Leadership for School Improvement SIG 101
Leadership for School Improvement SIG 101
 
SIG Purpose
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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.

You can find the our Spring 2023 Newsletter here.

 
 
Message from SIG Chair
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MWronowski Headshot 2023[61] (1)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:

  1. How can we diversify the membership and leadership of our LSI SIG?
  2. How can we welcome diverse conceptualizations of LSI research in our LSI SIG?
  3. How can we support each other in exploring how LSI research can advance social justice and equity?
  4. How can we involve graduate students and attend to their needs through the Research Development Program?

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

 
 
Who We Are
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2023 - 2024 LSI SIG Executive Committee 

Chairperson: Meredith Wronowski, University of Dayton 
Immediate Past Chairperson: Julia Mahfouz, University of Colorado, Denver 
Program Chairperson: DeMarcus Jenkins, University of Pennsylvania 
Secretary/Treasurer: Alison Wilson, South Dakota State University 
Dissertation Award Chairperson: Samantha Viano, George Mason University 
Book Series Editor: Khalid Arar, Texas State University 
Newsletter Editor: Matthew Shirrell, The George Washington University 
Newsletter Managing Editor: TBD 
Researcher Development Program Faculty Advisors: Kristy Cooper Stein, Michigan State University; Craig Devoto, University of Illinois Chicago Learning Sciences Research Institute 
Graduate Student Representatives: Aashna Khurana, Boston College; Megan Buchanan, Texas State University; George Panayiotou, University of Southern California.
Website Manager: Maxwell Yurkofsky, Radford University 

 

Structure & Government

 

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.

 
 
 
 
Researcher Development Program (RDP)
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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:

  • Striving to create accessible, inclusive, and humanizing professional development spaces
  • Promoting sustained, professionally enriching collaboration between faculty members and graduate students
  • Providing research, writing, presentation, and publication opportunities aligned with participants’ academic and professional goals
  • Promoting opportunities for faculty members to hone their mentorship skills.

We kick off this academic year with 14 mentors and 17 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 2021-2022 cohort.

Mentor Group

Mentee

Mentee Institution

Craig De Voto, University of Illinois at Chicago

Zainab Qaabidh

North Carolina State University

Jamey Tobery-Nystrom, Frostburg State University

 

Jennifer Bailey, The University of Texas at Tyler

Emily West Geary

University of Vermont

Meghan Buchanan

Texas State University

Jeong Hoon Choi, SWIFT Education Center, Life Span Institute, University of Kansas 

 

Jayson Richardson, University of Denver

Aashna Khurana

Lynch School of Education and Human Development, Boston College

Jim Van Overschelde, Texas State University

 

Zhidong Zhang, The University of Texas--Rio Grande Valley

Kathryn Watson

University of Colorado Colorado Springs

Sylvia Royster

George Washington University

Joonkil Ahn, University of North Dakota

Congli Zhang

University of Oregon

Khalid Arar, Texas State University

 

 Laura Cruz, Penn State

Betty Cowans

Howard University

Jamal Donaldson Briggs

Southern University and A&M College

Lyndsie Whitehead

Howard University 

Michelle Taylor

Wayne State University

LeAnne Salazar Montoya, University of Nevada Las Vegas

 

Cailen O’Shea, North Dakota State University

Analisa Martinez-Morris 

University of Denver 

Max Yurkofsky, Radford University

 

Randy Hetherington, University of Portland

David Trautman

UCSD

Patricia Virella, Montclair State University

 

Catherine Zeisner, Gonzaga University

April Mouton

Texas State University

Michelle Johnson, MS.

University of Cincinnati

Naichen Zhao

University of Denver

Pinar Ayyildiz, Ankara Medipol University 

 

Türkiye. Martin Scanlan, Boston College

Anglesia Brown

Wayne State University

Meveryn Chua

School of Education (The College of William and Mary)

Seth Hunter, George Mason

Abby Vining

University of Denver

Vincent Cho, Boston College

Sofia Dueñas

University of Notre Dame

 

 

 
 
Awards
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Dissertation of Year Recipients

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

 

 

 
 
Key Initiatives
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