Edie L. Holcomb

Edie L. Holcomb, PhD, is highly regarded for her ability to link research and practice on issues related to school leadership, improvement, and reform, having been a principal, district administrator, and university professor. Dr. Holcomb's classroom experience includes teaching at all grade levels with heterogeneous classes, inclusion of students with multiple disabilities, and coordination of services for gifted and talented students. Her building-level administrative experience is in settings ranging from affluent suburban to schoolwide Title I with racial/ethnic diversity and English language learners. At the university level, Dr. Holcomb served as associate director of the National Center for Effective Schools, developing School-Based Instructional Leadership, a training program for site-based teams. As an associate professor of educational administration at Wichita State University in Kansas, she coordinated the principalship course and internships and taught applied inquiry in the field-based doctoral program. Dr. Holcomb is familiar with the challenges of districts with 3,000 to 45,000 enrollment, having served as director of standards and assessment and later as supervisor of 21 schools in the Seattle School District in Washington. She was also executive director of curriculum and instructional services in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Dr. Holcomb has provided technical assistance for implementation of school- improvement efforts throughout the United States and in Canada, Guam, St. Lucia, Hong Kong, and the Philippines. She helped develop Washington State's School System Improvement Resource Guide and worked with the Ohio Department of Education on its plans for technical assistance and support for districts and schools identified for improvement under No Child Left Behind. She has also worked with statewide models in Kentucky and Pennsylvania. Dr. Holcomb holds a BS in elementary education, an MS in gifted education, and an EdS in educational administration. She received a PhD in educational administration from the University of Minnesota. She is the author of Data Dynamics, and Data-Based Decision Making, and her work can be further explored at solution-tree.com.