Organizational Learning in Schools Pursuing Social Justice: Fostering Educational Entrepreneurship and Boundary Spanning

The field of socially just educational leadership is focused on promoting improve· ments in the teaching and learning environment as demonstrated by student learning gains, particularly for traditionally marginalized students. The field has identified priorities (i.e., school improvement, democratic community, and social justice) and steps to pursue these priorities (specific strategies school leaders can take and conditions they can foster). Building on this literature, this article exam· ines organizational learning in school communities that claim to be pursuing these priorities. It argues that organizational learning is a lens for socially just educational leaders to link theory with practice and to shift their focus from the knowledge, skills, and dispositions of individuals to the communities of practice within schools. It first describes a theoretical framework for examining organi· zational learning in schools, then analyzes two school settings illustrating orga· nizational learning in educational entrepreneurship and boundary spanning. It concludes with a discussion of the implications this has for the broader field of socially just educational leadership

The Grammar of Catholic Schooling and Radically Catholic Schools

A grammar of Catholic schooling inhibits many elementary and secondary Catholic schools from reflecting on how they practice Catholic Social Teaching (CST). The values of human dignity, the common good, and a preferential option for the marginalized are central to CST. Schools can live these values by serving children who live in poverty, are racial, ethnic, and linguistic minorities, or have disabilities. This article demonstrates how a grammar of Catholic schooling has allowed Catholic schools to fall into recruitment and retention patterns antithetical to CST. Drawing upon a multicase, qualitative study of three urban Catholic elementary schools serving marginalized students, the article illustrates how select Catholic schools are breaking the grammar of Catholic schooling by practicing CST. Implications for research and practice are discussed

Problematizing the Pursuit of Social Justice Education

Leadership for social justice embraces diversity, promotes inclusivity, and transforms relationships between schools and communities (Riehl, 2000). Though calls for such leadership abound (Bates, 2006; Blackmore, 2002; Cambron-McCabe & McCarthy, 2005; Larson & Murtadha, 2002; Marshall & Oliva, 2006b), the intricacies and inconsistencies of this pursuit are less frequently subjected to case study analysis. Drawn from a multicase study of schools serving traditionally marginalized students (Scanlan, 2005), this article examines how leadership efforts toward social justice can paradoxically lead to truncated manifestations of this goal. The implications of the original study suggest that school leaders need to problematize – not essentialize – their pursuit of social justice

Review of \u3cem\u3eOrganizing Schools for Improvement\u3c/em\u3e

What are the necessary and sufficient ingredients that lead to substantial improvement in student learning in urban schools? How do they work together? What happens if one of these necessary components is missing? Organizing Schools for Improvement (Bryk, Sebring, Allensworth, Luppescu, & Easton, 2009) is an ambitious work that both raises these big questions and addresses them with aplomb. As inequities in educational opportunities persist (Borman & Dowling, 2010), transforming education, particular public urban schooling, remains a vexing and urgent problem. In recent decades public discourse regarding addressing this has swelled, but policies promising transformation have proven ineffectual (Ravitch, 2010a, 2010b). A narrowing focus on rudimentary indicators of student achievement has constrained public discourse around the underlying purposes of schooling (Rose, 2009). In this context Organizing Schools emerges as a masterful work providing salient, compelling evidence regarding how to address this national concern. Lauded as the most important research in a decade on the topic (Scheurich, Goddard, Skrla, McKenzie, & Youngs, 2010), Bryk and colleagues have crafted a rare work that has emerged as essential reading for practitioners, scholars, and policy makers, particularly in the field of educational leadership. The extraordinary dimension of the study is not that it establishes leadership as playing a central role in orchestrating school improvement. This central finding, though powerful, has been well documented elsewhere (e.g., Wahlstrom, Seashore Louis, Leithwood, & Anderson, 2010). Rather, the power in Organizing Schools is unpacking how leadership works to promote school improvement in concert with four other dimensions, and how these five components are both necessary and sufficient to drive substantive school improvement. In this essay review I first describe the primary aims and findings of Organizing Schools and then examine concrete implications of this work, specifically attending to leadership preparation and future research in the field of educational leadership

Reducing Educational Barriers in Catholic Schools for Latino Students

Roll 202a. at Tommy's / St. Mary's (Prairie Du Chien) / at the Crane's. Image 1 of 37. (6 August, 1955; 13 August, 1955; 14 August, 1955) [PHO 1.202a.19]The Boleslaus Lukaszewski (Father Luke) Photographs contain more than 28,000 images of Saint Louis University people, activities, and events between 1951 and 1970. The photographs were taken by Boleslaus Lukaszewski (Father Luke), a Jesuit priest and member of the University's Philosophy Department faculty

School Leadership for Social Justice: A Critique of Starratt\u27s Tripartite Model

Rather than treated as a discreet task or as an overarching orientation, leadership for social justice is more appropriately situated within a comprehensive theory of school administration, such as Starratt’s (2003) model of leadership as cultivating meaning, responsibility, and community. Starratt’s general model of educational leadership contextualizes social justice leadership practices in a broader context. The purpose of this article is to apply Starratt’s model as an analytical lens to examine the practices of school leaders in schools that are focused on promoting social justice by reducing barriers to traditionally marginalized students. The multicase study reported here provides empirical evidence illustrating the strengths and limitations of this model as an analytic lens through which such leadership practices can be critiqued and improved

Caregiver Engagement in Religious Urban Elementary Schools

This article examines how school leaders in a religious school serving traditionally marginalized students improve their school communities through constructing space for caregiver engagement. This study suggests how counter-narratives of critical care can inform social justice leadership in schools. The results, from a case study of a Catholic urban elementary school that uses innovative and effective strategies to engage caregivers, show that educational leaders create spaces for engaging caregivers by developing relationships with them and systematically reducing barriers to their participation in the school community. Analyzing these results through the critical care theory lens illuminates how these spaces value diverse forms of social and cultural capital are strengthened by alliances with nontraditional support structures. This research contributes to our evolving understanding of caregiver engagement by presenting a textured analysis of a case study as viewed through a critical care conceptual framework

Race, Power, and (In)equity Within Two-way Immersion Settings

Two-way immersion schools provide a promising model for service delivery to students who are English language learners. With the goals of bilingualism, academic excellence, and cross cultural appreciation, these schools are designed to build bridges across linguistically heterogeneous student bodies. Yet while empirical evidence demonstrates that the two-way immersion model can be effective in these regards, we know little about how such schools address other dimensions of diversity, including race, ethnicity, class, and disability. This study contributes to filling this gap by critically analyzing these dimensions in the areas of recruitment and retention in two two-way immersion schools