Welcome! The purpose of the Leadership for School Improvement Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association is to examine how leadership of teachers, principals and superintendents influences instructional capacity resulting in improved student outcomes and how policy guides this collaborative effort. In addition, the Leadership for School Improvement SIG encourages discussion and development of the philosophical, theoretical and empirical tenets guiding school and system renewal. We invite you to join us as we seek to advance this purpose. If you have any questions or comments, please contact any of our officers.
Message from the LSI SIG Chair Fall 2023
On behalf of the Leadership for School Improvement SIG Executive Committee, we welcome you to the academic year. The LSI SIG continues to emphasize the necessity of community building and growth through community. We are so fortunate to count reflective, equity-focused scholars and practitioners among our members, but we also hope to model improvement through welcoming and embracing new voices and ways of knowing and learning. Whether through scholarly contributions to the 2023 UCEA Annual Convention or 2024 AERA Annual Meeting, our continued emphasis on supporting our emerging scholars through the Researcher Development Program which pairs mentor research faculty with graduate students to engage in impactful research projects in a learning-by-doing model, or through opportunities to engage in deep leadership for school improvement work through member-edited volumes in our LSI book series with IAP, we seek to provide a valuable community for our members regardless of career stage. Our LSI SIG members are innovators in both scholarship and practice.
We hope you will join us!
The LSI SIG continues to have meaningful connection with UCEA, and our members have made insightful contributions to A Call to Action: Imagining A Hard Reset in Educational Leadership. We also view UCEA as a vehicle and opportunity to build our community. We are hosting our third annual LSI lunch event where our members reconnect, build new connections and exchange ideas that strengthen our SIG. We will also continue to build community with other SIGs who have aligned missions, visions and values for educational leadership. We will host our second co-reception with the Educational Change and Organizational Theory SIGs at the 2024 AERA Annual Meeting.
All of our programming is focused on a four-question framework that is informed by our values for school improvement and the research that hopes to inform school improvement practices:
To all our current members, we thank you for your continued support and contributions to advancing the work of the LSI SIG through your research and practice. To our LSI SIG fans and seekers, please take advantage of our many networking opportunities to get to know us and become part of our community—we need you to continue to expand the work and reach of justice focused school improvement.
Your LSI SIG Chair
Meredith Wronowski
Chairperson: DeMarcus Jenkins, University of Pennsylvania
Immediate Past Chairperson: Meredith Wronowski, University of Dayton
Program Chairperson: Alison Wilson, University of Houston
Secretary/Treasurer: Samantha Viano, George Mason University
Dissertation Award Chairperson: Elizabeth Zumpe , University of Oklahoma
Book Series Editor: Khalid Arar, Texas State University
Newsletter Editor: Matthew Shirrell, The George Washington University
Newsletter Managing Editor: TBD
Researcher Development Program Faculty Advisor : Craig Devoto, University of Illinois Chicago Learning Sciences Research Institute
Website Manager: Betsy Kim, California State University Monterey Bay.
Each year we elect a Dissertation Award Chair which rotates through the executive council positions. The committees are ad hoc and appointed by the chairperson. Please contact the chairperson if you would like to be involved.
The Researcher Development Program (RDP) seeks to expand access to academic networks that dually support graduate students’ personal and professional well-being and scholarly development.
The RDP fulfills its mission by:
We kick off this academic year with 22 mentors and 41 mentees! Currently, the RDP Planning Committee is supporting mentors and mentees as they begin their semester, setting their goals for the year, and planning how they will develop their final projects. Throughout their experience, we intend to support their relationship building, creativity, and project development. Here we provide a list of the mentor-mentee matches for the 2024-2025 cohort.
2022: Megan Griffard, Principal Leadership as a Moderator of Teacher Turnover Following Natural Hazard Exposure, Ph.D., The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Advisor, Lora Cohen-Vogel.
2021: Joonkil Ahn, Leadership for Learning and Teacher Self-Efficacy as the Antecedents of Teacher Collaboration, Instructional Quality, Intended Turnover, and Equitable Teaching Practice, Ph.D., University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Advisor, Anjalé D. Welton.
2020: Maxwell Yurkofsky, When Reason Confronts Uncertainty: Continuous Improvement, Technical Ceremonies, and the Changing Structure of American Schools, Ed.D., Harvard Graduate School of Education, Advisor, Jal Mehta.
2019: Bryan VanGronigen, An Examination of the Structures, Functions, and Perceived Effectiveness of School Leadership Teams in Underperforming High Schools, Ph.D., University of Virginia, Advisor, Dan Duke
2018: Mary Bussman, Peer Equity Coaching to Increase Cultural Responsiveness in Teaching and Leading, Ph.D., University of Minnesota- Twin Cities, Advisor, Karen Seashore Louis
2017: Kathryn Wiley, Unfulfilled Promises: Equity & School Discipline Practices in an Innovation School, Ph.D., University of Colorado at Boulder, Advisor, Michele Moses
2016: Romy DeCristofaro, A Multi-Case Study Reflection within Collaborative Teacher Inquiry, Ph.D., University of Illinois at Chicago, Advisor, Shelby Cosner
2015:Elizabeth Leisy Stosich, Learning to Teach to the Common Core State Standards: Examining the Role of Teachers’ Collaboration, Principals’ Leadership, and Professional Development, Ed.D., Harvard University, Advisor, Susan Moore Johnson
2014: Doug Wieczorek, A Repeated, Cross-sectional Analysis of Principals' Professional Development and Instructional Leadership Behaviors in the First Decade of the Educational Accountability Era, Ph.D., Syracuse University, Advisor, George Theoharis
2013: Emily Palmer, Talking about Race: Overcoming fear in the process of change, Ph.D., University of Minnesota, Advisor, Karen Seashore Louis
2012: Angela Urick, To what extent do typologies of school leaders across the U.S. predict teacher attrition? A multilevel latent class analysis of principals and teachers, Ed.D., University of Texas at San Antonio, Advisor, Alex Bowers
2011: Kerri J. Tobin, Identifying Best Practices for Homeless Students, Ph.D., Vanderbilt University, Advisor, Joseph Murphy
2010: Hans W. Klar, Laying the groundwork for distributed instructional leadership in urban high schools: How principals foster department chair instructional leadership capacity, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, Advisor, Paul V. Bredeson
2009: Jennifer K. Clayton, Changing diversity in U.S. schools: The impact on elementary student performance and achievement, Ph.D., Old Dominion University, Advisor, William Owings
Spring 2023
Fall 2022
Spring 2022
Fall 2021