School Executive Website study

The School Executive Website will be a one-stop, online site for officials who are looking for educational data, best practices, product reviews, school documents, professional opinions, and/or job-related networking. The format of the website is designed in certain sections similar to other current and popular websites, such as Angie＇s List.com, YouTube, and Linkedin.com. The development and complication of components for a School Executive Website required a survey study to be conducted. This survey was sent to all school superintendents in Ohio to seek out the most relevant resources to place initially in the website. The exploratory study provided important insights for the development of components within the website setup.     

Determinants of ‘community participation’: the tradition of local initiatives and the institutionalisation of school management committees in Oromia Region,Ethiopia

A School Management Committee (SMC) is an administrative tool adopted in many developing countries to decentralise administrative and financial responsibilities at school level, while involving local people in decision-making and making education more responsive to demands. I question the assumption linking administrative decentralisation and popular participation. There is a long-lasting tradition in Africa of schools built and run through local initiatives, even in the absence of governmental education services. Instead of seeing SMCs as a means to promote community participation and evaluating its effectiveness, I investigate people’s motivation to commit to education and the social dynamics beyond the institutionalised framework of SMCs. I also shed light on factors that cause differences in the extent and form of participation.     

国外对中小学教师领导力问题的研究与启示

"教师领导力"近年来成为美国和加拿大等国对中小学学校领导问题研究的热点.尽管目前有关教师领导力的研究尚无明确统一的概念,但是影响教师领导力的因素以及教师领导力在学校管理实践中的意义却已经被广泛关注.     

Learning from ‘Outsiders’ as Experts

Abstract

This paper aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on how best the appraisal of headteachers can be effected. It presents an analysis of the findings of a study which compared self‐appraisals of their managerial peformance by a sample of primary headteachers (n=36), with appraisals of these headteachers by their teaching staff. Respondents completed the 100‐item Management Performance Profile (MPP) Questionnaire and the resulting profiles of the headteachers'performance in 10 managerial categories, were compared. In addition, data were generated on headteachers' perceptions of their personal and professional identity, using a semi‐structured interview schedule. The findings are that there is a high level of concordance between perceptions by headteachers and teachers of the managerial priorities of the primary headteacher. However, two groups of schools are identified, in which there are significant differences between evaluations of the headteachers' managerial performance. Interview data is used to illuminate the analysis and discussion of these differences. The conclusion is that staff participation in headteacher performance review has much to offer and that the MPP questionnaire is a tool of value in this respect.     

School leadership models: what do we know?

The growth in the importance of school leadership has been accompanied by theory development, with new models emerging and established approaches being redefined and further developed. The purpose of this paper is to review current and recent writing on leadership models. The paper examines theoretical literature, to see how leadership is conceptualised, and empirical literature, to demonstrate whether and how the research evidence supports these concepts. The paper shows that leadership models are subject to fashion but often serve to reflect, and to inform, changes in school leadership practice.     

分布式领导——西方学校领导再造探研

分布式领导概念提出于20世纪90年代中后期,它基于对传统领导观念的突破,从领导方式、形态、范围等角度再造了学校领导。文章通过系统分析比较分布式领导定义,了解其研究状况和尚待研究的领域,阐述实施过程中的动力与阻力因素,从而反思国内学校领导实践和理论研究的现状及其发展。     

学校有效领导力：一种分布式领导实践的视角

“分布式领导“这一术语产生于2泄纪90年代中后期,它突破了单向的、静态的、线性的领导观念,从多向的、动态的、流动的角度再造了学校领导.从分布式领导实践的视角考察学校有效领导力,可以理解为在领导中采用一种针对行为的方法,在结构、状态和设计方面,将校长、教师和他们的状态互动的个体领导行为进行集合,以促进组织目标的实现.     

Bottling fog? The quest for instructional management

Elsewhere, the authors have unpacked instructional leadership and have documented that such leadership is associated with more effective schools. Indeed, there has been for a considerable time nearly universal acceptance that learning-centered leadership should provide the central platform on which leadership is enacted. In this paper, a less sanguine narrative is provided on instructional management. Specifically, it documents that for all the evidence and recognition of importance, learning-focused leadership remains a small domain of action for leaders at the school and district levels. It then focuses on both the culture of the profession of school administration and the nature of schooling to explain why in the face of considerable energy and effort only marginal improvements have been realized in deepening instructional leadership. It closes with an analysis of possible paths going forward.     

国外中学校长领导力提升策略及其启示

中学校长领导力的提升对教学质量的提高和学校的发展有举足轻重的作用,而国外对此有比较系统的研究。文章分析了国外中学校长领导力的提升策略,包括引领变革、分布式领导、建立组织合作伙伴关系和持续的专业发展等,并由此提出提升我国中学校长领导力的启示,为我国中学校长领导力的提升提供参考。     

School leadership for the future: heroic or distributed? Translating international discourses in Norwegian policy documents

School leadership as a key for school reforms has become a dominant theme in education, as demonstrated by a growing body of research during the last 15 years. Still, little attention has been paid to how changing international discourses on school leadership are translated into national public policy documents during the last decade. As such, this study provides additional insight into this field by analysing how Norwegian policy documents translate international discourses and re-contextualise national constructs of school leadership. Inspired by a critical approach, the authors address this issue by identifying discursive shifts in ideas about school leadership roles and practices. Based on an examination of four recent white papers on Norwegian education and school leadership, the authors argue that the policy documents constructed a tension between an international ‘explicit’ principal and a national ‘docile’ principal in 2003–2004, while recent documents construct a consensus-oriented, distributed leadership role for principals through the term ‘facilitating school leaders’. This may lead to contested interpretations as to how to perform school leadership in practice.     

Twenty-first-century headteacher: pedagogue,visionary leader or both?

In recent years the UK secondary educational landscape has witnessed significant change, with the introduction of an ever-extending spectrum of competing government initiatives and policies. This has resulted in the steady erosion of the traditionally recognised role of headteacher. This paper presents the results of a practitioner-based study centred on the professional career journeys of a selected group of senior incumbent headteachers from across Liverpool, United Kingdom. The purpose of the research was to consider key features of difference in the headteacher role over a 30-year period. Five heads were interviewed about how they rose to headship and the influences and events that guided their career choices. Findings include acknowledgement of the requirement for self-directed career development, paucity of skills in preparation for headship, transformation in leadership models and the changing skills, qualities and qualifications required of contemporary and emergent headteachers.     

Approach and Challenges of Teaching English in EFL Context

It is significant to connect contexts and approaches to English language teaching,and it is also necessary to realize the challenges faced by English language learners in particular contexts so that we can get a better understanding of teaching based on our own contexts and approaches.This article is the discussion of approach and the challenges in EFL context.