Research Interests
Meredith I. Honig
Meredith Honig is a Professor of Education Policy, Organizations, & Leadership and Director of the District Leadership Design Lab (DL2, dl2.education.uw.edu) at the University of Washington where she also is an Adjunct Professor of Public Affairs. Her research and partnerships focus on the redesign of school district central offices to ensure that all students experience an excellent and equitable education, especially Black, Indigenous, and Latinx students, students living in low-income circumstances, and others public school systems have historically underserved. Her work recognizes that barriers to educational equity are systemic, that school district central office leaders are in strategic positions to ensure educational equity, and that those leaders would benefit from new knowledge and support for their leadership.
Meredith has studied and supported district leadership of various reform strategies including: school-community partnerships, new small autonomous schools initiatives, data-informed decision-making, and districtwide teaching and learning improvement efforts. Her research has been published in Educational Researcher, the American Educational Research Journal, and Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, among other outlets, and funded by The Spencer Foundation, the W.T. Grant Foundation, and other sources.
In 2014, Meredith and Lydia Rainey established the District Leadership Design Lab (DL2) to help district leaders access knowledge and tools to transform their central offices into engines of educational equity. Between 2012-18, she directed the Leadership for Learning (Ed.D.) program which, in 2016, won the Exemplary Educational Leadership Program award from the University Council for Educational Administration. Meredith advises Ed.D., Ph.D., and M.Ed. students of policy implementation, organizational behavior, and leadership for educational equity.
Prior to joining the University of Washington faculty, Dr. Honig was an assistant professor and co-director of the Center for Educational Policy and Leadership at the University of Maryland, College Park. She has worked at the California Department of Education and in other state and local youth-serving agencies.
For more information about the work of Dr. Honig and her team, please see below and visit the District Leadership Design Lab at http://dl2.education.uw.edu/.
Honig, M.I. & Rainey, L.R., (2020). Supervising principals for instructional leadership: A teaching and learning approach. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
Honig, M.I. & Honsa, A. (2020). Systems-focused equity leadership learning: Shifting practice through practice. Journal of Research on Leadership Education, 15(3), 192-209.
Honig, M.I. & Rainey, L.R. (2019). Supporting the success of principal supervisors: How school district central offices matter. Journal of Educational Administration, 57(5), 445-462.
Honig, M.I. & Walsh, E.D. (2019). Learning to lead the learning of leaders: The evolution of the University of Washington's Education Doctorate. Journal of Research on Leadership Education, 14(1), 51-73.
Honig, M.I., Venkateswaran, N., & McNeill, P. (2017). Research use as learning: The case of school district central offices. American Educational Research Journal.
Honig, M.I. & Rainey, L.R. (2014). Central office leadership in principal professional learning communities: The practice beneath the policy. Teachers College Record, 116(4).
Honig, M.I. (2014). Beyond the policy memo: Designing to strengthen the practice of district central office leadership for instructional improvement at scale. In B. J. Fishman, W. R. Penuel, A.-R. Allen, & B. H. Cheng (Eds). Design-based implementation research. National Society for the Study of Education Yearbook, 112(1).
Honig, M.I., (2013). From tinkering to transformation: Strengthening school district central offices for performance at scale. American Enterprise Institute Education Outlook, 4(June). Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute.
Honig, M.I. (2012). District central office leadership as teaching: How central office administrators support principals’ development as instructional leaders. Educational Administration Quarterly, 48(4), 733-744.
Honig, M.I. & Venkateswaran, N. (2012). School-central office relationships in evidence use: Understanding evidence use as a systems problem. American Journal of Education, 118(2), 199-222.
Honig, M.I. & Rainey, L. (2012). Autonomy and school improvement: What do we know and where do we go from here? Educational Policy, 26(3), 465-495.
Honig, M.I. (2012). District central office leadership as teaching: How central office administrators support principals’ development as instructional leaders. Educational Administration Quarterly, 48(4), 733-744.
Honig, M.I. & Venkateswaran, N. (2012). School-central office relationships in evidence use: Understanding evidence use as a systems problem. American Journal of Education, 118(2), 199-222.
Honig, M.I. & DeArmond, M. (2010). Where's the "management" in portfolio management: Conceptualizing the role of school district central offices in implementation. In K. Bulkley, J. Henig, & H. Levin, (Eds.), Portfolio management reform, (pp, 195-216). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
Honig, M.I., Copland, M.A., Rainey, L., Lorton, J.A., & Newton, M. (2010, April). School district central office transformation for teaching and learning improvement. A report to the Wallace Foundation. Seattle, WA: The Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy. Full report | Executive Summary | Press Release | University Week Article
Honig, M.I. (2009). “External” Organizations and the Politics of Urban Educational Leadership: The Case of New Small Autonomous Schools Initiatives. Peabody Journal of Education, 84, 394-413.
Honig, M.I. (2009). No small thing: School district central office bureaucracies and the implementation of New Small Autonomous Schools Initiatives. American Educational Research Journal, 46(2), 387-422.
Honig, M.I. & Ikemoto, G. (2008). Adaptive assistance for learning improvement efforts: The case of the Institute for Learning. Peabody Journal of Education, 83(3), 328-363.
Honig, M.I. (2008). District central offices as learning organizations: How sociocultural and organizational learning theories elaborate district central office administrators’ participation in teaching and learning improvement efforts. American Journal of Education, 114, 627-664.
Honig, M.I. & Coburn, C. (2008). Evidence-based decision making in school district central offices. Educational Policy, 22(4), 578-608.
Honig, M.I. (Ed.). (2006). New directions in education policy implementation: Confronting complexity. Albany, NY: The State University of New York Press.
Honig, M.I. (2006). Street-level bureaucracy revisited: Frontline district central office administrators as boundary spanners in education policy implementation. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 28(4), 357-383.
Honig, M.I. & McDonald, M.A. (2005). From promise to participation: After-school programs through the lens of socio-cultural learning theory. The Robert Bowne Foundation Occasional Paper Series, #5 Fall. New York City, NY: The Robert Bowne Foundation.
Honig, M.I., & Hatch, T.C. (2004). Crafting coherence: How schools strategically manage multiple, external demands. Educational Researcher, 33(8), 16-30.
Honig, M.I. (2004). Where's the 'up' in bottom-up reform. Educational Policy, 18(4), 527-561.
Honig, M.I. (2004). The new middle management: Intermediary organizations in education policy implementation. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 26(1), 65-87.
Honig, M.I. (2004). District central office-community partnerships: From contracts to collaboration to control. In W. Hoy & C. Miskel (Eds.), Educational administration, policy, and reform: Research and measurement (pp. 59-90). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.
Honig, M.I. (2003). Building policy from practice: District central office administrators’ roles and capacity for implementing collaborative education policy. Educational Administration Quarterly, 39(3), 292-338.