James P. Spillane

James P. Spillane is a Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Professor in Learning and Organizational Change at the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University. Spillane has published extensively on issues of education policy, policy implementation, school reform, and school leadership. His most recent books are Distributed Leadership in Practice and Diagnosis and Design for School Improvement. Learn more about Spillane's work at www.distributedleadership.org.

Authored Blog Posts

Title	Authored on
The Social Side Of Capability: Improving Educational Performance By Attending To Teachers’ And School Leaders’ Interactions About Instruction	Jan 25, 2018
Broadening The Educational Capability Conversation: Leveraging The Social Dimension	Apr 15, 2015

Recent Blog Posts

Publications

The Adequacy and Fairness of State School Finance Systems (Sixth Edition)
A national evaluation of the K-12 school finance systems of all 50 states and D.C., published by researchers from the Albert Shanker Institute, University of Miami, and Rutgers Graduate School of Education.
Reading Reform Across America: A Survey of State Legislation
This report authored by Susan B. Neuman (New York University), Esther Quintero (Albert Shanker Institute), and Kayla Reist (University of Virginia), examines reading-related state legislation enacted between 2019 and 2022.
The Source Code: Revenue Composition and the Adequacy, Equity, and Stability of K-12 School Spending
A national analysis of the relationship between K-12 revenue composition—that is, the percentage of funding that comes from state versus local sources—and the adequacy, equity, and stability of school spending.

Blog Archives

Our Mission

The Albert Shanker Institute, endowed by the American Federation of Teachers and named in honor of its late president, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to three themes - excellence in public education, unions as advocates for quality, and freedom of association in the public life of democracies. With an independent Board of Directors (composed of educators, business representatives, labor leaders, academics, and public policy analysts), its mission is to generate ideas, foster candid exchanges, and promote constructive policy proposals related to these issues.

This blog offers informal commentary on the research, news, and controversies related to the work of the Institute.