Leadership for Lasting Reform

1999

This monograph serves two purposes: (1) to stimulate further reflection and discussion among education leaders and policymakers to revitalize and strengthen the role that school leaders play in school reform; and (2) to assist researchers in identifying areas of future work. It synthesizes some of the most current literature pertinent to leadership and offers ideas and suggestions that may serve as the basis for further study about the leadership strategies that help bring about meaningful and long-lasting reform. The intent is to identify the major issues involved in developing leaders who sustain effective change. Leaders need to examine carefully whether the changes they are implementing are the best ones for their students in the long run. School leaders need also to balance competing demands and to create environments in which diverse viewpoints can come together to create a common vision for what schools should be. To make and sustain meaningful, long-lasting changes, the conception of what "leadership" means must be expanded from a narrow focus on improving the skills of a single man or woman to the building of the capacity of the community of teachers, students, parents, as well as administrators to lead. (Contains 26 references.) (DFR) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.

2001

This monograph serves two purposes: (1) to stimulate further reflection and discussion among education leaders and policymakers to revitalize and strengthen the role that school leaders play in school reform; and (2) to assist researchers in identifying areas of future work. It synthesizes some of the most current literature pertinent to leadership and offers ideas and suggestions that may serve as the basis for further study about the leadership strategies that help bring about meaningful and longlasting reform. The intent is to identify the major issues involved in developing leaders who sustain effective change. Leaders need to examine carefully whether the changes they are implementing are the best ones for their students in the long run. School leaders also need to balance competing demands and to create environments in which diverse viewpoints can come together to create a common vision for what schools should be. To make and sustain meaningful, long-lasting changes, the conception of what "leadership" means must be expanded from a narrow focus on improving the skills of a single man or woman to the building of the capacity of the community of teachers, students, parents, as well as administrators to lead. (Contains 24 references.) (DFR) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.

Journal of Educational Change, 2007

After decades of meager results in school improvement efforts that work and that last, it may seem irrational to hope that this time it could be different-that we could learn and apply approaches to lasting school improvement. Obama (2006, The audacity of hope. New York: Crown publications) might refer to such hope as audacious. What gives us the impulse for hope in the face of continued disappointment? This is not to suggest that all of our efforts have come to naught. Having witnessed and participated in hopeful approaches for more than 40 years, I've seen noteworthy programs and heard exceptionally wise ideas. Islands of hope existed in each decade, yet even these remarkable islands drop below sea level when founders, principals or key teachers leave. As long as any one individual is indispensable, sustainability is a distant dream. As I've talked with educators, parents, students and community members over these years, I've been bombarded with questions. The question I find most compelling is: ''We can now understand our schools as they exist. And, we have an improving image of what sustainable schools look like, but how do we get there from here? How do we find our way to the sustainability we yearn for? Recently, 20 colleagues and I set about to discover our own answers to these vital questions. We began the study armed with a few assumptions. The following article was presented to the International Conference on Sustainable Leadership, Boston, November, 2006. The three major concepts include: A redefinition of leadership as a form of learning; a conceptualization of leadership capacity as broad-based, skillful participation in the work of leadership; and a study of leadership capacity. The text has been expanded to include further details on the study.

Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), 2009

Abstract: Principals can profoundly influence student achievement by leading school change, but they cannot turn schools around by themselves. District leaders need to create working conditions that support and encourage change for improved achievement, rather ...

SDEO

The essence of successful change in schools is the serendipitous and conscious balancing of the rich and volatile mix of leadership, change knowledge and skills against a coterie of inhibitors. Interest in this area of administration is such that change, leadership and accountability are three themes that dominate current research and writing. These three themes are intertwined. For example, it is impossible to have leadership without change, because maintaining the status quo is managerial in nature, not leadership, and both exist in a climate of increased accountability. Leadership is seen as the Holy Grail in schools, but in middle level administrations, school leaders are expected to manage and lead, as each situation requires. Current research is currently pointing out what practitioners have always known, that leadership in schools is not the sole domain of principals. Leadership is said to be distributed and it has been argued that multi-levelled leadership is necessary in its own right, and should be facilitated for a variety of moral reasons.

Through case studies of 10 elementary schools in Chicago , this article examines principal leadership In low-performing schools. The data include 331 interviews with teachers. administrators, external partners. and others over a 2-year period using transformational leadership as a lens, we found that principals in schools that moved off probation In a short period articulated the school vision. provided support and resources to teachers. established collaborative structures and norms, developed commitment 10 collective goals. and managed the school. Their leadership responses were closely linked to their interpretation of the accountability policy. All the principals centralized decision making Our study suggests that districts should carefully assign these schools leaders with appropriate knowledge and skills and reassign ineffective principals given the critical role that principals play In bringing about improvement under pressure.

2017

Design by José Moreno This report and other resources on school leadership can be downloaded free from www.wallacefoundation.org. a J o b t h a t U r b a n d i s t r i c t s c a n d o Building PrinciPal PiPelines The Power of Principal Supervisors: How Two Districts Are Remaking an Old Role Amy Saltzman (report) and WNET (video), The Wallace Foundation, 2016. A Wallace Story From the Field and a WNET video describe how two school districts are reshaping the job of the principal supervisor to focus on supporting principals.

British Journal of Management, 2000

2009

state's) accountability system, instructional guidance, and expectations for databased practice, and they had wedded those to an internal set of expectations and responsibilities that represent the school's internal accountability system. Related to this response, the schools were building and expanding their own systems for collecting and using data in daily practice, drawing on what the district or state provided, but often including other forms or representations of data concerning their students. The stance most of the school leaders took to the larger environment was to ■ ■ treat it as a source of opportunities, resources, and potentially helpful ideas, rather than a site of roadblocks, unhelpful advice, and unreachable requirements. The leaders' response to the larger environment had identifiable consequences for instructional practice. Leaders' efforts were helping to focus and align instruction and, to some extent, ■ ■ narrow it. Leaders appeared to be developing a new language for talking about students ■ ■ that emphasizes "gaps," "gains," and "moving" students. The language underscores a view of student learning that emphasizes measurable progress, often with regular testing as the metric. Picking up a theme pushed by the districts and enabled by more regular use of ■ ■ data in instructional planning, instructional leadership in these schools was emphasizing the differentiation of instruction, to serve students' differing needs, approaches to learning, and prior schooling histories. vii Leadership for Learning Improvement in Urban Schools In parallel with supervisory leaders' use of data, teacher leaders found data ■ ■ about student achievement or other evidence of student learning offered a convenient and often productive entry point for building and sustaining a working relationship between teacher leaders and classroom teachers. Several conditions affected the ability of the teacher leaders to find a secure footing in the school, among them, role clarity, cultural norms, and the support of principals as well as peers engaged in teacher leadership work. The accessibility of peer-alike colleagues, in particular, seemed to help learning-focused teacher leaders mitigate the tensions they experienced in their emergent roles. Learning-focused teacher leaders occupied a middle ground in their respective schools, positioned between classrooms and individuals or entities at the school or district level with authority over multiple classrooms. The territory they occupied generated ambiguities concerning their work, the potential for conflict, and opportunities for furthering the learning improvement goals of school and district. The direct and regular interaction with the principal placed teacher leaders in a ■ ■ position to both shape and absorb the schoolwide agenda for learning improvement and then to transmit improvement messages to school staff. As part of their work, learning-focused teacher leaders could-and often ■ ■ did-act as a bridge or conduit between the classroom and district or state expectations for classroom practice. Whether in relation to the district's or school's learning improvement agenda, ■ ■ or both, learning-focused teacher leaders offered a direct and continual link between district or school reform intentions and daily practice. These bridging activities and roles necessitated a continuing process of negotiation, as the teacher leaders carried forward their instructional support work. Learning to Lead for Learning Improvement These findings have clear implications for what supervisory and nonsupervisory leaders need to learn to do if they are to pursue ambitious learning improvement agendas in contemporary urban settings. Principals and other supervisory leaders need to rethink and expand their conception of supervision so that it becomes one of regular, often informal conversation with teachers about instructional issues. They also need to create working partnerships with other staff around the building Pathways for School Leaders' Learning School districts, state agencies, external organizations trying to support educational reform, and others can create various pathways for supporting these kinds of new learning. Some of the need can be met by better initial preparation programs. These districts created their own leadership development programs of several kinds, aimed primarily at preparing new principals. But as important or more, especially for teacher leaders, are three other sources of learning and support: Central office support systems. ■ ■ Especially where the central office had taken proactive steps to become more responsive and engaged with schools, school leaders gained much from a variety of officials and staff from the district. A companion report, Central Office Transformation for District-wide Teaching and Learning Improvement (Honig, Copland, Lorton, Rainey, & Newton, forthcoming), elaborates on what this can mean in the relationship of central office and schools. Peer and professional networks. ■ ■ School leaders relied on-and were sometimes helped to develop-connections with colleagues in similar roles and other proix Leadership for Learning Improvement in Urban Schools fessionals who could offer ideas, advice, comfort, and modeling of potentially useful practices. Relationships with external organizations (e.g., nonprofit groups, universi-■ ■ ties). Either by being prompted or through their own evolving relations, school leaders developed long-term relationships with various external organizations that offered instructionally specific expertise and occasions for school leaders to deepen their understanding of their work. These sources in combination began to provide a web of support for the instructional leadership cadres at work in these kinds of schools. As the work of learning improvement moves forward in urban schools, policy makers, leaders, and others who care about the reform of public education can find ways to focus these support systems on the new learning that the instructional leadership cadre is doing. Research Strategy and Sample We pursued a multiple-case investigation of schools within four school districts: