Search results

This study is based on the earlier work of Iannaccone and Lutz, Kirkendall and Le Doux and Burlingame and uses socio‐economic data obtained from 77 school districts in Massachusetts through the period 1963–1972. The study examines a series of hypotheses related to the “gap” that may develop between community demand and school board response. Some of the findings are (i) the Iannaccone‐Lutz model of school board member incumbent defeat is valid and the “gap” between community demands and the school board's response is an important factor in the operational model; (ii) the school board's response to community's demands (tax rate) is an important variable in determining the “gap” resulting in incumbent defeat and in predicting the variance in this political phenomenon in school districts; (iii) socio‐economic‐political indicators of school district change selected by Kirkendall are related to school board member incumbent defeat.

Superintendents’ agency in the US is shaped by governance systems within education systems. These Education Governance Systems have been in a state of flux and experienced turbulence for twenty years. The professional challenge this research addresses is how do 14 credentialed educational professional African American women superintendents with doctorates and track records of school improvement, navigate the turbulence to empower families, and Empower Young Societal Innovators for Equity, Renewal (EYSIER), Social Mobility, and Peace.

This chapter identifies three aspects of a theory of knowledge to action to emerge from the empirical evidence presented. First, African American women superintendents need to know how to access policy and legislation, how to stay up to date with policy and need to be empowered to challenge policy. Policy has the back of African American women fighting institutionalised racism. Second, African American women superintendents need role models, and mentors with wisdom who can create proactive and mobilising networks across the state and the nation to advocate for and to support the teachers’ and leaders’ professional learning to be the best teachers, leaders and superintendents they can be. Finally, the African American women superintendents who have been self-selecting, or identified as potential future superintendents by current superintendents and schoolboards, need to be part of succession planning that transcends the short elected lives of district school boards. Newly incumbent African American women superintendents need to be empowered by Education Governance Systems to enable them to deliver on their manifestos and track records of outstanding school improvement with the impact strategies they were employed to implement. The impact strategies include promoting high-quality home–school engagement and ensuring all students learn how to learn, are culturally sensitive, ask good questions and solve problems as Young Societal Innovators for Equity and Renewal. The chapter recommends a network of African American women superintendents implements this theory of knowledge to action and that their work is documented, and if successful in optimising students’ learning, and outcomes, disseminated to build capacity for EYSIER.

Recently, the public and academic discussion on elite education and the selection of top performers in Germany has led to a renewed controversy about social exclusion and inequality. Consequently, the use of terms such as ‘elite’, ‘excellence’ and ‘intellectual giftedness’ have provoked a debate about the necessity, opportunities, and rejection of educational distinctions. This chapter takes a comparative perspective to examine a private boarding school with a rich tradition, and a relatively new state-run public boarding school, examining their status as exclusive educational institutions, including their selection processes, elite aspirations and educational philosophies. The analysis focusses on how the schools construe themselves as elite and how exclusive membership is created and negotiated within the boarding school context. Using a multilevel qualitative approach and empirical data, this chapter offers findings on mechanisms of elite formation in boarding schools between two poles: the reproduction of an existing elite status and the production of elites from scratch. The analyses show the establishment of a distinct composition of students – either selected by milieu affiliation or by cognitive abilities – resulting in specific processes of coherence and distinction within the school communities. Thus, this chapter makes a contribution to a differentiated observation of new educational hierarchies in Germany.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between emotional intelligence and effective board governance.

This study applied a model of emotional intelligence competencies to the practice domains of school boards. A board self‐assessment questionnaire measured board practice domains for the presence or absence of 18 emotional intelligence competencies defined in an emotional competence inventory. Inter‐rater reliabilities were established and confirmed. Current and former school board members in two urban areas rank‐ordered the most critical emotional intelligence competencies for effective board governance and offered explanations for their most highly‐rated competencies.

Emotional intelligence is a critical factor for effective school boards. A set of six core competencies are universal across the six board practice domains: transparency; achievement; initiative; organizational awareness; conflict management; and teamwork and collaboration. Each board practice domain is also characterized by one or two key emotional intelligence competencies.

First, one model of school board leadership was used. Future studies should examine additional models of effective board practice for their relationships with emotional intelligence in order to extend the generalizability of these results. Second, there has been some debate regarding the substantive nature of the emotional intelligence construct.

The six practice domains in the school board effectiveness model are fundamental elements for all boards to develop in order to become more effective governing bodies.

This paper identifies a novel application of emotional intelligence leadership competencies to the work of effective governance boards.

The paradigm of the Chinese Box Puzzle served as the analytic framework for this study of school board member recruitment. It directed attention to the process of selection and elimination that narrows the population of a school system to the very few who are elected to the school board. In terms of the paradigm, between the largest box — the many who are governed — and the smallest box — the few who govern — are intermediate boxes that identify the social and political processes that successively narrow the population. The study did not advance specific hypotheses, but rather sought to trace the collective careers of sixty school board members and to draw implications from the modal patterns. The essential finding, that the recruitment process propels into office school board members who are different in many respects from those whom they represent, has important implications for educational governance.

The purpose of this research was to determine the extent to which American school board members faced electoral competition, as well as the factors influencing the likelihood of competition.

The authors utilized original national survey data of American school board members linked with school district demographic data obtained from the National Center for Education Statistics. Several hypotheses were tested using three state-level fixed-effects logistic regression models predicting electoral competition.

The authors found that 39.6% of American school board members reported not having an opponent in their most recent election. School board members serving larger urban school districts with higher percentages of special needs students and racial minorities were more likely to have faced electoral competition.

The authors highlighted potential flaws in the traditional model of local democratic governance and helped expand understanding of the dissatisfaction theory of American democracy and continuous participation theory. The authors concluded with several suggestions on how the results can be used to inform future local governance reforms that increase electoral competition and/or create more effective governance models.

This study examines the impact of school-district governance characteristics, which include board and management entrenchment and budget and audit committee expertise, on fiscal measures. Despite the significant influence school boards have over the determination and use of the bulk of property taxes, virtually no empirical research exists that examines the influence of school-district governance structures on fiscal outcomes. We find a positive association between board entrenchment and spending and find a negative association between budget and audit committee expertise and spending. The findings of this study confirm that governance structure matters for fiscal outcomes and recommendations are provided to support efforts to improve fiscal efficiency of school-district governance.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the June 25 decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Island Trees school library case (Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26, et al. v. Pico, et al., _U.S._, 50 Law Week 4831 [1982]).

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether an in-service life teacher training program can improve boarding students’ health, behavior, and academic performance.

The authors conducted a cluster-randomized controlled trial to measure the effect of life teacher training on student health, behavior, and academic performance among 839 boarding students in ten central primary boarding schools in Shaanxi. And the authors also tried to identify why or why not life teacher training works. Both descriptive and multivariate analysis are used in this paper.

The authors find significant improvements in health and behavior. Specifically, compared to boarding students in control schools, 15 percent fewer students in treatment schools reported feeling cold while sleeping at night. The results also showed that student tardiness and misbehaviors after class declined significantly by 18 and 78 percent, respectively. However, the in-service life teacher training program had no measurable impact on boarding students’ BMI-for-age Z-score, number of misbehaviors in class, and academic performance. The analysis suggests that improved communication between life teachers and students might be one mechanism behind these results.

This is the first empirical work which explored how to improve the welfare of boarding students via their life teachers. Because of the sudden increase in boarding students in rural China, it is almost certain that school personnel lack experience in managing boarding students. As such, one promising approach to improving student outcomes might be in-service training for life teachers.

The purpose of this study is to find what kind of leadership is suitable for developing a business in an Islamic boarding school.

This study used a qualitative research method by conducting in-depth interviews with 16 informants.

This study resulted in three critical factors leadership qualities, entrepreneurial qualities and Muslim qualities. The unique combination of these essential elements must be in the soul of a business leader in a boarding school in carrying out its business activities to meet school operational costs while developing it into a sustainable business.

This research is limited to being conducted in Indonesia’s most densely populated areas, namely, West Java Province, which also has the highest number of Islamic boarding schools. Not all Islamic boarding schools have business units because their operational needs have been met either by tuition fees or outside assistance.

These findings are expected to be a guideline for other Islamic boarding schools to find out how business leadership in Islamic boarding schools should be in carrying out their activities so that their business not only survives but also develops and competes with other companies.

This study presents a combination of theories of entrepreneurship, leadership and Muslim qualities obtained from the literature review and empirical data from the results of in-depth interviews.