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Despite increasing calls to build equitable data infrastructures, the education field has yet to have a shared guideline around equitable education data management and stewardship. To address this gap, we propose one framework from the data governance literature: the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data management principles complemented by the CARE (Collective benefits, Authority to control, Responsibility, Ethics) principles. We argue that making education data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) is a matter of equity and central to equity-focused data reuse. We illustrate the importance of FAIR education data by synthesizing our research experience and literature at the intersection of data governance and equity-focused data use.

School District Effectiveness Research (SDER) works to identify unusually effective organizations for in-depth qualitative study that significantly outperform peer districts over multiple years. Yet, critiques of SDER include a focus on cross-sectional data, individual states, and percent proficient metrics. Here, we analyze the Stanford Education Data Archive, including data on n = 10,825 districts 2009-2013, from 47 states and DC, with average student achievement equated to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). To replicate previous state-level SDER, we use a two-level hierarchical linear growth model, examining district growth over time, including an AR1 autoregressive parameter. We identify 536 outperforming districts nationally.

The purpose of this study is to identify a typology of school organizational capacities using teachers' perceptions of school organizational context. Employing a sample of New York City schools serving students in grades 3-8 (n = 1,289), we perform a 3-step latent class analysis (LCA). We identify six subgroups of schools: "versatile (31%)," "demoralized (19%)," "developing (15%)," "collaborative, (13%)," "responsive (11%)," and "controlled (11%)." These subgroups are associated with school and student characteristics. Controlling for these characteristics, teacher perceptions of school context are also associated with student outcomes. This typology has policy implications for those seeking to differentiate school supports.

Research on data use and school Early Warning Systems (EWS) notes a central practice of researchers and practitioners is to search for patterns in student data to predict outcomes so schools can support success when students experience challenges. Yet, the domain lacks a means to visualize the rich longitudinal data that schools collect. Here, we use visual data analytic hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) heatmaps to pattern and visualize entire longitudinal grading histories of a national sample of n=14,290 students from grade 9 to college in every enrolled subject and year, visualizing 6,728,920 individual datapoints. We provide both the open access code in R and an open-access online tool allowing anyone to upload their data and create a HCA heatmap, providing support for visual data analytic and data science practice for both education researchers and schooling organizations.

Teachers' voice behaviour plays a critical role in school reform by providing constructive suggestions to promote teaching, students' learning and school management. This study investigates how and under what conditions principals' authentic leadership contributes to teachers' voice behaviour. Data collected from 982 teachers in 38 primary schools in mainland China were analysed using regression analysis and bootstrapping tests. The research tested a moderated mediation model of authentic leadership effects on teachers' voice behaviour in which teacher psychological empowerment was included as the mediator and interpersonal trust as the moderator. The results affirmed the partial mediation model, finding significant direct and indirect effects of principals' authentic leadership on teachers' voice behaviour. Moreover, interpersonal trust positively moderated the relationship between psychological empowerment and teachers' voice behaviour, and also strengthened the whole mediating mechanism. When teachers perceived a higher level of interpersonal trust, the effects of principals' authentic leadership on teachers' voice behaviour were stronger than for counterparts who perceived a low level of interpersonal trust. Our discussion highlights the benefits of understanding the impact of authentic leadership on teachers' voice behaviour in relation to interpersonal trust and their psychological empowerment and indicates how teachers can play a role in implementing the perceived situation practically.

Purpose: Currently, in the education data use literature, there is a lack of research and examples that consider the early steps of filtering, organizing and visualizing data to inform decision-making. The purpose of this study is to describe how school leaders and researchers visualized and jointly made sense of data from a common learning management system (LMS) used by students across multiple schools and grades in a charter management organization operating in the USA. To make sense of LMS data, researchers and practitioners formed a partnership to organize complex data sets, create data visualizations and engage in joint sensemaking around data visualizations to begin to launch continuous improvement cycles. Design/methodology/approach: The authors analyzed LMS data for n = 476 students in Algebra I using hierarchical cluster analysis heatmaps. The authors also engaged in a qualitative case study that examined the ways in which school leaders made sense of the data visualization to inform improvement efforts. Findings: The outcome of this study is a framework for informing evidence-based improvement cycles using large, complex data sets. Central to moving through the various steps in the proposed framework are collaborations between researchers and practitioners who each bring expertise that is necessary for organizing, filtering and visualizing data from digital learning environments and administrative data systems. Originality/value: The authors propose an integrated cycle of data use in schools that builds on collaborations between researchers and school leaders to inform evidence-based improvement cycles.

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This study investigates the existence of various leadership types in a sample of lower secondary school principals across Italy (n = 1073). Information is obtained using a questionnaire about instructional practices and leadership perceptions administered by the National Evaluation Committee for Education (INVALSI). Employing a latent class analysis (LCA) for the specification of the educational production function (EPF), we identify three subgroups of school leaders: "educative leaders" (49% of the total sample), who support school improvement that utilises teachers' skills; "leaders who teach" (35%), who are actively present in the classroom; and "transactional leaders" (16%), who support the school and balance various viewpoints. We then analyse the data to ascertain if some principals' individual characteristics and school context factors are statistically correlated with the probability of having certain leadership attitudes. Finally, we provide evidence that schools with 'leaders who teach' report lower academic test scores; this third step is novel as few previous studies have attempted to link leadership styles and test scores. However, the difference in test scores across groups disappears when the geographical factor is accounted for, pointing to the importance of contextual factors in that they affect both leadership types and educational outcomes.

Abstract The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent that there is a typology of high schools based on their orientation toward science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), as well as the extent to which school-level demographic variables and student high school outcomes are associated with subgroup membership in the typology, by analyzing data from a large nationally representative sample of high schools (n = 940) from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09) using latent class analysis (LCA). We used a three-step LCA approach to identify significantly different subgroups of STEM-oriented high schools, what covariates predict subgroup membership, and how subgroup membership predicts observed distal outcomes. We find that there are four significantly different subgroups of STEM-oriented high schools based on their principal's perceptions: "Abundant" (12.3%), "Support" (23.3%), "Bounded" (10.1%), and "Comprehensive" (54.3%). In addition, we find that these subgroups are associated with school demographics, such as the percent of students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch, school locale, and control (public or private). Subgroup membership is also associated with student outcomes, such as postsecondary program enrollment and intent to pursue a STEM degree.

Purpose: We used gatekeeping theory to frame our examination of whether and when educators with superintendent certification become superintendents, and how their likelihood of making that transition is influenced by race, sex, and other characteristics. Furthermore, we sought to identify variation in career pathways to the superintendency. Data and Method: We analyzed 26,071 observations of 4,813 unique individuals, representing the entire population of Texas public school educators who obtained their first superintendent certificate between the 2000-2001 and 2014-2015 school years. We constructed alluvial diagrams to visualize these educators' career pathways. In addition to compiling a life table and visual displays of hazard, we used a discrete-time hazard model to control for individual and contextual characteristics associated with transitions into the superintendency. Findings: Educators are most likely to enter the superintendency in the academic year immediately following that in which they obtained the requisite certification. Furthermore, pathways to the superintendency differ greatly based on educator sex and race, as well as the level and locale employment setting. Finally, we determined that age, experience, education, level of employment, and sex all have statistically significant impacts on the likelihood of becoming a superintendent. Implications for Research and Practice: We discuss the role that researchers must play in coordinating with practitioners to ensure more equitable opportunity for aspiring superintendents. We also emphasize the important role that preparation programs play in preparing candidates for the job market. Finally, we ponder further expansions of similar presuperintendency research, as well as more robust applications of alluvial diagrams.

Early Warning Systems (EWS) and Early Warning Indictors (EWI) have recently emerged as an attractive domain for states and school districts interested in predicting student outcomes using data that schools already collect with the intention to better time and tailor interventions. However, current diagnostic measures used across the domain do not consider the dual issues of sensitivity and specificity of predictors, key components for considering accuracy. We apply signal detection theory using Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) Area Under the Curve (AUC) analysis adapted from the engineering and medical domains, and using the pROC package in R. Using nationally generalizable data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002) we provide examples of applying ROC accuracy analysis to a variety of predictors of student outcomes, such as dropping out of high school, college enrollment, and postsecondary STEM degrees and careers.

While research to date on school leadership has identified instructional leadership as an effective means to improve academic achievement, little is known about how teachers and principals view instructional leadership both individually and collectively. We analyzed the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) of 2008 of 59,152 teachers in 3,788 schools across 20 countries using multilevel factor analysis. Our findings suggest that while principals perceive instructional leadership in schools to be multiple factors of setting goals, professional development, and supervision of instruction, teachers perceive it to be a single dimension, which has a weak relationship to principal perception.

Following calls to increase professional communities of practice around research in educational leadership graduate programs, this study describes the ongoing process of creating a research journal club. We share the process of implementation, describe the structure adopted, and the outcomes observed one year after the establishment of a journal club. Through involving graduate students with faculty in bi-monthly conversations about recent research articles, participants engaged in intellectual risk-taking through discussing high quality research. This study highlights the importance of establishing a space to model scholarly research debates, bringing together faculty and students in a community of research practice.

This study reports on findings from a survey of Massachusetts' school principals that examined their perceptions of the nature and quality of certification programs. Results indicate that "when" participants were certified (pre or post NCLB) and "where" they were certified (public, private, alternative programs) has a significant influence on the perceived content and quality of their preparation. These findings reveal that accountability measures may have led to changes in the content and structure of principal preparation programs over time and suggest a need for state standards that influence the development, delivery, and evaluation of principal preparation programs to reflect the requisite skills principals need and want in the 21st century. (Contains 2 tables and 6 figures.)

Purpose: Instructional leadership has been an active area of educational administration research over the past 30 years. However, there has been significant divergence in how instructional leadership has been conceptualized over time. The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive review of 25 years of quantitative instructional leadership research, up through 2013, using a nationally generalizable data set. Design/methodology/approach: The authors conducted a meta-narrative review of 109 studies that investigated at least one aspect of instructional leadership using the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) administered by the US National Center for Education Statistics. Findings: There were four major themes of instructional leadership research that analyzed SASS data: principal leadership and influence, teacher autonomy and influence, adult development, and school climate. The three factors most researched in relationship to instructional leadership themes were: teacher satisfaction, teacher commitment, and teacher retention. This study details the major findings within each theme, describes the relationships between all seven factors, and integrates the relationships into a single model. Originality/value: This paper provides the most comprehensive literature review to-date of quantitative findings investigating instructional leadership from the same nationally generalizable data set. This paper provides evidence that leadership for learning is the conceptual evolution of 25 years of diverse instructional leadership research.

This study investigated the differences between how individual teachers perceive leadership for learning and how teachers collectively perceive leadership for learning, using a large nationally generalizable data-set of 7070 schools from the National Center for Education Statistics 2011-2012 Schools and Staffing Survey. This study used cross-validation multilevel factor analysis to find that individual teachers view leadership for learning as consisting of six factors (school influence, classroom control, collegial climate, student attendance, neighbourhood context, teacher commitment) whereas teachers collectively (e.g. as a faculty) perceive three factors that are non-isomorphic with the individual-level factors (instructional leadership, management, social environment). These results imply that teachers collectively have a functional view of leadership, while individual teachers have views more aligned to specific areas of influence. This article provides the beginning of a theoretical framework for future multilevel educational leadership research into teacher leadership and leadership for learning.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe the underlying topics and the topic evolution in the 50-year history of educational leadership research literature. Method: We used automated text data mining with probabilistic latent topic models to examine the full text of the entire publication history of all 1,539 articles published in "Educational Administration Quarterly" (EAQ) from 1965 to 2014. Given the computationally intensive data analysis required by probabilistic topic models, relying on high-performance computing, we used a 10-fold cross-validation to estimate the model in which we categorized each article in each year into one of 19 latent topics and illustrated the rise and fall of topics over the "EAQ's" 50-year history. Findings: Our model identified a total of 19 topics from the 1965 to 2014 "EAQ" corpus. Among them, five topics--inequity and social justice, female leadership, school leadership preparation and development, trust, and teaching and instructional leadership--gained research attention over the 50-year time period, whereas the research interest appears to have declined for the topic of epistemology of educational leadership since the 2000s. Other topics waxed and waned over the past five decades. Implications: This study maps the temporal terrain of topics in the educational leadership field over the past 50 years and sheds new light on the development and current status of the central topics in educational leadership research literature. More important, the panoramic view of topical landscape provides a unique backdrop as scholars contemplate the future of educational leadership research.

The quantitative research methods course is a staple of graduate programs in education leadership and administration. Historically, these courses serve to train aspiring district and school leaders in fundamental statistical research topics. This article argues for programs to focus as well in these courses on helping aspiring leaders develop skills as practitioner-scholars, including deepening their practice around data analytics, providing opportunities to read and evaluate peer-reviewed research, analyzing data using current methods, and applying findings to facilitate building evidence-based improvement cycles in their schools. Additional data leadership training should be offered for the practicing administrator, educational quantitative analyst, research specialist, and district data scientist.

Utilizing rich data on nearly 11,000 educators over 17 academic years in a highly diverse context, we examine the career paths of teachers to determine whether and when they transition into the principalship. We utilize a variety of event history analyses, including discrete-time hazard modeling, to determine how an individual's race, gender, and their combination--among other characteristics--contribute to their likelihood of making this transition. We found that inequitable pathways to the principalship are not explained by systematic differences in personal and contextual characteristics along lines of race and gender but rather that the selection of school leaders may be a process influenced by systemic bias.

Grading refers to the symbols assigned to individual pieces of student work or to composite measures of student performance on report cards. This review of over 100 years of research on grading considers five types of studies: (a) early studies of the reliability of grades, (b) quantitative studies of the composition of K-12 report card grades, (c) survey and interview studies of teachers' perceptions of grades, (d) studies of standards-based grading, and (e) grading in higher education. Early 20th-century studies generally condemned teachers' grades as unreliable. More recent studies of the relationships of grades to tested achievement and survey studies of teachers' grading practices and beliefs suggest that grades assess a multidimensional construct containing both cognitive and noncognitive factors reflecting what teachers value in student work. Implications for future research and for grading practices are discussed.

Despite increasing calls to build equitable data infrastructures, the education field has yet to have a shared guideline around equitable education data management and stewardship. To address this gap, we propose one framework from the data governance literature: the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data management principles complemented by the CARE (Collective benefits, Authority to control, Responsibility, Ethics) principles. We argue that making education data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) is a matter of equity and central to equity-focused data reuse. We illustrate the importance of FAIR education data by synthesizing our research experience and literature at the intersection of data governance and equity-focused data use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to uncover how knowledge is exchanged and disseminated in the educational administration research literature through the journal citation network. Design/ Methodology/Approach: Drawing upon social network theory and citation network studies in other disciplines, the authors constructed an educational administration journal citation network by extracting all 157,372 citations from 5,359 journal articles in 30 educational administration journals from 2009 to 2013. The authors then performed social network analysis to visualize the network structure by journal clusters, and quantified journal prominence and interdisciplinarity by calculating Freeman indegree and betweenness, respectively. In addition to journal-to-journal citations, the authors examined the sources of non-journal citations by citation counts. Findings: The results of journal prominence, interdisciplinarity, and eight journal clusters in the citation network indicate that educational administration, as a porous field, intimately interacts with the sub-fields of education (e.g. urban education and teacher education), other disciplines (e.g. economics, human resources, sociology, and psychology), and the research internationally. In addition to journals as the knowledge source (45.29 percent), the authors also found books (31.08 percent) and reports (14.98 percent) are important citation sources in the educational administration research literature. The most cited books and reports shed light on the knowledge base in the theory, research, and practice of educational administration. Originality/Value: The results of this by far the largest-scale study of educational administration journals present abundant evidence that educational administration is a porous field. This study also presents social network analysis as an alternative method to evaluate journal influence in the educational administration field.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent to which there is a typology of principals who depart from their schools in the U.S. using the 2007-2008 Schools and Staffing Survey and the 2008-2009 Principal Follow-up Survey. Prior principal retention research has focused on identifying factors that predict principal turnover; however, this research has not focused on understanding the extent to which there may potentially be different subgroups of principals who depart. This study uses latent class analysis to identify and better understand the types of principals who exit their schools and discusses the implications of such findings.

School districts in the USA are an active area of study in education research as findings have shown that some districts find success in certain contexts while others struggle. However, the research domain has had few actionable methods for site selection for in-depth qualitative studies. This study analyses all districts in the state of Ohio (n = 610) from 2005-2006 through 2012-2013 using a two-level hierarchical linear growth model to identify districts that significantly outperform or underperform background and demographic variables in the Ohio Performance Index (PI) Score, factors outside the influence of the district administration. The aim of the study is to provide a framework for selecting comparison and contrast sites for district effectiveness research (DER). Additionally, the model captures school-level variance within districts controlling for average district performance. Fifteen outperforming districts are named as potential sites for in-depth qualitative studies of district effects in comparison to similar districts at the norm.

The purpose of this study is to bring together recent innovations in the research literature around school district capital facility finance, municipal bond elections, statistical models of conditional time-varying outcomes, and data mining algorithms for automated text mining of election ballot proposals to examine the factors that influence the probability of school districts in the state of Michigan passing or failing capital facility finance bond elections from 1998-2014. Automated text mining is a data mining technique that identifies latent topics from a corpus of documents. We used an unsupervised correlated topic model to analyze the full text wording of all 1,210 school district capital facility bond election ballot proposals in Michigan over 16 years. The model identified 9 different latent topics across the bonds, including requests to purchase new buildings, renovations, and athletic facilities. Interestingly, equipment purchases appear to be a distinct category of bond proposal topics. We then examined the independent effect of the bond topics on the probability of passing the bond and voter turnout using modeling techniques and control variables from the recent literature. Bonds that focused exclusively on athletic facilities were 4.35 times less likely to pass than bonds that request new construction or omnibus ballot proposals. This work extends previous research to show that capital facility bond proposals that pass the most often include all facility needs in a single ballot proposal, are the first attempt at the polls, are at the top of the ballot, and request lower amounts of spending.