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Title: Working to sustain change: An examination of teacher leadership and its role in promoting organizational learning within three urban turnaround schools. Purpose of the study: There is growing body of literature recognizing teacher leadership as one of the key factors to improving schools (Brooks, Scribner, & Eferakorho, 2004; Frost & Durrant, 2002, 2003; Harris 2003, 2004, 2005a, 2005b, 2007; Smylie, 1995). This study suggests that the core of school improvement lies within a school’s ability to build organizational capacity and ultimately thrive as successful learning organizations. This can be measured through the examination of school culture, in particular through the work of teacher leaders. This study attempts to discover the ways in which teacher leadership builds organizational capacity in failing schools. Using both distributed leadership and organizational learning theories, this study seeks an in-depth understanding of teacher leaders’ experiences and how they contribute to the development of turnaround schools as learning organizations and how schools support the work of teacher leaders in an effort to promote organizational capacity. This study is supported by the proposition that organizational learning is a sign of successful school turnaround, and teacher leaders play a key role in creating a climate conducive to such learning. This study is guided by one primary research question: In what ways, if any, does teacher leadership facilitate the learning of turnaround schools as organizations? Theoretical Framework: To guide this study, both distributed leadership and organizational learning theories are applied to unpack teacher leadership and its contribution to organizational learning within turnaround schools. Distributed leadership theory allows researchers to study the complexity surrounding leadership within schools. Spillane, Diamond, & Jita (2003) argue that, “school leadership is best understood as a distributed practice, stretched over the school’s social and situational contexts” (p. 535). Thus, the study of leadership practice includes understanding the way it is distributed over leaders, followers, and the situation in which it takes place. Fundamentally, distributed leadership is the study of the relationship between the individual (agency) and how he/she navigates within the multiple structures of an organization (Spillane, Halverson, & Diamond, 2004). For teacher leaders within turnaround schools, the extent to which they can exert agency given the confines of turnaround structures is largely unknown. In this study, distributed leadership theory will provide a lens to examine the degree to which turnaround structures allow for teacher leadership agency to emerge within the organization through the study of a specific leadership task that occurs within each school. As mentioned previously, I am proposing that organizational learning is a sign of successful school turnaround. Organizational learning theory provides a lens to analyze the ways in which each leadership task is working to promote organizational learning within schools. Senge (1990) claims that what lies at the heart of understanding management situations is understanding its “dynamic complexity” (p. 72). This theory enables one to understand such workings of an organization. Five specific skills common to organizational learning developed by Garvin (1993) will be used as indicators to evaluate each of the leadership tasks within three schools in this study: systematic problem solving, experimentation, learning from past experience, learning from others, and transferring knowledge. Methods: I am using an embedded cross-site case study design as my research method. In this study, I am looking at specific instances of a single leadership task being enacted by teacher leaders that may be indicative of organizational learning and signs of overall school improvement. A case study design allows me to capture the complexity embedded in my research questions. I am working to understand the school as a complete organism, one that may or may not show signs of organizational learning. At the same time I am trying to understand how exactly the people within the organism-- in this case teachers-- are working on a micro-level to enact such learning through their work. Thus the case study enables me to study the relationship between the individuals and organization on multiple levels. Data Sources: In-depth interviewing is used in this study. My focus is to gain an understanding of a “range of settings, situations [and] people,” enabling me to interview a rather large amount of people in a short amount of time (Taylor & Bogdan, 1998, p. 90). Additionally document analysis is going to be used “as a means of triangulation” (Bowen, 2009, p. 28). Document analysis serves “mostly as a complement to other research methods” (Bowen, 2009, p. 29). Documents collected may include but are not limited to school goals or plans, organizational documents, meeting agendas and minutes, school reports and records, newspaper articles, and inquiry projects and will be requested of the participant and/or administration at each school. Finally, surveys are the quantitative component to my research and will be used in the initial phase of the research process to identify teacher leaders in each of the schools. Results and/or conclusions: At this point my research is in the preliminary stages of implementation and results are not available at this point in time. Educational significance of this study: This study will contribute to the growing body of literature on school turnarounds. While there have been successful school turnarounds across the country, many of the reports merely list the actions taken by the school that contributed to success. This study utilizes distributed leadership theory and organizational learning theory as lenses to understand the intricacies involved when teacher leaders work to promote a culture of organizational learning within schools. For policy makers at the district and state level, it is my hope that this study evokes an awareness of the significance of analyzing organizational learning as an indicator of school improvement in the hopes of encouraging a more comprehensive means to understanding this facet of school culture as a primary factor in sustained school improvement. References Bowen, G.A. (2009). Document Analysis as a Qualitative Research Method. Qualitative Research Journal, 9(2), 27-40. Brooks, J., Scribner, J.P., & Eferakorho, J. (2004). Teacher leadership in the Context of Whole School Reform. Journal of School Leadership, 14, 242-265. Frost, D. & Durrant, J. (2002). Teachers as Leaders: exploring the impact of teacher-led development work. School Leadership &Management, 22 (2), 143-161. Frost, D. & Durrant, J. (2003). Teacher Leadership: rationale, strategy and impact. School Leadership & Management, 23 (2), 173-186. Garvin, D. (1993). Building a Learning Organization. Harvard Business Review, 78-91. Harris, A. (2003). Teacher leadership as distributed leadership: heresy, fantasy or possibility? School Leadership and Management, 23(3), 313-324. Harris, A. (2004). Distributed Leadership and School Improvement: Leading or Misleading? Educational management Administration &Leadership, 32(1), 11-24. Harris, A. (2005a). Leading or misleading? Distributed leadership and school improvement. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 37(3), 255-265. Harris, A. (2005b). Teacher Leadership: More than Just a Feel-Good Factor? Leadership and Policy in Schools, 4, 201-219. Harris, A. (2007). Distributed leadership: conceptual confusion and empirical reticence. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 10(3), 315-325. Senge, P. M. (1990). The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization. New York: Doubleday. Spillane, J.P., Diamond, J. B., & Jita, L. (2003). Leading instruction: the distribution of leadership for instruction. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 35(5), 533-543. Spillane, J.P., Halverson, R. & Diamond, J.B. (2004). Towards a theory of leadership practice: a distributed perspective. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 36(1), 3-34. Taylor, S.J. & Bogdan, R. (1998). Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods (3rd Edition). New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.