Pursuing the Principalship: Factors in Assistant Principals’ Decisions

School administrators who are hired to lead and guide schools and districts must possess a number of characteristics that allow them to become successful leaders. The presence or absence of a strong educational leader can make all the difference in school climate and student achievement (Kelley, Thornton, & Daugherty, 2005). Educational leaders need to be cognizant of what constitutes an effective leader and which characteristics have the most effective impact on student achievement. Alford et al. (2011) stated, while principals are engaged in the managerial tasks of the school, securing the building for safety, ensuring bus routes, student schedules, and the day-to-day management tasks, the instructional needs of the faculty and students compete for attention (p. 29)

Do Resources Matter? The Relationship Between Instructional Expenditures and College Readiness Indicators

Public schools face seemingly endless scrutiny. Educators have experienced an increased level of accountability and demand to graduate students who are college ready or well prepared to enter the workforce. The topic of educational funding is often at the forefront of public discussion and debate in Texas. While policymakers recurrently examine the way public schools have been funded (Fermanich, 2009), school district leaders are forced to unrelentingly evaluate and assess the efficacy and results of instructional programs and performance measures. With the push for college readiness for all students, the topic of funding adequacy has continued to be an issue

An Examination of Student Disengagement and Reengagement from an Alternative High School

Each year, 20% of U.S. students drop out of high school (Balfanz, Bridgeland, Bruce, & Fox, 2013). There is an abundance of research on student behaviors from researchers who explored the process of student disengagement from school (Bowers, Sprott, & Taff, 2013; Lessard, Butler-Kisber, Fortin, Marcotte, Potvin, & Royer, 2008), however there is a lack of understanding of why students disengage in the first place. This study was conducted to examine students’ perceptions of the effect of an alternative high school on their decision to either graduate or drop out. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with ten former students and three staff members from an alternative high school. Half of the former student participants who reengaged by attending the alternative high school graduated and half of them did not. The former students perceived that relationships between staff members and students led to the success of the alternative high school. They believed that push-out factors at the traditional high school caused their disengagement, and that they exercised autonomy in their choices of whether pull-out factors would impact their decision to graduate or drop out. The former students shared that personalized instruction and peer-to-peer learning encouraged them to feel ownership for their learning and taught them to respect fellow students and teachers. Data from the teacher and administrator interviews provided additional information about the workings of the alternative high school

Setting Sights on Campus Safety: The Possibility of Firearms on Campus and Campus Violence Prevention

PK-12 school leaders spend a sizeable amount of time discussing, facilitating, and contemplating school safety and security. University administrators do as well, although their discussion and contemplation in some states has been scattered with controversies of allowing weapons on university campuses. School administrators seek to keep weapons out; many university administrators do also, although the legislatures of multiple states have allowed their presence on university campuses

The Persistence and Attrition of Online Learners

Student retention is a growing concern as more university programs move toward online learning. With a continual increase in online program choices, it is important to recognize course elements that affect the success of online learners (Kane, Shaw, Pang, Salley, & Snider, 2015). University professors need strategies to provide assistance for students and to decrease the number of students who fail to progress in online programs. It is important that faculty support students, but just as important that universities provide time, opportunities, and resources for such support to occur

Shared Leadership on a Career and Technical Education Campus

Many students enter career and technical education (CTE) programs to pursue the attainment of job-specific skills. K-12 career and technical education program educators help prepare students for careers after high school by offering students a way to establish and improve upon industry-based skills (Treschan & Mehrotra, 2014). Through CTE programs, educators train students to become global competitors in the workforce by introducing them to career practices that are prominent within their fields (Conley, 2013; Gordon, 2014; Stone & Lewis, 2012)

School Leaders’ Supports of Dual Language Science Teachers

English learners account for 21.7% of the Texas public school system (Texas Education Agency, 2022). This qualitative study was conducted to examine how teachers of English learners in a dual language program perceived the educational supports they received affected student achievement in science. Teacher participants were asked about their experiences with administrative supports and how those supports affected their teaching and student performance. Two administrators were also interviewed for the study. The teacher participants identified administrative supports they perceived to be beneficial to student learning and to the functioning of the EL program and science classroom. The administrative supports identified included: school leaders provided resources and communicated frequently about resource needs, school leaders prioritized opportunities for lesson modeling and demonstrations, and leaders planned for and facilitated collaborative planning and data meetings with the teachers

Methodological Issues in Multistage Genome-Wide Association Studies

Because of the high cost of commercial genotyping chip technologies, many investigations have used a two-stage design for genome-wide association studies, using part of the sample for an initial discovery of ``promising'' SNPs at a less stringent significance level and the remainder in a joint analysis of just these SNPs using custom genotyping. Typical cost savings of about 50% are possible with this design to obtain comparable levels of overall type I error and power by using about half the sample for stage I and carrying about 0.1% of SNPs forward to the second stage, the optimal design depending primarily upon the ratio of costs per genotype for stages I and II. However, with the rapidly declining costs of the commercial panels, the generally low observed ORs of current studies, and many studies aiming to test multiple hypotheses and multiple endpoints, many investigators are abandoning the two-stage design in favor of simply genotyping all available subjects using a standard high-density panel. Concern is sometimes raised about the absence of a ``replication'' panel in this approach, as required by some high-profile journals, but it must be appreciated that the two-stage design is not a discovery/replication design but simply a more efficient design for discovery using a joint analysis of the data from both stages. Once a subset of highly-significant associations has been discovered, a truly independent ``exact replication'' study is needed in a similar population of the same promising SNPs using similar methods.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/09-STS288 the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Voices of alternatively certified teachers: Factors that assisted in their achievement of longevity.

Patterns were discovered that indicated that each of the teachers interviewed achieved longevity through the assistance of mentors and previous work-related experiences. Mentors included family members, colleagues and administrators who provided encouragement, advice and direct instruction. The participants' prior work experiences provided them with knowledge and skills they were able to draw from to survive in the classroom. The patterns that emerged helped to provide information about what assists alternatively certified teachers achieve longevity in the classroom. As the alternative teacher certification trend continues, knowledge about what helps teachers survive and even flourish in classrooms may influence student knowledge achievement and school environments.Research results of studies that examine alternatively certified teachers are inconsistent. Some describe the tremendous accomplishments of alternatively certified teachers. Others allude to their high attrition rates and failures (Miller, McKenna & McKenna, 1999). Research was lacking that qualitatively examined the factors that assisted the professional survival of alternatively certified teachers in one southwestern state.A person with no pedagogical training, curricular knowledge nor classroom observation experiences may show up the first day of school and call himself or herself your child's teacher. As teacher attrition occurs and the need for teachers increases, alternatively certified teachers are entering the teaching profession at a rapid rate, thus affecting school climate and student learning. Research was needed to add to the knowledge base of alternative teacher certification. Data was collected to discover factors that assisted a group of tenured, alternatively certified teachers achieve longevity in the classroom.Participants included 10 alternatively certified science teachers, each of whom was currently employed by a school district in a southwestern state for at least three years. The methodological approach employed was educational biography, during which the participants relayed brief general life histories, focusing upon their educational lives, and described their professional experiences