School Effectiveness and School Improvement in Context: The Case of South Africa

This article explores the issue of whether lists of characteristics constituting the effective school are universally valid. It argues that the effectiveness or otherwise of schools must be understood contextually as there are significant differences between both the material and ideological contexts of schooling. The article uses the example of South Africa to demonstrate the difficulties in judging schools in one context using criteria developed in another. Three examples of schools that can be considered effective in the context of the new South Africa are described and discussed and the article concludes by arguing that education for peace and democracy is an essential feature of school effectiveness in South Africa.     

Teacher Evaluation, Teacher Effectiveness and School Effectiveness: Perspectives from the USA

This article provides historical overviews of the conceptual and research and development focus of teacher evaluation, teacher effectiveness and school effectiveness research in the USA. Pertinent literature is cited and arguments are made that these lines of inquiry have coexisted for nearly four without adequate integration. With the fourth stage of school effectiveness research in process, there is a recognition that within school context variables, particularly teacher effectiveness, have important effects on school improvement and school outcomes. Similarly, there is the recognition that findings from school effectiveness research have relevance for studies of teacher effectiveness and ongoing developments in teacher evaluation. Examples of: (a) new generation, learner-centered teacher evaluation systems in the USA that are informed by teacher and school effectiveness research; and (b) the fourth stage of school effectiveness research are described. It is proposed that these lines of research should be merged as completely as possible.     

From Protest to Challenge: Leadership and Higher Education Change in South Africa

The paper explores theemerging, and different, approaches toleadership in higher education, especially howthese approaches have shaped organisationalchange strategies at South African highereducation institutions. These issues areexamined within the context of the changes thatfollowed the promulgation of the new highereducation policy framework, as well as theemerging challenges of globalisation. Thefocus of the analysis is on the changing roleof leadership in higher education, with aspecific emphasis on the role ofVice-Chancellors in institutionaltransformation.     

School Culture,School Effectiveness and School Improvement

The relevance of the concept of culture to school effectiveness and school improvement is explored. Two typologies are developed. The first proposes four ‘ideal type’ school cultures, based on two underlying domains; the second, a more elaborate and dynamic model, proposes two ‘ideal type’ school cultures, based on five underlying structures. Each is discussed for its heuristic, conceptual, methodological and explanatory potential in research in the fields of school effectiveness and school improvement. In distinguishing collegial cultures from collaborative styles, the article advances recent writing on collaboration. From the theory hypotheses about the relationship between school culture and school effectiveness and improvement can be derived as well as techniques to test such hypotheses.     

School Leadership in International Schools: Perspectives and Practices

This commentary reviews the papers in this special issue, highlights the importance of understanding the nature, prevalence, and potential impact of leadership in international schools, and provides a set of guiding questions for the reader to reflect upon the relevance and implications of the findings.     

School Effectiveness and School Improvement: Sustaining Links

Ideally, school effectiveness research and school improvement might have a relationship with a surplus value for both. In reality, this relationship is often troublesome. Some problems can be attributed to the intrinsic differences between effectiveness and improvement, such as different missions. However, an analysis of the current situation in effectiveness and improvement shows that there are many possibilities at all stages of research studies and improvement projects for a more fruitful relationship. In this article, stronger links between effectiveness and improvement are advocated. Such links can be achieved by better‐guided processes of application and reconstruction of knowledge during effectiveness research and improvement. These processes, illustrated by some successful projects which have started recently, are described under the heading of sustained interactivity.     

Case Studies of School Improvement in East Africa: A New Addition to School Effectiveness Research

This article gives an account of how and why the term 'value added' has come to be used in an educational context, focusing on the early years of that usage in the UK. It discusses the fact that the term value added has developed, has been understood and defined in diverse and sometimes conflicting ways; and identifies what are called 'functional ambiguities' in the term; that is to say, ambiguities which cannot be altogether eliminated because they are necessary to how the term is made to function. Nonetheless, some criteria emerge in the course of the article for making evaluative judgements of what should and should not count as meaningful definitions of value added.     

School Leadership in West Africa: Findings from a Systematic Literature Review

The literature shows that leadership is the second most important factor influencing school and learner outcomes, including levels of literacy and numeracy, school leaving examination results, and progression to secondary and higher education. This article focuses on school leadership in West Africa, drawing on a systematic review of the academic and ‘grey’ literature, commissioned by UNESCO. The aim of the desk research was to ascertain the state of school leadership at all levels. The study shows that no West African countries provide specific preparation for school principals. It also shows that the predominant leadership style is managerial, with accountability to the hierarchy, within and beyond the school. The article concludes that specific development programmes should be provided for current and aspiring principals.     

Leadership Effectiveness and School Development: Putting Reform in Perspective

System‐wide and school‐based initiatives continue to be linked through staff and leadership development programs. Factors such as reduced funding are having an impact on structures and organization. The clear focus on instruction and school based planning have helped the district maintain its direction while adapting initiatives to meet changing needs and resources.     

Toward a Theory of School Effectiveness and Leadership

ABSTRACT

The research on school effectiveness and school improvement lacks theoretical development. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the construction of a theory of school effectiveness and leadership. The contribution made here is in the form of a typology of school effectiveness. In the early stages of theoretical development, typologies are often useful devices for organizing what is known and for focusing attention on important questions and areas for further exploration. Within the typological framework offered here, school effectiveness is supposed to be a function of three major factors: administrative appropriateness, teacher preparedness and student readiness. While parents and community effects are important, they are assumed to be mediated by these three factors. The most ineffective schools are those in which the administration is inappropriate, the teachers are not prepared to teach and the students are not ready to learn. In the most effective schools, the opposite is the case. Schools tend to move back and forth between these two extremes in stages. It is hypothesized that there are eight stages of school effectiveness, the stages ranging from the most ineffective to the most effective school.     

学校领导力的内涵、功能及其提升策略

作为学校的重要组织资源和核心竞争力,学校领导力是指学校领导团队通过一系列外在行为相互协调整合而形成的服务于学校组织目标、确保领导过程顺畅运行的影响力.它具有逐步生成、不断内化的动态特征,能够发挥导向、凝聚、规范、辐射功能.从策略上讲,学校领导力的构建与提升依赖于校长领导能力的提高、领导团队结构的优化、学校管理制度的调整,以及良好组织气候的营造.     

学校改进中的校长领导力提升:一种分布式领导的研究视角

学校改进中的校长领导力提升是当前学校变革与发展的诉求。要落实"教育规划纲要"成功实现学校改进,就要在校长领导力开发过程中,主动寻求新的领导理论支撑,架构一种分布式领导模式,将校长培养成一名分布式领导者,这可为解决教育管理实践中存在的问题开拓一个新视角。     

From School Effectiveness and School Improvement to Effective School Improvement: Background,Theoretical Analysis,and Outline of the Empirical Study

School effectiveness and school improvement have different origins: school effectiveness is more directed to finding out “what works” in education and “why”; school improvement is practice and policy oriented and intended to change education in the desired direction. That means that in the orientation on the outcomes, input, processes, and context in education, school effectiveness and school improvement also have much in common. In the project Effective School Improvement (ESI), the merger of the 2 traditions has been pursued. In the theoretical part different orientations have been analysed and combined in a model for effective school improvement. Based on this analysis the framework is developed for the analysis of the case studies on school improvement projects in the participating countries.     

World Class Schools: International Perspectives on School Effectiveness

The lesson learned from a Singapore school improvement programme, which has been running for more than a decade, is that partners collaborating in the programme need to sustain their efforts over a long period of time in order to reap the benefits. The programme incorporates a mentor‐protege relationship to bridge the twin benefits of management education and systemic change. The Singapore experience suggests that research in the local setting is needed for further development of the programme, and that systemic change is obtainable from cumulative effect of the programme. On both counts, time is needed for the programme to reap the benefits.     

School Effectiveness and School Restructuring: Contributions to Educational Improvement 1

ABSTRACT

Over the last twenty years, school effectiveness work has dominated efforts to improve schools. Within the last five years, school restructuring has moved front and center in the school improvement literature. This paper examines these two lines of improvement efforts to ascertain the major contributions of each to schooling and education. It is argued that the effective schools movement has been influential in helping dismantle the existing foundations of schooling. In particular, it is suggested that academics and practitioners working within the effective schools framework have been influential in pushing prevailing behavioral approaches to learning off center stage. Effective schools workers have also helped re‐establish the primacy of learning and teaching in schools and helped channel improvement efforts into consistent and overlapping streams of action. It is argued that school restructuring, in turn, offers the possibility of taking us considerably further ‐ of weaving seminal contributions from effective schools into dramatically different forms of schooling. In particular, it is suggested that the school restructuring movement promises viable alternatives to behaviorally‐grounded models of learning and teaching, to hierarchical models of organizing and managing education, and to bureaucratic and professionally‐dominated models of governing schools.

     

School Leadership and School Development: reflections from research

This article examines what two school‐based qualitative research projects have highlighted about primary school leadership and development. After discussing findings from the Primary School Staff Relationships and Whole School Curriculum Development Projects, the author reflects upon these insights in terms of: the complexity of leadership; instrumental and expressive leadership; the pace of school development; headteacher motivation; vision, ownership and community. The author concludes that primary school leadership needs to be more carefully researched and rethought.     

School governance and the pursuit of democratic participation: Lessons from South Africa

This article examines experiences in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provinces with devolved school governance, introduced in 1996 to promote democratic participation in education decision making. Utilizing the “theory of action” framework, this analysis is an effort to de-center the school governance debate by moving from a central government perspective to one privileging local meaning of participation and decision making in school governance. An understanding of individual local theories of governance and participation proves most powerful when seen in interaction with institutional structures and the subtle and less-than-subtle signals reinforcing established power structures and conventions and circumscribing the community's role.