Schools and Industry: Some Organizational Considerations (Part 2)

In this article the author argues that the somewhat laissez‐faire attitude to curriculum reforms of the 1960s and 1970s led to their demise. The Bains Report (1972) marked recognition of the need for management techniques to promote corporate objectives successfully. A synthesis of the work of Schwab (1969), Everard (1982), Shipman (1983) and Dalin (1978) leads the author to suggest a simple ‘systems approach to management’ as a realistic framework for curriculum innovation. In conclusion, the author stresses that this model will not guarantee success, but provides a systematic approach for would‐be innovators.     

Disrupting What Passes as Inclusive Education: Predicating Educational Equity on Schools Designed for All

Abstract

Transforming schools requires educators who design learning with the diverse histories, cultures, capacities, and experiences of all their students in mind. Schools that embrace personalization support teachers and students who learn and grow together. This inclusive vision must be grounded in education’s historical roots. Our research, practice, and policy communities must work in concert to achieve thriving, healthy communities for all.     

关于中小学教育科研的几个问题

当前基层学校开展中小学教育科研或校本研究存在六大问题:(1)中小学教育科研即等于做课题研究;(2)"两张皮"现象;(3)与教育教学任务冲突、矛盾增大、增多;(4)课题获得不均衡现象突出;(5)支撑条件不到位,而多重机构及其指挥的"负面"作用显现;(6)"写科研"或"写研究"的问题。通过梳理,客观呈现基层学校对中小学教育科研的认识和看法;通过分析,则发现这些问题的根源,早已存在于中小学教育科研或校本研究的开展起点上,并通过与宏观环境和科研体制的共振而将问题激发了出来。也可以说,在中小学教育科研或校本研究的目标和定位上,就已存在了一定的错位。     

New Directions for School Effectiveness Research: Towards School Effectiveness Without Schools

School effectiveness research has made a number of valuable contributions to educational research over the past three decades. However, its validity is threatened by a number of evolutions that question the continuing centrality of its basic research object, the public school. Moves towards more flexible school organization such as networks of schools, a broader role for schools reconceptualized as community centers, the emergence of new providers outwith the public sector, the increasingly internationalised nature of research and moves towards greater use of distance learning and home schooling all mean that this focus may rapidly become outdated, potentially making school effectiveness research irrelevant.In this paper we will discuss the consequences of these evolutions for school effectiveness research and argue that, rather than lessening the need for effectiveness research, they increase the imperative for this type of research, as long as it is broadened to educational effectiveness in its broadest sense whether it takes place in the traditional public school or not, and is conducted in an empirical and open-minded way.     

Profiling as a Possible Management Aid: Some Considerations

A schoolwide language assists the mapping of subject content, supports teachers to discuss teaching and learning issues and enables a shared understanding of school leadership to emerge, so that student learning is improved. This article presents findings from a mixed methods study investigating Leadership for Learning (LfL) in independent schools in the state of New South Wales, Australia. By being intentional about the language used for learning and leadership, schools are more likely to establish LfL as a community-wide activity that is inclusive, collaborative and distributed. These findings also reinforce the critical role played by school principals in leading learning.     

School reform and the emotional demands of principals: Lorna's story

The issue of emotions in school leadership is one that has received increasing attention in recent years. In this paper we present a case study of the emotional demands upon one principal as she undertakes a programme of school reform. This case study works against the common discourse of ‘emotional maturity’ inherent in an individual that is prevalent in leadership standards and literatures and shows how this principal's emotional work is constructed within the political frameworks of schools. This principal was both normalised into traditional ways of being a school principal and also sought to resist such normalisations. This paper provides an important contribution to understanding the ways that women leaders are negotiating the emotional terrain of enacting change and reform in their schools.     

Job satisfaction among secondary school teachers: the role of gender and experience

This paper examines the importance of understanding different organisational and professional cultures for leaders in extended service settings. It begins with a critical review of key concepts and debates in the organisational culture literature and then shows how different professional groups (education, health and social services) have adopted aspects of this literature to reflect their respective professional concerns. We argue that such insights can help leaders in these settings understand and work with different professional groups more effectively. Key to this process is the ‘culture conversation’ where different professionals are encouraged to explore the taken for granted assumptions that drive their everyday practice.     

Characteristics of effective leadership networks: a replication and extension

Purpose: Replicating and extending earlier research, this mixed-methods study inquired about the characteristics of effective school leadership networks and the contribution of such networks to the development of individual and collective leaders’ professional capacities.

Design: The study used path analytic techniques with survey data provided by 283 school and district leaders to test a path model of effective network characteristics. Interview data were provided by 23 school leaders. Variables in the model included Network leadership, structure, health, connectivity, and outcomes.

Findings: Results confirmed that the model was a very good fit with the data and, as a whole, explained 51% of the variation in network outcomes. Network leadership had the largest total effect on network outcomes, followed closely by the effects of Network Health and Network Connectivity. Interview data confirmed the nature of variables measured by the survey and added additional features for future research. Most results replicated the previous study.

Research Limitation: The study was limited to leadership networks intentionally organised within districts, not networks organised by school leaders themselves or networks arising spontaneously by their members. Results cannot be generalised to other types of networks.

Practical implication: In addition to a focus on single unit leadership development in districts, systematic initiatives should be designed to help prepare network leaders to foster the forms of collaboration that are so central to professional capacity development.

Originality: Results of the study offer explicit guidance to network leaders about how to improve the contribution of network participation to their colleagues’ capacities; it is one of a very small number studies in educational contexts to provide such guidance.     

The Headteacher as Manager: A Personal View

This article contributes to the growing debate around how we understand and develop multi-agency leadership in children and young people's services. Bringing together a range of inter-disciplinary research, it presents a framework for multi-agency leadership development, which, it argues, is well theorised, multi-level and versed in key field skills that educational leaders need in complex environments. The framework comprises six elements: complexity and culture (underlying concepts); multi-professional groups and inter-organisational partnerships (operating levels); and organisational consultancy and professional supervision (field skills). These elements are discussed, the practical implications of incorporating them into professional development provision for educational leaders are examined and some provisional conclusions are reached.     

Countering plutocracies: increasing autonomy and accountability through culturally relevant leadership

In urban school districts across the USA there are mandates to implement zero tolerance policies. As this occurs, there is an increasing number of students, specifically students of colour, who are being jettisoned out of the educative process. When school principals have little autonomy regarding how they handle disciplinary infractions within their schools, it becomes relatively easy for them to opt out of making tough decision. The authors assert that Culturally Relevant Leadership is a framework that, if applied correctly, can help school leaders reduce the multiple school suspensions and expulsions that are occurring among students of colour.     

Orchestrating Complex Educational Change: Local Reorganisation of Schools in England

This paper considers how complex educationalchange may be managed through the `metatask' oforchestration, narrowly distributed amongsenior formal leaders within and betweendifferent administrative levels of large publiceducation systems. Orchestration impliessteering the change process by organising andmaintaining oversight of an intricate array ofcoordinated tasks. It is the over-arching`complex change management theme' of ahierarchically ordered typology derivedinductively from a national study ofdistrict-wide initiatives to close or mergeschools so as to reduce spare student capacityand improve the quality of educationalprovision. The paper explores patterns revealedby this research relating to orchestration. Theresearch design and methods are outlined. Therelationship is clarified between the conceptsof orchestration, leadership and management. Ananalytical model is built-up for analysingcomplex educational change along threedimensions: change management themes, headed byorchestration; characteristics of thecomplexity of the change with managementimplications; and stages of the change process.The constituents of each dimension in turn aredescribed, briefly illustrated throughreference to reorganisation, and linked withorchestration. Characteristics of complexitydictated the response of orchestration and thesubordinate complex change management themesacross the different stages of the changeprocess. The analytical model is offered as aconceptual framework for future research thatwould test its wider applicability and as apractical planning tool. The importance isunderlined of developing generic yetcontext-sensitive practical guidance thatreflects the degree of complexity faced byorchestrators charged with managingcontemporary educational change.     

Five literatures of organisation: putting the context back into educational leadership

In this article we develop the arguments of Glatter on the importance of adopting a more ‘organisation-oriented’ approach to educational leadership development. Through a critical review of current publications and national courses in the field, we argue that educational leadership is still very skills focussed at the expense of more sophisticated understandings of organisational context. This skills focus, or ‘agency without structure’, as Glatter puts it, encourages a ‘can do’ culture of simplistic solution-seeking rather than appreciation of complexity and paradox in the leadership experience which can produce better judgements. To identify such ‘understandings’, we then examine five traditions of thinking about ‘organisation’ through their related literatures. The first four, thinking psychologically, thinking structurally, thinking culturally and thinking politically, build on organisational ‘frames’. The fifth literature explores how these frames are constantly and variously brought into play through ‘complex responsive processes’ of organising in our daily work lives. Implications of this more organisation-focussed approach for educational leadership development are discussed through examples from the authors’ own research and teaching.     

Promoting Social,Emotional, and Spiritual Learning in Congregational,and Day Schools

Outcomes in the inter- and intra-personal realms are central to the goals of Jewish education, yet educators often struggle to address them in a meaningful way. In this article, we describe what we learned from facilitating an online community of practice for congregational school leaders and day school educators seeking to enhance their work in promoting social, emotional, and spiritual growth. First, we provide a rationale for the importance of outcomes in these arenas. Then, we describe the intervention, which included webinars, mentoring, and an action-research component for participants. Finally, we share what we learned about (a) participants’ conceptualizations of socio-affective elements in the Jewish educational context and (b) the supports and challenges encountered by participants in enhancing the socio-affective dimension of their work.     

Educational Leadership Reconsidered: Re-Invoking Authority in Schools

By far the most challenging task faced by schools in post-apartheid South Africa, has been the distance educational leaders were mandated to put between the educational institutions and the apartheid legacy of racial discrimination and exclusion. It is therefore not surprising that there are two dominant approaches to educational leadership, namely the transactional and transformational leadership paradigms that were considered as apposite to ensure the implementation of new educational policy and curriculum developments. Indeed, the theoretical debates about educational leadership have extended expositions of the concepts of transactional and transformative leadership that are often perceived as forms of educational leadership that can enhance the democratisation of educational institutions, such as schools. However, after the demise of apartheid all attempts to move beyond authoritative practices have been shown to be undesirable; and the transactional and transformative forms of educational leadership might have too hastily and prematurely abandoned authoritative forms of leadership. Therefore, in this article the authors argue in defence of authority as constitutive of transformative leadership in schools by reflecting on current leadership practices in schools.     

一流大学与一流教育之间的距离——《失去灵魂的卓越》引出的思考

美国学者哈瑞·刘易斯在其新作《失去灵魂的卓越》中,通过对自己在哈佛30年工作的亲身经历的描述和反思,批评了世界著名大学放弃育人宗旨的种种现象.该书作者延续了传统知识分子的良知,为我们描绘了哈佛本科教育如何失去方向、日益功利化的过程,提醒大学应该传承和维护教育灵魂,而在这一过程中,知名大学、大学教师、大学领导人必须更加坚定自己的教育使命.     

Leading educational improvement in Trinidad and Tobago

School leaders in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) now have the important responsibility of initiating and implementing school improvement. This raises the question of their leadership capacity and the competencies that are required for school leaders to fulfil this new role. This article focuses on school leadership in T&T. The study presented in this article utilised a qualitative interpretive research design employing a range of data collection methods, including questionnaires and interviews. The results of the study confirm a need for developing a new type of school leader who is: better trained, more research oriented, more of a risk taker and autonomous.     

Intercultural education and curricular diversification: the case of the Ecuadorian Intercultural Bilingual Education Model (MOSEIB)

Thirteen Ecuadorian indigenous nationalities follow the Intercultural Bilingual Education Model in Ecuador (MOSEIB). This paper analyses the present situation of MOSEIB, the challenges to it and future prospects. First, in order to understand how MOSEIB today has relieved the intercultural tensions of the past it is necessary to look at the history of Ecuadorian education. Second, in order to explore the particular characteristics of the MOSEIB model and the challenges of implementing intercultural education in non‐intercultural societies we ask how and to what extent the intercultural education policies and practices in Ecuador differ from those developed in other Latin‐American countries. Third, we consider curricular diversity, seeking to clarify how the MOSEIB curricula relate to the reality of the Kichwa indigenous nationality and its communal environment, rituals and agricultural schedules. We conclude with comments on future prospects and remaining challenges to the establishment of a truly intercultural society inside a multicultural country.     

Adopting and implementing globalised policies of intercultural education: the example of Cyprus

Globalisation has heavily influenced the terrain of intercultural education policy development and implementation in multiple countries around the world. To this end, in this article, we seek to introduce a broader focus of analysis encompassing not only the development of globalised policies of intercultural education, but also the adoption, implementation, and enactment of such policies. Our aim is to bridge the macro–micro gap by providing an in-depth and multi-level examination of the issue of intercultural education by moving the locus of analysis from the macro-structures of the supranational state to both the level of the national state and the micro-level of the school. To do so, we focus on the phases of adoption and implementation of globalised intercultural education policies by critically examining and reflecting upon the findings of previous research carried out in the context of Cyprus.     

Charter Schools and Urban Education Improvement: A Comparison of Newark’s District and Charter Schools

This article compares student achievement of fourth graders in charter schools and district public schools in Newark, New Jersey. We find that Newark and New Jersey’s charter schools mirror the educational inequalities of the state as a whole, as well as its Abbott Districts. The data indicate that charter schools are similar to district urban public schools, with pockets of excellence and mediocrity. We measure school performance based on two criteria: actual test score performance, and the difference between actual and predicted performance. We find that some charter schools are able to achieve performance above predicted, given their school and student characteristics, while other schools do worse than predicted. Thus charter schools are not simply a magic bullet, but rather they warrant further investigation to see which practices work and which don’t, especially in a challenging urban setting such as Newark.Jason M. Barr is an Assistant Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, Rutgers University-Newark, Newark, NJ, USA. Louisa Visconti is a Research Associate, Department of Urban Education, Rutgers University-Newark, Newark, New Jersey, USA. Address correspondence to Alan R. Sadovnik who is a Professor of Education, Sociology and Public Affairs and Associate Director, Institute on Education Law and Policy, Department of Urban Education, Rutgers University-Newark, 165 Bradley Hall, Newark, NJ 07102, USA; e-mail: sadovnik@andromeda.rutgers.edu