Leading, Learning, and Leadership Support
A Research Report in collaboration with The Wallace Foundation by Michael S. Knapp, Michael A. Copland, Margaret L. Plecki, and Bradley S. Portin, October 2006.

This report maps out activities and supporting conditions in states, districts, and schools, that enable educational leadership to exert productive influence on learning. The report draws together threads from the research literature and from practical experimentation in a variety of states, districts, and schools, as described in greater detail within six reports that comprise the Improving Leadership for Learning series. From these sources, the report authors offer an overview of the "systems of leadership support" that guide leaders' efforts to improve the quality of teaching and learning in schools across the nation.

Data-informed Leadership in Education
A Research Report in collaboration with The Wallace Foundation by Michael S. Knapp, Juli Ann Swinnerton,m Michael A. Copland, and Jack Monpas-Huber, October 2006.

Drawing from empirical studies and the landscape of current practice, this report explores ideas related to how educational leaders access data, the meanings they give to it, and the uses to which they put these data in the varying settings in which leaders seek to improve teaching and learning. Moving away from the potentially appealing rhetoric that data can provide clear, indisputable direction for future action (e.g. "data-driven decision making"), the notion of data-informed leadership captures the complex and often ambiguous nature of data use in educational settings.

Allocating Resources and Creating Incentives to Improve Teaching and Learning
A Research Report in collaboration with The Wallace Foundation by Margaret L. Plecki, Christopher R. Alejano, Michael S. Knapp, and Chad Lochmiller October 2006.

This report reviews research, practice, and theory related to resource allocation and its relationship to teaching and learning. The report describes the "state of the field," discussing a range of practices, both current and emerging, while framing the central challenges facing leaders who make resource decisions at the state, district, and school levels. The report links the allocation of resources to the exercise of learning-focused leadership.

Redefining Roles, Responsibility, and Authority of School Leaders
A Research Report in collaboration with The Wallace Foundation by Bradley S. Portin, Christopher R. Alejano, and Michael S. Knapp, October 2006.

This report considers school leaders' roles and responsibilities, and the authority they need to pursue an agenda of improving teaching and learning. The report frames what it means to lead schools toward improvements in teaching and learning, who does or can exercise that leadership (including but not limited to the principal), how leaders can be equipped to lead learning communities, what conditions empower leaders to lead in this way, and how such leadership is cultivated in individuals or school communities over time.

Purposes, Uses, and Practices of Leadership Assessment in Education
A Research Report in collaboration with The Wallace Foundation by Bradley S. Portin, Sue Feldman, and Michael S. Knapp, October 2006.

This report discusses connections between learning-focused school leadership and leadership assessment as it contributes to coherent leadership assessment systems. Drawing upon exemplary research, and through the use of scenarios drawn from common school leadership assessment practices, this report outlines multiple purposes and uses of leadership assessment in national, state and local contexts. The central theme of the report is connecting learning-focused leadership with leadership assessment.

Redefining and Improving School District Governance
A Research Report in collaboration with The Wallace Foundation by Margaret L. Plecki, Julie McCleery, and Michael S. Knapp, October 2006.

This paper takes a close look at local school boards—an enduring feature of public education governance. Using published accounts in the research literature, the paper synthesizes the frameworks, beliefs, and activities concerning the roles and responsibilities of the district school board. Using three common critiques of modern school boards as a guide, the paper further identifies the underlying currents of governance reform, conditions that influence governance structure, and the connections between governance and learning-focused leadership.

Leadership for Transforming High Schools
A Research Report in collaboration with The Wallace Foundation by Michael A. Copland and Elizabeth Boatright, December 2006.

This report addresses the complexity of problems associated with traditional comprehensive high schools. It examines why, despite repeated calls for reform, and various efforts aimed at reform, evidence suggests that what transpires for students inside the high school classroom remains relatively impervious to change. A picture of the terrain of leadership activity important for transforming high schools is proposed followed by questions of how the work of leadership might be accomplished.

Making Subject Matter Part of the Equation: The Intersection of Policy and Content
An Occasional Paper by Pam Grossman, Susan S. Stodolsky, and Michael S. Knapp, December 2004.

This conceptual paper offers a framework for understanding how educational policy is related to subject matter. Drawing on literature concerning instructional policymaking and the cultures that surround teaching in different subject areas, the paper distinguishes and illustrates three types of policy, that ignore, target, or differentiate among subject matter areas, respectively. The paper then demonstrates, for each type, how subject matter acts as a crucial context for policy implementation and effects, affecting the policy's impact in often unintended ways. Typically ignored by policy research, these dynamics have special importance for the analysis of reform policies, as well as for the making of policies aimed at teaching and learning.

The Relation Between State and District Literacy Standards
A Research Report by Elizabeth Dutro and Sheila W. Valencia, January 2004.

This Research Report explores how state content standards in reading affect local content standards. The study, undertaken in four states, shows that under the guise of "alignment" between state and local standards, there is considerable variability, and that the usefulness of the state's efforts to promote local standards-based reform in this areas of the curriculum depends on various attributes of the state policy, the characteristic relationship between state and local level, and local engagement in professional development.

Curriculum Materials: Scaffolds for New Teacher Learning?
A Research Report by Pam Grossman and Clarissa Thompson, January 2004.

Derived from a study of beginning language arts teachers (see District Policy and Beginning Teachers: Where the Twain Shall Meet, elsewhere on this web site), this Research Report captures the ways curriculum (or its absence) guides what is learned level about instructional practice, and how, by new language arts teachers in secondary schools. The report underscores how potent curriculum policy can be for shaping teachers' early attempts to establish a secure professional repertoire.

Reforming Districts: How Districts Support School Reform
A Research Report by Milbrey McLaughlin and Joan Talbert, September 2003.

By detailing the experiences of three reforming California districts, this research report offers new evidence of district effects on school reform progress and improved student outcomes. The case studies offer instructive exception to conventional wisdom—or myths—about district reform. Among the refuted myths: teachers and principals resist a strong district role; turnover derails efforts to establish and sustain a consistent reform agenda; and local politics will defeat any serious reform agenda.

Building Instructional Quality: "Inside-Out" and "Outside-In" Perspectives on San Diego's School Reform
A Research Report by Linda Darling-Hammond, Amy M. Hightower, Jennifer L. Husbands, Jeannette R. LaFors, Viki M. Young, and Carl Christopher, September 2003.

This research report looks at the aggressive set of policies San Diego City School District used to improve instruction. It reveals how San Diego consolidated and redirected resources, redesigned the district office as well as work in schools, and mediated and leveraged state policy to further its reform agenda. The report also documents the difficulties of managing the politics and implementation of a coherent approach to change in a large district with an established culture of decentralization located in a state with a piecemeal, sometimes conflicting, menu of reforms.

Out-of-Field Teaching and the Limits of Teacher Policy
A Research Report by Richard Ingersoll, September 2003.

In this report, Richard Ingersoll focuses on trends over the past decade in the level of underqualified teachers in schools and why recent reforms have failed to adequately address this problem.

Is There Really a Teacher Shortage?
A Research Report by Richard Ingersoll, September 2003.

In this report, Richard Ingersoll builds on his hypothesis that school staffing problems are due largely to excess demand resulting from high pre-retirement turnover and not solely or even primarily to supply-side deficits in the quantity of teachers produced. He also addresses criticisms of those who argue that concern over teacher turnover is exaggerated.

Standards-Based Reform and Small Schools of Choice: How Reform Theories Converge in Three Urban Middle Schools
A Research Report by Chrysan Gallucci, Michael S. Knapp, Anneke Markholt, and Suzy Ort, July 2003.

This report examines the ways two seemingly opposite theories of educational reform converge in three New York City middle schools. Using in-depth case studies, the authors look at what happened when a theory of centralized, standards-based instructional improvement was introduced into these schools on top of an existing theory that emphasized small schools, distinctive programs, and close relationships among students and adults. The result, a surprise to some, is that the two theories can coexist, even complement each other, but not without some tension.

Triage or Tapestry? Teacher Unions' Work Toward Improving Teacher Quality in an Era of Systemic Reform
A Research Report by Nina Bascia, June 2003.

By examining the work of six teacher unions, this report considers the contributions that teacher unions make toward improving the quality of teaching in today's context of systemic reform.

Theorizing About Responses to Reform: The Role of Communities of Practice
An Occasional Paper by Chrysan Gallucci, June 2003.

This paper offers a summary of a policy-oriented case study that examined the practice of six elementary teachers and, more significantly, evaluates the value of a sociocultural approach for analyzing teachers' responses to the professional learning demands of standards-based reform policies.

Meeting the Needs of Failing Readers: Cautions and Considerations for State Policy
An Occasional Paper by Marsha Riddle Buly and Sheila Valencia, April 2003.

In this CTP Occasional Paper, the authors' findings are a caution to policymakers and educators who may be tempted to treat the same all students who score "below standard" on statewide reading assessments. By probing beneath student's failing scores on a 4th-grade state reading assessment, the authors found that scores masked distinctive and multifaceted problems having to do with 1) word identification, 2) fluency, and 3) meaning. To have treated the same all students who had failed would have been to miss the different instructional emphases called for by their underlying skills, strategies, and needs. The paper presents reading profiles of failing students and discusses five potential areas as potential policy levers for improving student performance in reading.

Using Student Work to Support Professional Development in Elementary Mathematics
A Working Paper by Elham Kazemi and Megan Loef Franke, April 2003.

This CTP Working Paper charts the evolving conversations and pedagogical learning of one teacher workgroup as it met over the course of a year to discuss student work in elementary mathematics. Chronicled are details of the teachers' efforts to make sense of their students' reasoning in solving base ten system problems. The paper is organized into six sections that reflect the trajectory of the workgroup. The authors reflect upon that trajectory of teachers' talk to make several conjectures about the use of student work and the potential opportunities for learning that examining student work opens up for teachers. One such conjecture is that examining it is a promising way of beginning to work with a diverse group of teachers.

Leading for Learning: Reflective Tools for School and District Leaders
A CTP Research Report in collaboration with The Wallace Foundation, February 2003.

A 32-page, research-based report that addresses links between leadership and learning. Three learning agendas are discussed and five ways to address those agendas are detailed.

Leading for Learning Sourcebook: Concepts and Examples
A CTP Research Report in collaboration with The Wallace Foundation, February 2003.

This 112-page report is the document on which the 32-page summary was based. It discusses ideas in greater depth and offers more examples of the ideas at work.

Understanding How Policy Meets Practice: Two Takes on Local Response to a State Reform Initiative
An Occasional Paper by Michael S. Knapp, June 2002.

In this CTP Occasional Paper, Center Director Mike Knapp explores connections between policy and instructional practice by analyzing two studies that employed different and contrasting research perspectives to examine the same policy case—the early implementation of the California Mathematics Framework. In reviewing the studies, Knapp discusses the conceptual blind spots of each perspective and suggests conceptual work that would enable scholars to entertain richer pictures of policy, instruction, and avenues of influence on instruction.

San Diego's Big Boom: District Bureaucracy Supports Culture of Learning
A Research Report by Amy M. Hightower, January 2002.

This research report chronicles three years of reform by San Diego City Schools and explores what it means to radically refocus a large urban district on instructional improvement.

Out-of-Field Teaching, Educational Inquality, and the Organization of Schools: An Exploratory Analysis
A Research Report by Richard M. Ingersoll, January 2002.

This research report examines the practice of out-of-field teaching as a possible source of underqualified teaching in U.S. schools.