Educator evaluation and the law: a case study of common statutory problems

Journal ArticleStatutorily many states have gone through an evolutionary process regarding educator evaluation. This often results in a disconnected body of laws and amendments that create problems with respect to purposes of evaluation, appropriate standards and methods to be employed, and implementation strategies. The Utah case study presented in the current paper illustrates this phenomenon. As educator evaluation matures, statutorial efforts to look at educator evaluation in a comprehensive manner becomes critical

Theory to practice: a description and multi-dimensional evaluation of the University of Utah's educational administration Ed.D. program

Journal ArticleThe purpose of this paper is tp describe the University of Utah's recently revised Ed.D. program and to report the results of several program evaluation efforts conducted since i t s implementation. In particular, the most recent evaluation study assesses the effectiveness of the field-based doctoral program in educational administration in linking theory and research t o the improvement of practice by evaluating the degree and ways in which doctoral student field-based projects and studies have resulted in program or policy changes in schools or other education-related agencies

Opportunities and challenges of school collaboration

Journal ArticleCollaborative work organizations and related themes (such as community, cooperation, etc.) have become the focus of both research and practice in education during the past few years. Some may view emphasis on collaboration (or community) in schools as the second stage of the initial "site-based management" movement initiated in the late 1980's. School organizations have begun expanding their democratic governance emphasis with teacher, parent, and community advisory councils, engaging in partnerships with other human service agencies or businesses, or redesigning educators' work to add a group or team emphasis

Decision making in videotaped selection interviews: age and position effects retested

Journal ArticleThis study was designed to test the effects of a candidate's age and the effect of the type of position under consideration on candidate ratings as assessed from a videotaped interview simulation. To investigate the effect of these variables, a 2 x 2 factorial design was used. The independent variables manipulated were: (1) candidate age in the videotaped interview (27 or 43 years old), and (2) the type of position under consideration (physical education teacher or social studies teacher)

Theory to practice in administrator preparation: an evaluation study

Journal ArticleThe purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of a field-based doctoral program in educational administration on linking theory and research to the improvement of practice. Specifically, the study evaluates the degree and ways in which doctoral student field-based projects and studies completed as an integral part of the University of Utah's field-based Ed.D. program have resulted in program or policy changes in schools or other education-related agencies. This evaluation of the theory-practice emphasis in the University of Utah's Ed.D. program suggests that the program is successfully meeting its central program objective. Study data indicate that approximately one-half to two-thirds of student projects resulted in some sort of policy or program change in educational practice. Projects that resulted in change in local schools, districts or other education-related agencies tended to be either policy adoptions addressing legal and/or personnel administration concerns or instructional program implementations for students and staff. Factors that enhanced the likelihood of a project resulting in a policy or program change were: 1} the student's familiarity with relevant problems of practice; 2) the degree to which students worked closely with other organizational employees in developing and refining the project; and 3) the utility and conceptual/analytical quality of the proposal itself

Teacher teams: promoting teacher involvement and leadership in secondary schools

Journal ArticleEmployee involvement efforts in schools have increasingly encouraged employee involvement in planning and governance procedures. Most involvement efforts could be described as suggestion involvement or individual job enhancement approaches, although these currently emphasized approaches to teacher involvement have had limited impact due to the limitations of traditional school control mechanisms and the professional norms of schools. Correspondingly, leadership is being reconceptualized more broadly to emphasize shared influence by many employees across the organization, with work group influence rather than individual influence a more promising strategy for school effectiveness. Specifically, research suggests that teacher teams may be able to exercise greater influence and may have greater impact on school outcomes and effectiveness than leadership by individual teachers. The implications of these two developments suggest teachers' work may need to be redesigned to have a group or team emphasis. Correspondingly, secondary schools would require restructuring from a traditional discipline-based, departmentalized structural arrangement to a more student-centered school within-school structure. These work design and school restructuring changes hold promise for increasing teachers' involvement and leadership in secondary schools

Organizational orientation in public and private elementary schools

Journal ArticleIn this study, we investigated the relationship between organizational value orientation and tow variables, organizational commitment and job satisfaction, among teachers from private and public elementary schools

Gender-related biases in admission decisions

Journal ArticleThe competitive admission process for educational programs in health sciences usually begins with a screening phase. Raters, who are often the same people who later interview the applicants, screen candidates based on information on their application forms. Only the applicants who survive the screening phase progress to the interview phase

Job desirability of the university professorate in the field of educational leadership

Journal ArticleThis survey research study uses job choice theory to assess recent educational leadership doctoral graduates' perceptions of the desirability of the educational administration professorate. Results reveal attractive and unattractive aspects of professorial work as well as those job attributes that are most strongly related to candidates' assessment of overall job desirability and job intentions

The Context of University-based Educational Leadership Preparation

The purpose of this chapter is to address forces internal and external to universities that influence educational leadership preparation today. Admittedly, leader preparation programs have extended beyond the walls of universities. However, it is still true that the clear majority of school leader candidates obtain their administrative degrees and licenses through university preparation programs. Thus, we have focused on forces internal and external to universities in our discussion of the context of educational leadership preparation