Professor James P. Spillane - Secretariat

James P. Spillane is the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Professor in Learning and Organizational Change at the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University and faculty associate at Northwestern’s Institute for Policy Research. A former primary school teacher from Ireland, Spillane has published extensively on issues of education policy, policy implementation and school reform. His work explores the policy implementation process, focusing on intergovernmental relations.

He also studies organizational leadership and change, conceptualizing leadership as a distributed practice. His work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Institute of Education Sciences, Spencer Foundation, Sherwood Foundation and Carnegie Corporation of New York. He has authored several books including Distributed Leadership (Jossey-Bass, 2006), Distributed Leadership in Practice (Teachers College Press, 2011), Diagnosis and Design for School Improvement (Teachers College Press, 2011), Navigating the Principalship: Key Insights for New and Aspiring School Leaders (ASCD, 2019), and over 150 journal articles and book chapters. Spillane was elected to the US National Academy of Education in 2013 and to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020.

He was President of the International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement (ICSEI), 2022–2025.