NIUSI

part of the Education Reform Networks

Governance & Leadership

• Elementary and Middle Schools Technical Assistance Center: An Approach to Support the Effective Implementation of Scientifically Based Practices in Special Education
  The researchers at the Elementary and Middle Schools Technical Assistance Center (EMSTAC) tested an insider-outsider approach to assist local school districts in effectively identifying and implementing scientifically based practices. Methods used to measure EMSTAC's effectiveness in supporting successful practice adoption are presented.
• Leadership Academies - Module 3, Inclusive Schools
  This module was developed by the National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI) This module introduces the inclusive model of education, which proposes that, with support structures in place, all students are able to successfully learn in the general education classroom. Rather than teach students with special needs separately, general and special educators collaborate to address the needs of all students to allow them to learn together.
• A Faceless Bureaucrat Ponders Special Education, Disability, and White Privilege
  The author of this article critiques categorical approaches to special education, overrepresentation of minority children in special education, inclusion and exclusion, and white privilege. Also, she describes the potential of multicultural education, transformation, and participatory leadership approaches to address the issues raised in the critique.
• A web of support: The role of districts in urban middle-grades reform.
  This report prepared by the Academy for Educational Development (AED) presents information and strategies for implementing reform efforts in middle-grades schools. In particular, it draws on the perspectives and experiences of 50 district administrators from 35 urban districts who participated in the Urban Middle-Grades Reform Network.
• Determining Policy support for Inclusive schools
  This document was designed to help teams of policy-makers, practitioners, and advocates implement inclusive practices. There are six sections in this guide, each representing a policy area.
• Inquiry at the crossroads of policy and learning: A study of a district-wide literacy initiative.
  The authors of this this article presented result of 100 classroom observations and interviews with teachers, district administrators and staff developers on the implementation of the Balanced Literacy Program in NY District #2. They focused on the relationship between policy and practice.
• Toward a framework for preparing leaders for social justice
  Following the idea that putting social justice in educational practices, the authors proposed one possible framework for conceptualizing the preparation of leaders for social justice. To this end, three central questions guided this conceptualization: "What are the common themes in the literature and research on preparing leaders for social justice?"; "How can this framework serve as a guide for developing a course, set of courses, or an entire program toward preparing leaders to lead socially just schools?"; and "How can this literature and conceptualization inform future scholarship in administrator preparation?" This work included a review of 72 pieces of literature.
• The Reflective Principal
  This booklet was developed by the National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI)as part of the activities of the Principal's Project, a federally funded grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs.
• A story of change: Growing leadership for learning
  The author of this article examined the process of change in 22 schools which participated in a three year study of leadership spanning seven countries. Quantitative and qualitative measures were used to establish a baseline in each of the schools, providing a basis for discussion at follow up workshops, and offering agendas for schools to work on and to refer to in face-to-face and virtual networking.
• Leading out from low-performing schools: The urban principal experience
  Researchers in the field of education have researched the educational leadership in urban schools primarily by focusing on the school context, and not the leadership required to facilitate school improvement. Through a collaborative inquiry process, six principals and two researchers spent almost two years exploring in depth the nature of the urban leadership in turning around low-performing schools.
• Investigating leadership practice: Exploring the entailments of taking a distributed perspective
  This paper is about distributed perspectives on educational leadership. It applies to all educational leaders.
• School-Based Management: Reconceptualizing to Improve Learning Outcomes
  The authors examined educational decentralization efforts in both developed and developing countries, guided by two questions: (1) under what conditions does school-based management (SBM) produce best results and (2) what are the roles and relationships of the school/community and of the region/center. The authors summarized, from recent literature, reasons for the usual failure of SBM and identify the conditions under which SBM works, noting school/community relations and external infrastructure as important factors.
• Sources of leadership for inclusive education: Creating schools for all children
  The authors examined leadership for inclusion in three schools according to leadership functions. They found that multiple people in the schools from parents and teachers contributed leadership for the success of the program.
• Instructional leadership challenges: The case of using student achievement information for instructional improvement
  This article is about the instructional leadership. It applies to educational leaders.
• How Can Comprehensive School Reform Models Be Successfully Implemented
  The author reported a study that focused on the implementation of comprehensive school reform (CSR). Variation in CSR implementation, importance of the implementation, and analysis of CSR implementation were discussed by using the policy attributes theory.
• The Role of Leadership in the Promotion of Knowledge Management in Schools
  The author of this paper drew on school systems and successful business to identify what knowledge sharing looks like in successful organizations. He suggested that knowledge building is a critical capacity for all organizations, and especially for schools and school systems.
• The Three Stories of Education Reform
  Michael Fullan discussed large-scale education reform and illustrates the reform through three stories. He differenced that professional learning communities for educators makes in how well students do in school.
• Leading coherent professional development: A comparison of three districts
  This article is about the relationship between professional learning/development programs and teachers’ instructional practices. It applies to educational leaders interested in implementing effective professional learning/development programs.
• Principals of Inclusive schools
  This paper was developed by the National Institute of Urban School Improvement (NIUSI). It is about the roles of school leaders in inclusive schools.
• Why Do Some Curricular Challenges Work while Others Do Not? The Case of Three Afrocentric Challenges
  The author compared three cases in Atlanta, GA, New York state, and Washington, DC, in which advocated fought to have an Afrocentric curriculum implemented in public schools' social studies and history classes. The author examined the influences of six local organizational factors on the proposed curricular changes.
• The district's role in building capacity: Four strategies
  In this policy brief, the author explored the promises and challenges of four major capacity-building strategies that researchers at the Consortium for Policy Research in Education observed in twenty-two districts in California, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, and Texas over a two-year period.
  Download the document here .
• Leadership Academies - Module 2, Mining Data
  This module was designed by National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI) to help building leadership teams learn the skills required to mine data and use it to make decisions. As principals and teacher leaders become confident in their ability to query their data, they will become strong role models and coaches for the entire faculty.
• Diversity Within Unity: Essential Principles for Teaching and Learning in a Multicultural Society
  The authors discussed 12 essential principles to help schools teach democratic values in a multicultural society. They derived from findings of the Multicultural Education Consensus Panel to review and synthesize research on diversity, principles are organized into five categories: Teacher learning; student learning; intergroup relations; school governance, organization, and equity; and assessment.
• New Lessons for Districtwide Reform
  The authors of this article examined the components of effective leadership for educational change at the district level; function of a coalition of district leaders; and role of an area instructional officer. The authors also listed the external partners that help build the district's professional capacity.
• Self-knowledge, capacity and sensitivity: Prerequisites to authentic leadership by school principals.
  This article is about authentic leadership. It applies to all educational leaders interested in developing authentic leadership capacities within themselves and amongst others.
• Inclusion, diversity and leadership
  Drawing on research from a longitudinal case study of a large urban secondary school, this article examines senior leadership of and in a school struggling to be inclusive. The analysis focuses on the effect of senior leadership on: the ways in which inclusion is conceptualized and practised in this school, in particular by teachers; student intake profiles and diversity; teacher motivation and educational outcomes.
• Professional development for urban principals in underperforming schools
  Principals in America's lowest performing urban schools face many challenges, including public scrutiny as a consequence of being identified as such by state and federal legislation. These special circumstances have implications for the professional development of the leaders of these schools.
• Leadership Academies - Module 1, Building Leadership Teams
  This professional learning module was developed by the National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI). The academies in this module promote inclusive systems and schools by coaching Building Leadership Team members in both leadership skills and team collaboration.
• Supporting school leaders.
  The authors described and gave examples of administrative mentoring programs in schools in the United States. They outlined benefits of the program for schools, administrators and superintendents.
• The Change Leader
  In this article, Michael Fullan, a leading scholar in the field of educational reform, argued that concept of principal as instructional leader is too limited to sustain school improvement. He commented that only principals who are equipped to handle a complex, rapidly changing environment can implement the reforms that lead to sustained improvement in student achievement.
• The Theoretical Foundations of Professional Development in Special Education: Is Sociocultural Theory Enough?
  This authors reviewed sociocultural, multicultural, and critical pedagogical theories and suggests that an adequate and sufficient theoretical framework for professional development in special education must explicitly and directly address issues of power, discrimination, and relative status that underlie dilemmas of practice. They offered vignettes of such dilemmas, with reference to the 1998 Council for Exceptional Children's professional standards.
• Pathways to Inclusive Practices:Systems Oriented, Policy-Linked, and Research-Based Strategies that Work
  This guidebook was developed by the National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI) for parents, practitioners,administrators, and policy-makers seeking to make schools and classrooms more responsive to the educational needs of all students,including those with disabilities.
  Download the document here .
• Backward design for forward action
  Using data to improve student achievement is a crucial issue and indicates an everyday challenge for all teachers and school leaders. In this the article, the authors explicitly demonstrate how school improvement initiatives can be integrated at the school and district levels.
• The sustainability of comprehensive school reform models in changing district and state contexts
  This article is about school reforms. It applies to all educational leaders who are interested in the sustainability of comprehensive school reform (CSR) models in the face of turbulent district and state contexts.
• Color-blind and color-conscious leadership: A case study of desegregated suburban schools in the USA
  This article is about cultural and linguistic diversity in educational leadership. Leadership and diversity are invariably connected, as U.S.