2025 Fall Journal of Scholarship and Practice

Taken together, these articles illuminate how educational inequities persist in both the structures that govern leadership roles and the systems designed to serve our most vulnerable students. Just as importantly, they offer research-informed strategies for addressing these inequities.

In the first article, David Buckman and Henry Tran examine salary disparities by race. The authors document pay gaps between White principals and their peers of color, even after accounting for factors like experience, school size, and district characteristics. Their findings challenge assumptions about the fairness of education’s internal labor market and prompt district leaders to scrutinize their hiring and compensation systems. The study models the kind of scholarship that uses available evidence to surface ways that policies, practices, and structures may unintentionally perpetuate inequity.

In a different vein, but with a similar equity focus, Tamara Eklöf, Rebecca Callahan and Stephanie Vogel offer a practical tool for supporting multilingual English learners (ML-ELs) in rural and low-incidence districts that face limited Title III funding, dispersed student populations, and challenged infrastructure. They developed a rubric-based guidance system to help local leaders assess and strengthen their Lau Plans. By translating their research findings into actionable steps, the authors suggest practical ways to bridge the gap between research and leadership.

Brian Osborne, recently named editor of the Journal, reminds readers that “these articles serve as reminders and invitations to all of us working at the intersection of research and practice to pursue equity with both humility and resolve.”

Further quoting Osborne, “The articles share a commitment to confronting inequities, whether in the paychecks of school leaders or in the programmatic gaps affecting multilingual learners. Reflective of the purpose of this journal, both studies demonstrate how research can inform leadership at a granular, actionable level. For educational leaders, this means seeking out and applying research that reveals blind spots and informs action. For researchers, this means investigating questions that directly address the lived realities of school and district leadership.”

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Thanks and Appreciation

The ܲAVƵJournal of Scholarship and Practice would like to thank AASA, ܲAVƵ, and in particular AASA’s Leadership Network, and particularly AASA’s Leadership Network and Valerie Truesdale, for their ongoing sponsorship of the Journal. ܲAVƵLeadership Network, the School Superintendents Association’s professional learning arm, drives educational leaders’ success, innovation and growth, focused on student-centered, equity-focused, future-driven education.

We also offer special thanks to Brian Osborne, Lehigh University, with assistance from Kenneth Mitchell, Manhattanville University, in selecting the articles that comprise this professional education journal and lending sound editorial comments.

The unique relationship between research and practice is appreciated, recognizing the mutual benefit to those educators who conduct the research and seek out evidence-based practice and those educators whose responsibility is to carry out the mission of school districts in the education of children.

Without the support of AASA, Brian Osborne and Kenneth Mitchell, the ܲAVƵJournal of Scholarship and Practice would not be possible.

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