, and (b) reduce the occurrence of aggressive behaviors (i.e., bullying) in 5th and 6th graders. Of the 79 students who completed the survey, 19 participants were able to be matched with pre- and posttests. In the study, 13 as participants in the afterschool program, and six as non-participants. Results of paired samples t-tests indicated that those who participated in the afterschool program showed a significant increase (p= 0.05) …

Relationship Of Collaborative School Culture And School Achievement, Karen Durrence Bland

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this correlational, quantitative study was to examine the magnitude and direction of the relationship between collaborative school culture and school achievement in rural, economically disadvantaged middle schools utilizing a 6, 7, 8 grade configuration. Survey data was collected from 263 teachers representing 12 rural, economically disadvantaged middle schools in the state of Georgia. Data collection tools included the Learning Community Culture Indicator (LCCI) 4.0 survey developed by Williams, Matthews, Stewart, and Hilton (2007) and the Georgia Criterion Referenced Competency Test (GCRCT).

The study generated data from 12 middle schools regarding the overall functionality level of their collaborative …

Principals Roles And Responsibilities In Technology Integration In Rural Georgia, Christie Dunham

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe the elementary school principal’s roles and responsibilities in the use of technology for instructional purposes in Title I rural schools. Three principals, three technology coordinators and 8 teachers in the Southeastern area of Georgia participated in the study. Interview questions for the participants were created after a careful review of the literature on the subject and with input from leadership professors at Georgia Southern University. An analysis was conducted on data provided by the participants from the interview questionnaire and analyzed as separate entities to authenticate results.

Data from principals’ interviews …

Principals And The Professional Victim Syndrome, James G. Pulos

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Principals today are constantly in the public eye. Every decision made subjects him/her to the scrutiny of staff and faculty, students, central office personnel, parents, community members, and board members. Contemporary principals are asked by their superintendents to lead reform efforts effectively or face the possibility of dismissal. Principals often face the dilemma of balancing politics in an effort to appease board members and the superintendent while simultaneously implementing critical change efforts in their schools. Hess and Kelly (2005) suggested that as principals attempt to lead reform efforts, they often go blindly into these positions unprepared and enter the principalship …

A Case Study Of One Iowa Female Elementary School Principal's Journey Into Administration, Angela J. Fowler

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The representation of women in educational administration fluctuated throughout history from the 1900s to present day. Presently, women represent over 53% of all elementary school principals in Iowa; but documentation of their specific stories and perspectives is infrequent. I conducted this research with the intent to build upon the qualitative research studies previously completed on educational leadership; specifically lo include an ethnographic account of one female's story in an urban school district.

Through a series of in-depth interviews and participant observations, I gained the perspective of one female elementary school principal in Iowa's experiences into and through the principalship. In …

Principals' Strategies For Improving The Academic Achievement Of Students Of Disadvantaged Rural Junior High Schools In Ghana, Erasmus Kormla Norviewu-Mortty

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The academic performance of students in public basic schools in rural Ghana during the past two decades has declined significantly (Akyeampong, 2007). Government efforts to remedy this have not yielded any sustainable result (Atta-Quayson, 2007). The Saboba District Junior High Schools are among the lowest-performing rural schools. Generally, inadequate funding and resourcing are blamed for poor academic achievement of disadvantaged, rural students. During eight years of teaching in the Saboba District, the Researcher observed that the academic achievement of students in some schools remained high while that of others in the same locality remained low. Further, the Researcher’s experiences suggested …

Charter School Principals' And Teachers' Leadership Perception Scores On The Five Dimensions Of The Leadership Practices Inventory Instrument, Tamara B. Kirshtein

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The purpose of this study was to determine differences between the self-perceptions of principals in relation to the five leadership practices delineated by Kouzes and Posner's (2003) Leadership Practices Inventory in relation to the perceptions of their teachers on their (principal) leadership across the same five dimensions. The Wilcoxon Rank Sum Test was used to compare the median differences for statistical significance to address the four hypotheses of this study.

Hypothesis 1: Perception scores of charter school principals on themselves and teacher perception scores of their principals will not differ significantly on the five dimensions of leadership. An analysis of …

Understanding The Chinese Superintendency In The Context Of Quality-Oriented Education, Xiu Chen Cravens, Yarong Liu, Margaret Grogan

Education Faculty Articles and Research

The implementation of national educational reform in China calls for newer and stronger school administration. Recognizing the need to establish a knowledge base for leadership development, we employ a set of existing US professional standards for educational leaders as a frame of reference to unpack the complex role of Chinese superintendents. Using data collected from two surveys administered to more than 200 Chinese superintendents in 2007, we find that many indicators of leadership considered essential in the United States are also viewed as necessary for effective superintendency in China. Feedback from the superintendents also points out gaps between what is …

The Role Of The School Principal In Technology Integration : A Literature Review, Lance Lennon

Graduate Research Papers

The effective integration of technology into a school's curriculum is strongly influenced by the role played by a school principal. This literature review aims to examine a principal as a school leader, a principal as a technology leader, and specifically what a principal needs to be an effective leader of technology integration. This paper reviews peer-reviewed journal articles, research studies, and doctoral theses focused on the role of a principal in technology integration. Research indicates principals and other school leaders are crucial to the success of school initiatives, and that administrators need more training opportunities to have the positive impact …

How Georgia Elementary School Principals Manage Difficult Teachers, Tim M. Tilley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The primary focus of this study is to ascertain how elementary school principals deal with difficult teachers. Two sub-questions were addressed in the study: what the different types of difficult teachers that elementary school principals encounter were and what types of strategies elementary principals found to be effective when dealing with difficult teachers. This study provides information for principals on how to deal with difficult teachers. The researcher found there to be minimal research in this area. A qualitative method in the phenomenological tradition was utilized to explore how elementary school principals deal with difficult teachers. Ten principals from a …

Establishing Special Education Programs: Experiences Of Christian School Principals, Gary Cookson, Samuel J. Smith

Samuel James Smith