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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the district effectiveness literature. It begins by summarizing the school effectiveness research, the correlates of effective schools, and the conceptual and methodological characteristics of this field. It then describes the findings from a review of 50 studies of district effectiveness, the most frequently identified correlates of effective districts, and the conceptual and methodological features of this research. From there, it compares and contrasts the two fields, paying attention to the ways in which they frame notions of success, purposes of education, the contextualized nature of school performance, and theoretical explanations for student success.

Data sources for this literature review included 50 primary documents on district effectiveness. The studies were bound to those that presented the original results from investigations of the relationship between district‐level policies, routines, behaviors, or other characteristics and classroom‐level outcomes.

Several themes run through the literature on district effectiveness. These include findings that standards‐aligned curricula, coherent organizational structures, strong instructional leadership, frequent monitoring and evaluation, and focused professional learning lead to higher test scores. Most of these investigations are framed from technical perspectives that explore the relationship between organizational regulations and improved test performance. Less common are inquiries about the socio‐political and normative forces that shape districts’ improvement experiences. One consequence of this technical focus is that the field of district effectiveness has come to share several of the conceptual and methodological properties that characterized the former school‐level research.

The article concludes by discussing the implications for the growing volume of district‐level research on educational leadership, district improvement, and educational equity.

This article details the ways in which a sharp focus on questions of what works in the district effectiveness literature has deepened researchers’ and practitioners’ knowledge of the specific mechanisms that may produce more desirable results in test performance, yet these questions alone, decoupled from corresponding inquiries about the complex, highly contextualized character of higher or lower scoring districts, leave researchers and practitioners vulnerable to the same scholarly and practical pitfalls of their predecessors.

The study reported on in this article examines how instructional leadership is exercised by superintendents in effective school districts. We employ concepts drawn from school effectiveness studies and from organizational literature on coordination and control in an attempt to understand how superintendents organize and manage instruction and curriculum in these effective districts. Specific instructional management practices are examined within a framework of six major functions, setting goals and establishing expectations and standards, selecting staff, supervising and evaluating staff, establishing an instructional and curricular focus, ensuring consistency in technical core operations, and monitoring curriculum and instruction. Based on interviews with superintendents from 12 of the most instructionally effective school districts in California and analysis of selected district documents, we present descriptions of district‐level policies and practices that these superintendents use to coordinate and control the instructional management activities of their principals. Similarities and differences in the patterns of control and coordination found in these districts are highlighted. The implications of the findings are then examined in light of recent findings regarding coupling and linkages in schools. The results of this study suggest that superintendents in instructionally effective school districts are more active “instructional managers” than previous descriptions of superintendents would have led us to expect. In particular, coordination and control of the technical core appears more systematic in these districts. The results do not, however, provide a uniform picture of how instruction is coordinated and controlled. A wide range of both culture building activities and bureaucratic policies and practices were emphasized by the superintendents in this study as they exercised their instructional leadership roles.

The purpose of this paper is to test the effects of nine district characteristics on student achievement, explored the conditions that mediated the effects of such characteristics and contributed to understandings about the role school-level leaders play in district efforts to improve achievement.

Data for the study were provided by the responses of 2,324 school and district leaders in 45 school districts to two surveys. Student achievement evidence was provided by multi-grade provincial measures of math and language achievement. The analysis of these data included calculation of descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis and regression mediation analysis.

Seven of nine district characteristics contributed significantly to student achievement and three conditions served as especially powerful mediators of such district effects. The same three conditions, as well as others, acted as significant mediators of school-level leader effects on achievement, as well.

District characteristics tested in the study provide a powerful framework for guiding the district improvement work of senior educational leaders. The organizational improvement efforts of both district and school leaders would be substantially enhanced by a better understanding of how to diagnose and improve the status of those conditions acting as significant mediators of the effects of both district and school leadership on student achievement.

This is one of a very few large-scale quantitative studies examining the extent to which characteristics frequently identified by district effectiveness research explain variation in student learning. It is also one of the very few studies identifying classroom, school and family variables that mediate district effects on such learning. The study also adds to a growing body of evidence about variables which mediate school leaders’ effects on such learning.

In this study the authors set out to investigate the nature of administrative control in school districts in general and the control processes and activities employed in instructionally effective school districts in particular. Nine control functions are identified which are assumed to affect student outcomes by influencing the culture and technology (curriculum and instruction) of schools. Data were collected from interviews of superintendents in 12 effective school districts in California. The findings revealed inter alia more district‐level control of principal behavior and site activity than anticipated; control functions that were pervasive and connected; a wide range of control mechanisms; and the key role of the superintendent in connecting schools and district offices.

The purpose of this paper is to map out managers' understanding of effectiveness and to assess the application of knowledge of effectiveness in secondary healthcare management. Additionally, the study aims to assess the present situation of effectiveness research and the measures used in divisions of treatment.

The study was conducted by interviewing department directors, chief medical officers and directors of nursing (n=38) in the surgical, medical and psychiatric divisions of the five largest hospital districts in Finland.

The concept of effectiveness was complex, and difficult to concretise and understand uniformly. Knowledge of effectiveness supports both clinical and administrative management. Managers have different ways of applying knowledge of effectiveness depending on their managerial role. Effectiveness studies and measurement are still relatively rare in secondary healthcare and rarely identified as such by management.

The concept of effectiveness is not clear in management. Managers have an unclear understanding of knowledge of effectiveness and its application in secondary healthcare management.

The paper addresses the need for a discussion on effectiveness in secondary health care. In addition, managers need knowledge and support for implementing the policy of effectiveness on all levels of management.

The effective use of student data has gained increasing attention in the past 10 years. Although district leaders would like to support data use and improvement, exactly how to go about such work systemically is often unclear. Accordingly, the aim of this chapter is to illuminate the inner workings of data use throughout a mid-sized school district. In doing so, we highlight issues in how data were used and supported, and provide discussion about how districts such as this one may improve data use throughout the district.

There were 398 bond referenda by Texas school districts from 1990-95. On average, these received a 58% voter approval rating and almost 75% of the referenda passed. A public choice model suggests many factors related to the voter percentage, including the amount of the bond issue per voter, percent of non-white population, and the amount of state and federal aid in the districts. Districts with Big Six auditors received higher voter percentages ceteris paribus, suggesting increased voter confidence in districts reviewed by brand name auditors. Districts with higher standardized test scores (TAAS) had more favorable votes, which can be interpreted that voters are willing to fund more infrastructure when output performance levels are adequate. A public choice model focusing on capital outlays was successful in explaining spending levels. A Big Six audit was associated with higher capital outlays, although TAAS was insignificant.

Eleven representative examples of professional development are examined in what is labelled a new era of administrator training. An analysis is presented of the conditions that have helped foster interest in the creation of new approaches to the training of school administrators. Ten current conditions in the area of administrator training where improvement is needed are reported on. Commonalities among the new approaches to training are discussed and these principles juxtaposed against the status quo in administrator training. It is concluded that the new era of professional development is significantly different from many current training programmes, in terms of both process and content. These differences are examined in detail. Potential problems in these newer approaches to administrator training are noted.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate epidemiology and control strategies of the four priority vector-borne diseases (VBDs) in Nepal, i.e. malaria, Kala-azar (visceral leishmaniasis), lymphatic filariasis (LF) and dengue fever/dengue hemorrhagic fever.

The study was a retrospective design to collect data during 1998–2016 from VBDs endemic districts of Nepal. All data were reviewed and epidemiological information of the four VBDs were analyzed.

The number of malaria cases during 1998–2016 of the 13 affected districts was declined from 8,498 to 991 cases with no record of deaths since 2012. The number of cases and deaths in the 12 kala-azar (visceral leishmaniasis) affected districts in 1998 was 1,409 and 42 cases, respectively, but was dramatically decreased in 2016 to 213 and 2 cases, respectively. LF cases of the 61 affected districts in 2011, 2014 and 2016 were 28,855, 30,000 and 33,517 cases, respectively. In total, 25 districts achieved elimination target and the remaining are expected to complete the needful cycles by 2018. Dengue incidence of the 31 affected districts during 2006–2015 was under controlled with reported cases of 642, 356 and 136 cases in 2013, 2014 and 2015, respectively, and only one death in 2015. Implementation of control strategies particularly disease management and community peoples’ awareness significantly reduced the cases and deaths of the target VBDs.

The results of this study clearly suggest that the current control strategies have been worked effectively. However, in particular of the VBDs, health education in communities in the endemic areas should be adopted for better community participation in the context of the primary health care approach and increase the effectiveness of disease control.

VBDs, i.e., malaria, kala-azar (visceral leishmaniasis), LF and dengue fever/dengue hemorrhagic fever, are major causes of morbidity and mortality in the least developed countries which include Nepal. Globalization of travel and trading, unplanned urbanization, environmental and climate change are having a significant impact on disease transmission. Therefore, the Ministry of Health of Nepal had brought some changes in strategies based on activities for disease control, vector control, preventive and preparedness for outbreak response. Consequently, the cases and deaths due to malaria, kala-azar (visceral leishmaniasis), lymphatic filaiasis and dengue fever/dengue hemorrhagic fever have been brought down markedly.