Vince Rinaldo

In a time where the performance of educators has come under public scrutiny, where the lack of student progress directly effects not only public perceptions of the profession itself, but the livelihood of the individuals in the classrooms now, more than ever, is there a need for true collaborative partnerships between university faculty, government representatives and classroom teachers, both veteran and novice, to work together to design a system that will allow for the application of strong research methods in daily practice. There will need to be new hardware, new software, new networks, and a new understanding at all levels concerning what the data are and what they mean. But most importantly, there will need to be new roles played by teachers and university faculty in this change.

Sachiko Nakagawa

Although there is not a special policy for work integration social enterprises (WISEs) in Japan, three local governments, namely Sapporo, Shiga, and Minoo, which were the first to enact Social Cooperative Policy in the country, promoted the employment of many local disabled people who represents the most excluded group of citizens in Japan. In this article, the author provides a background of the three local governments and shows what are the similarities and differences of three Social Cooperative Policies. The author uses both primary methods of data collection – interviews with these local government administrators and WISEs – and secondary data. In the final section, the author suggests necessary steps to undertake in order to develop this policy and spread it in the country.

Christina Gowlett

This article compares the ways that two school principals in Australian schools use performance data to frame their leadership practice. The comparison illuminates some differences in how these principals lead in respect to their negotiating of different ‘intelligibilities’. The lesson is not a prescriptive approach to framing leadership and the use of performance data, but rather, a greater understanding of the constraints and possibilities for action within these new schooling accountabilities.

Walter S. Polka

Peter R. Litchka

Frank Calzi

We have comprehensive school management and leadership experiences as superintendents of schools, university professors, and researchers. We possess an aggregate combined total of over 100 years of experiences as educators in the United States including over 75 years as public school administrators and over 30 years as superintendents. We each have experienced the excitement as well as the trials, and tribulations associated with being an education decision-maker and “living on the horns of dilemmas”. We did not retire from service to the profession when we retired as superintendents of schools as we have collectively spent an additional total of 30 plus years in researching and teaching about school leadership as tenure track university professors. The topic of school leadership is very familiar to us from both pragmatic "lived experiences" perspectives and theoretical research orientations. We have conducted several research studies about school district leadership and are committed to assisting current and aspiring superintendents to become better prepared to survive and thrive in the superintendent’s chair. In this specific article, our aim is to provide valuable information about superintendent decision-making and problem solving with a focus on leadership dilemmas. The data that forms the basis of this article were collected from practicing superintendents in the following five Mid-Atlantic States: Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania from 2009 to 2012.

UI Research Center

UI AWARDS (2012-2013)
UI Outstanding Research Scholar Award

UI Research Center

CALL FOR PAPERS/PROPOSALS

2ND Untested Ideas International Research Conference
June 27 – 29, 2014
The Sheraton Rhodes Resort, Rhodes, Greece