William A. Owings, Ed.D. has been an elementary and high school principal, assistant superintendent and school district superintendent and is currently a professor of educational leadership and graduate program director at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia. Together with his co-author, Leslie S. Kaplan, Owings has published texts including American Public School Finance (2006, Cengage), Best Practices, Best Thinking, and Emerging Issues in School Leadership, (2003, Corwin) as well as numerous book chapters and articles in professional journals including NASSP Bulletin, Journal of School Leadership, Journal of Education Finance, Teachers College Record, and Phi Delta Kappan. Professor Owings is editor of the Journal for Effective Schools and also serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Education Finance. A frequent presenter at regional and national conferences, he is a past-president of the Virginia Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and served 20 years on the national ASCD Board of Directors. Owings and Kaplan were jointly awarded the 2008 Charles Edgar Clear Research Award from the Virginia Educational Research Association for “Consistent and Substantial Contributions to Educational Research and Scholarship.” Leslie S, Kaplan, Ed.D. is a retired secondary school and central office administrator who currently researches and writes on educational issues full-time. She has been a successful school counselor as well as a central office and school administrator. Together with her co-author, William A. Owings, Kaplan has published books including American Education: Building a Common Foundation (Cengage, 2011), Effective Schools Movement: History, Analysis, and Application (2008, Intermont Center for Education Effectiveness), and Teacher Quality, Teaching Quality, and School Improvement (2002, Phi Delta Kappan). Her education writings, often with Owings, frequently appear as book chapters and in refereed professional journals. Leslie Kaplan is co-editor of the Journal for Effective Schools and serves on the editorial board for the NASSP Bulletin. She is a past-president of the Virginia Counselors Association and the Virginia Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
