Michael Johanek prepares educators to lead schools, districts, and other K–12 organizations, toward becoming key voices in education. Johanek works with principals, headmasters, superintendents, non-profit leaders, academics, and government officials from around the world. He is an expert on school leaders’ challenges and the strategies for overcoming them. Johanek also heads La Red Interamericana de Liderazgo Educacional (the Inter-American Educational Leadership Network), which brings together educators from across the Western Hemisphere, and the Penn Educational Leadership Simulations Program. He recently launched a multidisciplinary, cross-professional initiative, The Judgment Project, aimed at identifying and developing situated judgment. A published historian, his last book examined the history of school choice in the United States, and he is currently investigating a Chicago neighborhood organization active in school reform over the past four decades.

Professional Biography

Dr. Johanek is a Senior Fellow in the Education, Culture, and Society program in the Policy, Organizations, Leadership, and Systems Division at Penn GSE, where he was Director of the Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership from 2007 to 2024. He currently directs the Inter-American Educational Leadership Network (RILE), the Penn Educational Leadership Simulations Program (PELS), and The Judgment Project. He is an affiliated faculty member of Perry World House and the Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies at Penn Arts and Sciences. He teaches as Profesor Invitado Internacional at La Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and Profesor Invitado of the educational leadership programs at La Universidad de Los Andes, Colombia.

Before coming to Penn in the spring of 2007, he served as Vice President of Professional Services for Teachscape, a for-profit blended technology services company, where he managed all service engagements nationally. He is the former Executive Director for K–12 Professional Development, The College Board, where he managed programs supporting over 500,000 middle and high school teachers, college faculty, coordinators, and administrators, including those involved in the Advanced Placement Program. He founded, developed, and managed a program development and operations department with responsibilities including new product development, in-person training, web services, electronic and print publications, regional office operational support, marketing, and research. A former high school teacher in Cleveland, New York, and Lima, Peru, he taught in and managed the Fellows in Teaching Program and Urban Fellow Program at Teachers College, Columbia University prior to joining the College Board.

Dr. Johanek recently served on the board of The Loyola School (NYC), and on the Advisory Group for the Inter-American Teacher Education Network (AGITEN), Organization of American States; he previously served on the Advisory Council of the Penn Center for Educational Leadership and on the board of Research for Action, a non-profit organization engaged in education research and evaluation. Prior to serving as a reviewer for the U.S. Department of Education in the 2010 and 2012 Race to the Top competitions, he served on the department’s Working Group for Postsecondary Linkage Efforts to Improve College Readiness and on the independent Annenberg Commission on Public Schools for their Institutions of Democracy Project. He served as co-PI and advisor in several National Science Foundation-funded professional development research projects, on the National Education Advisory Board for the French & Indian War 250th Anniversary Commemoration, and on the Organization of American Historians-Advanced Placement Joint Advisory Board on Teaching the U.S. History Survey. He served on the Alumni Council at Teachers College, Columbia University, and on the Board of Trustees of The Concord Review. He has recently served as a peer reviewer for AERA, UCEA, Educational Researcher, Theory and Research in Education, Journal of School Leadership, the History of Education Society, and the Fondo de Investigaciones Educativas (PREAL). He co-founded SchoolSims, LLC, and founded Sapience, LLC, serving on the boards of both. He has taught at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education and consulted for school districts and ministries.

Research Interests and Current Projects

Current interests include the nature of situated judgment in leadership development across professions; the history of recent urban educational reforms, especially as instruments of civic engagement and development; community-centered and place-based approaches to education; and the role of global professional infrastructure in educational leadership.

Dr. Johanek co-authored Making Up Our Mind: What School Choice is Really About with Sigal Ben-Porath (University of Chicago Press, 2019), which provides philosophical and historical perspectives on school choice in the U.S. He recently completed a volume of practitioner research, with co-editors Susan Lytle, “Torch” Lytle, and Kathy Rho, entitled Repositioning Educational Leadership: Practitioners Leading from an Inquiry Stance (Teachers College Press, 2018) that focuses on educational leadership.

With Spencer Foundation support, Dr. Johanek is examining recent educational reform by investigating the history of a Chicago neighborhood organization serving Mexican-American communities and associated with an extensive charter school network. In addition, he recently served on a research and development team with Catholic University colleagues in Chile for the project, "Prototipo y validación de una plataforma virtual de competencias directivas de liderazgo instruccional para contextos escolares basado en métodos de análisis de desempeño directivo," and was awarded a Fulbright grant to support his work there.

Dr. Johanek co-teaches a MOOC, “American Education Reform: History, Policy and Practice,” with John Puckett, focused on the utility of history in understanding current school reform.

Publications

Featured

Making Up Our Mind: What School Choice is Really About

Repositioning Educational Leadership: Practitioners Leading from an Inquiry Stance

Leonard Covello and the Making of Benjamin Franklin High School

A Faithful Mirror - Reflections on the College Board and Education in America

Selected Publications

Johanek, M. (2022). “If you want justice, organize for power!” Community organizing, Catholicism and Chicago school reform. Journal of Educational Administration and History. DOI: 10.1080/00220620.2022.2153112.

Volante, P., Jeldres, R., Spero, K., Llorente, C., & Johanek, M. (2020). Simulations for the learning of decision making in educational leadership in the context of the Chilean school system. Research in Educational Administration & Leadership, 5(1), 1–41. DOI: 10.30828/real/2020.1.1

Ben-Porath, S., & Johanek, M. (2020) Making up our mind: A response to Ahlberg, Howell, Justice, and Merry. Double Book Symposium, Theory and Research in Education, 18(2), 15–19.

Johanek, M. C., & Spero, K. (2019, November 13). The silent crisis of leadership in education. SmartBrief.

Ben-Porath, S., & Johanek, M. (2019). Making up our mind: What school choice is really about. Chicago: University of Chicago.

Lytle, J., Lytle, S., Johanek, M., & Rho, K. (2018). Repositioning educational leadership: Practitioners leading from an inquiry stance. New York: Teachers College Press.

Bernstein, E., McMenamin, S. A., & Johanek, M. C. (2016). Authentic online branching simulations: Promoting discourse around problems of practice. In P. Dickenson, & J. J. Juarez, (Eds.), Increasing productivity and efficiency in online teaching. IGI Global.

Johanek, M. C. (2015). A ‘backchannel’ for distributing leadership. School Administrator, 72(10), 57.

Johanek, M. (2015, April 5). Gestión de redes profesionales. La Tercera.

Johanek, M. (2014). Getting to the balcony from Chile. School Administrator, 71(11), 41.

Johanek, M. (2014). The public leadership gap. School Administrator, 71(3): 44.

Johanek, M. (2012, August 5). Gestión colaborativa. La Tercera.

Johanek, M. (2012, April 22). Comunidades de aprendizaje. La Tercera.

Johanek, M. (2012). Preparing pluribus for unum: Historical perspectives on civic education. In D. Campbell, F. Hess, & M. Levinson, (Eds.), Making civics count: Citizenship for a new generation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Johanek, M. (2011, April). Conocer el entorno. La Tercera.

Johanek, M. (2011). To reform education, look beyond the schools. Penn GSE Commentary. University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education.

Johanek, M., Volante, P., Mladinic, A., Lincovil, C., & Fernández, M. (2011). Diseño de Assessment Center para la selección de equipos directivos en establecimientos educacionales. Propuestas Para Chile. Pontifica Universidad Católica de Chile.

Johanek, M., & Lytle, J. (2010). Reinventing leaders for a new era in education management. District Management Journal (Fall), 22–28.

Johanek, M., & Puckett, J. (2009). Leonard Covello. In E. F. Provenzo, Jr., (Ed.), Encyclopedia of the social and cultural foundations of education. Sage Publications.

Benson, L., Harkavy, I., Johanek, M., & Puckett, J. (2009). The enduring appeal of community schools. American Educator (Summer), 24–32.

Johanek, M. (2009). School reform that matters. GSE: A Review of Research (Fall), 1–9.

Johanek, M., & Puckett. J. (2007). Leonard Covello and the making of Benjamin Franklin High School: Education as if citizenship mattered. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Johanek, M. C., & Puckett, J. (2004). Accounting for Citizenship: Are our expectations for civic education too modest?. Retrieved from https://repository.upenn.edu/gse_pubs/177 Reprinted with permission in Education Week, Volume 23, Issue 42, July 2004, Page 52.

News & Media

Penn GSE News

Do You Have Good Judgment?

Michael Johanek brought together 20 leaders from around the world to examine the challenges of real-world judgment.

November 17, 2023

Leaders and Role Models: Educators Grow Through Penn GSE’s Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership

Jennifer C. Stimpson and John LePelley have brought new insights from the program to their schools as they strive to be strong role models for their students.

July 22, 2019

In the Media

Edcamps: The ‘Unconferences,’ Where Teachers Teach Themselves

Michael Johanek notes that the Edcamp model can be meaningful not only for teachers but also for school leaders.

The New York Times | June 5, 2018

Civic education: Are students learning how to be good citizens?

Michael Johanek talks about the roots of American civic engagement.

CQ Researcher | February 3, 2017

Podcast: Betsy DeVos as the Ed Secretary

Penn GSE's Mike Johanek & Michigan State's Rebecca Jacobsen discuss Betsy DeVos's nomination for US Secretary of Education. Originally aired on 12/17/16 by Wharton Business Radio (@BizRadio111).

Wharton Business Radio | December 17, 2016

The Educator's Playbook

Facing a problem? Ask yourself these questions

Michael Johanek says school leaders can improve their decision making by improving how they assess problems.