May 2002 | Volume 59 | Number 8

Beyond Instructional Leadership

A Soccer Game World

Marge Scherer

Table of Contents

The Culture Builder

Roland S. Barth

Changing a toxic school culture into a healthy school culture that inspires lifelong learning among students and adults is the greatest challenge of instructional leadership. School cultures are deeply ingrained and have powerful norms that shape the way the adults and students in schools think and act. "Nondiscussables" are topics that consume everyone’s attention but can not be discussed openly. The fewer the nondiscussables, the healthier the school; the more the nondiscussables, the more pathology in the school culture. The instructional leader must assist faculty to name, acknowledge, and address these nondiscussables and to discard ineffective and punitive elements of the school culture and invent better ways. Instructional leadership is about creating a culture hospitable to human learning.

Table of Contents Buy the Article

The Learning-Centered Principal

Richard DuFour

The teaching-centered school leader asks the questions, What are the teachers teaching? and How can I help them to teach it more effectively? By contrast, the learning-centered school leader asks, To what extent are the students learning the intended outcomes of each course? and What steps can I take to give both students and teachers the additional time and support needed to improve upon existing levels of learning? At Adlai Stevenson High School, a new focus on learning brought teachers together in teams to clarify the essential outcomes of their courses, develop common assessments, and analyze student achievement data. Advisors and counselors worked together with teachers to devise interventions for struggling students. The systematic response to those who were not learning made it clear to students that school staff members expected them to learn. The leadership of a learning-centered principal is crucial to ensure that such a learning community develops and is nurtured.

Table of Contents

The Change Leader

Michael Fullan

The role of the principal as instructional leader is too narrow a concept to carry the weight of the kinds of reform that lead to continual improvement in schools. Effective principals are change leaders, eager to reform the culture in their schools and districts and comfortable leading schools in a rapidly changing society. Change leaders share five characteristics: moral purpose, an understanding of the change process, the ability to improve relationships, a desire to create and share knowledge throughout the organization, and the ability to generate coherent reform. To sustain reforms, change leaders develop the broader social environment, learn where they work (and ensure that others in the school and district have opportunities to learn in work settings as well), cultivate leaders at all levels of the organization, and enhance the teaching profession.

Table of Contents Buy the Article

Hard Questions About Practice

Richard F. Elmore

Educators need to look closely at the organizational and instructional practices that affect the learning of students and adults in their schools. Failing to question the structures of schools’ instructional practices, including the latest reforms, too often results in undermining educators’ work. Rather than dealing with knowledge and work in divided and incoherent bits, educators and students should experience their learning as a cumulative process over time and demonstrate steadily higher levels of expertise and responsibility for their own learning. This learning grows out of concrete tasks that require shared expertise and allow people to develop their own skills and contribute to the development of others’ knowledge and skills. Leaders emerge and assume different responsibilities on the basis of their knowledge and competence. Effective leaders make their own questioning—hence their own ignorance—visible to others by asking hard questions about why and how instructional practices do or don’t work. These leaders model for others what it means to exercise control over the conditions of one’s own learning and make that learning powerful in the lives of others.

Table of Contents

Staying Ahead of the Game

Jean Johnson

School leaders are frustrated with the bureaucracy and red tape they face, with their overwhelming workloads, with teacher tenure policies that make it difficult for them to dismiss failing teachers, and with their education and professional development opportunities. Politics and bureaucracy repeatedly topped the list of complaints of randomly selected superintendents and principals who responded to a survey of public school leaders by Public Agenda. School leaders also complained about insufficient education funding, a lack of authority over their schools, and the inability to remove ineffective teachers and reward outstanding ones. Many principals expressed dismay over efforts to assess their performance on the basis of their students’ standardized test scores. Both superintendents and principals believe that education leadership programs are "out of touch" with the realities of running schools today. In addition, superintendents expressed a lack of confidence in the principals in their districts and concerns about the talent pool available to fill principal positions.

Table of Contents Buy the Article

Improving Faculty Conversations

Barbara Kohm

When education leaders assume that there is more agreement than actually exists and operate on unexamined assumptions, they are in danger of being blindsided by what they do not know about the real views of the school community. But by developing structures that allow hidden information to bubble up to the surface and find expression in legitimate forums, leaders can create meaningful, sustainable change. The author describes the strategies she used as an elementary school principal to foster the open sharing of views: restructuring faculty meetings so that they generated productive dialogue on school issues; developing school planning committees that involved all teachers and an open forum for parents; and creating study groups that challenged unexamined assumptions about teaching and encouraged participants to try new teaching strategies.

Table of Contents Buy the Article

How Walkthroughs Open Doors

Margery B. Ginsberg and Damon Murphy

Frequent, brief, unscheduled walkthroughs can help foster a school culture of collaborative learning and dialogue. Even though teachers appreciate the opportunity that walkthroughs provide for feedback, many administrators neglect walkthroughs because of a lack of training in the procedure except for purposes of required evaluations. As part of an overall school commitment to professional development and ongoing school renewal, walkthroughs have many benefits, including helping administrators gauge school climate. Administrators should first collaborate with teachers on setting up the walkthrough rationale and protocol. The authors suggest guidelines and questions to ask during walkthroughs.

Table of Contents Buy the Article

A Framework for Shared Leadership

Linda Lambert

The old model of instructional leadership, in which the principal served as the sole instructional leader, is giving way to a new model of leadership as a shared, community undertaking. The author describes a framework for sustainable school improvement that links leadership and learning. In schools operating under this framework, principals, teachers, parents, and students participate together as mutual learners and leaders. A shared vision and inquiry-based use of information guide all decisions and practice. Structures for such shared leadership described in the article include study groups, action research teams, vertical learning communities, and leadership teams.

Table of Contents Buy the Article

The Courage to Lead

Carl D. Glickman

Why can some schools sustain educational innovations for decades, while other schools that start out with great promise lose their focus with the first change of principal or staff? Carl D. Glickman looked for the answer to this question in his study of 20 Great American Schools—schools that have sustained progressive reforms for 10–30 years. He found that leadership in these schools invested in detailed preparation before implementing reforms. They typically devoted several years to developing a framework including three components: a covenant of beliefs; a governance structure for schoolwide decisions; and an action research process for continual internal study. Using examples, the author describes how leaders of these exemplary schools used the framework to overcome obstacles to sustained school reform.

Table of Contents Buy the Article

The Invisible Role of the Central Office

Kathleen F. Grove

Instructional leaders from the central office provide consistency, focus, service, and expertise for the district’s educators. An assistant superintendent explains how central office staff members foster leadership, communicate education priorities throughout the district, orient new teachers to the district’s values, provide services and expertise that allow teachers to focus on instruction, and ensure consistent standards among schools. Although the central office’s role often goes unnoticed, its contributions to school leadership show up everywhere and are crucial to the delivery of high-quality instruction.

Table of Contents Buy the Article

The Changing Shape of Leadership

Deborah King

Through its work with principals, superintendents, and other educational leaders across the country, the Annenberg Institute for School Reform has gathered evidence about the changing role of instructional leadership. The author discusses ways in which educational leaders of today work differently from those in the past. Essential tasks today include leading learning, keeping the focus on teaching and learning, developing leadership capacity, creating conditions for professional learning, using data to inform decisions, and using resources creatively. The author asserts that authentic instructional leadership can be witnessed in "the everyday acts of people who take responsibility for improving teaching and learning in the entire school community."

Table of Contents Buy the Article

A View from the Classroom

Sandra L. Harris and Sandra Lowery

A university class in administrative theory for principals surveyed teachers to answer the question, How can principals contribute to a positive school climate. The teachers’ responses revealed a range of behaviors that they had observed as creating a climate for learning. The responses included such habits as treating students fairly and equally, talking and listening to students in the lunchroom or the hallways, sending notes of encouragement to students, being accessible to students, praising and recognizing students for their achievements, being an advocate for students, and providing a safe and secure environment in which the students can learn. Although these behaviors are natural for some, others can learn to act in ways that build a better climate for learning.

Table of Contents Buy the Article

A Critique of the Test for School Leaders

Gary L. Anderson

An Educational Testing Service exam for prospective school leaders narrows the field of instructional leadership and promote a new administrative discourse that banishes complexity, conflict, and critical reflection. Sample "exemplary" responses in the test bulletin seem to suggest that the exam, based on the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium national standards and required by several states for school administrator certification, encourages glib, depoliticized, decontextualized responses and a public relations approach to community involvement. The character of the exam is significant because it may set the future direction and agenda of school administrator training.

Table of Contents Buy the Article

A Defense of the Test for School Leaders

John H. Holloway

Table of Contents Buy the Article

The Power of Gentleness

Daniel A. Heller

Models of educational leadership based on the business model often ignore the important qualities of kindness and compassion. The author argues that, rather than looking to the business model for inspiration, educational leaders should look to what ancient Eastern philosophers and modern brain science tell us about the strength of compassionate leadership. On the basis of his own experience as a teacher and administrator, he describes how leaders can put people first, avoid win/lose solutions, and create human education environments. This kind of leadership, he asserts, empowers both students and teachers to perform at high levels.

Table of Contents Buy the Article

The Best Way to Lead Them

Kay Pippin Uchiyama and Shelby Anne Wolf

Principals can cultivate learning communities in their schools when they lead with both intentionality and heart. With Washington State standards and assessments as their focus, two successful elementary school principals created environments for students’ learning, cultivated professional communities among their teachers, set goals for reform, and balanced the external pressures of state mandates with internal supports like funding and professional development. Both principals expressed their belief in the power of intentional leading and teaching—focused, deliberate guidance and instruction—to ensure student academic improvement. They also relied on affective means–kindness, heart—to inspire teachers and students to strive to meet the school’s goals.

Table of Contents Buy the Article

Unequal School Funding in the United States

Bruce J. Biddle and David C. Berliner

Although most people believe that public education should provide a level playing field for all children, the United States tolerates large disparities in school funding among states, school districts, and individual schools. Students in impoverished communities, on average, receive much lower levels of funding and have access to lower-quality buildings, facilities, curriculum, equipment for instruction, and teachers. In this research synthesis, authors Bruce J. Biddle and David C. Berliner document these disparities and review strong research studies showing that funding differences have a significant impact on student achievement, particularly if higher funding levels are used to reduce class size in the early grades and to hire more-qualified teachers. The authors point out that other developed countries, which do not have the United States’ tradition of local control of education, fund schools equally in rich and poor communities, depending on the number of students they enroll. The authors review court challenges to inequitable state funding systems, and suggest that educators and parents become politically active in support of school funding reform.

Table of Contents

Ecstasy: Intimacy Abridged

Steven C. Schlozman

Table of Contents

Having Your Say

Table of Contents Buy the Article

EL Extra

Deborah Perkins-Gough

Table of Contents

ASCD in Action

Table of Contents

Web Wonders

Deborah Perkins-Gough

Table of Contents

Copyright © 2012 by ASCD