How school districts influence student achievement

2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (5) ◽  
pp. 519-539 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Leithwood ◽  
Jingping Sun ◽  
Catherine McCullough
Keyword(s):  
Student Achievement ◽  
School Districts ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
School Level ◽  
Content Type ◽  
District Improvement ◽  
The Status ◽  
Family Variables

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to test the effects of nine district characteristics on student achievement, explored the conditions that mediated the effects of such characteristics and contributed to understandings about the role school-level leaders play in district efforts to improve achievement. Design/methodology/approach Data for the study were provided by the responses of 2,324 school and district leaders in 45 school districts to two surveys. Student achievement evidence was provided by multi-grade provincial measures of math and language achievement. The analysis of these data included calculation of descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis and regression mediation analysis. Findings Seven of nine district characteristics contributed significantly to student achievement and three conditions served as especially powerful mediators of such district effects. The same three conditions, as well as others, acted as significant mediators of school-level leader effects on achievement, as well. Practical implications District characteristics tested in the study provide a powerful framework for guiding the district improvement work of senior educational leaders. The organizational improvement efforts of both district and school leaders would be substantially enhanced by a better understanding of how to diagnose and improve the status of those conditions acting as significant mediators of the effects of both district and school leadership on student achievement. Originality/value This is one of a very few large-scale quantitative studies examining the extent to which characteristics frequently identified by district effectiveness research explain variation in student learning. It is also one of the very few studies identifying classroom, school and family variables that mediate district effects on such learning. The study also adds to a growing body of evidence about variables which mediate school leaders’ effects on such learning.

scholarly journals Multicultural Educational Practices: School Women Leaders Perspectives And Contextual Realities For Promoting Intercultural Harmony In Schools

2013 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-109
Author(s):  
Tayyaba Zarif ◽  
Aziz un Nisa
Keyword(s):  
Multicultural Education ◽  
Women Leaders ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
School Environment ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Classroom Practices ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
School Level ◽  
Teaching Learning

The increasing diversity of cultural, ethnic, racial and tribal composition of societies in general and schools in particular signify the importance of multicultural education at all levels of education. In this context the roots of such a concept can be strengthened at school level in any community. Here the role of school leadership is imperative towards promoting intercultural harmony in the school environment in general and the curriculum and classroom practices in particular. This research sheds light on the perspectives of school leadership and the actual scenarios at school level to integrate intercultural education into mainstream curriculum and teaching-learning practices at schools. For this reason altogether 30 School leaders were selected through purposive-random sampling from a sample of 30 private schools of Karachi selected with the help of convenient sampling. The most experienced School leaders were selected for this study. The perspective of School leadership regarding Multicultural Education and their practices in everyday schooling was collected through interviews by using an open ended questionnaire so the study is completely qualitative in nature. The theme analysis of qualitative data was done. The theme analysis depicts that the principals in-general seem to possess a positive understanding of multicultural education and that they preferred a very neutral approach for multicultural education.

Exploring the effects of authentic leadership on academic optimism and teacher engagement in Thailand

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dhirapat Kulophas ◽  
Philip Hallinger ◽  
Auyporn Ruengtrakul ◽  
Suwimon Wongwanich
Keyword(s):  
Education Reform ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
Work Engagement ◽  
Primary Schools ◽  
Authentic Leadership ◽  
Academic Optimism ◽  
School Level ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Suitable Model ◽  
Content Type

Purpose In the context of Thailand’s progress towards education reform, scholars have identified a lack of effective school-level leadership as an impeding factor. The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a theoretical model of authentic leadership effects on teacher academic optimism and work engagement. Authentic leadership was considered a suitable model of school leadership in light of Thailand’s explicit recognition of the importance of developing the moral capacity of students and emphasis on ethical leadership. Design/methodology/approach The study employed a quantitative cross-sectional survey design. Survey data were obtained from 605 teachers in a nationally representative sample of 182 primary schools. The data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Findings The results indicated that the model of authentic leadership effects on teachers’ academic optimism and work engagement was validated. A moderate relationship was observed between authentic leadership and the dependent measures of teacher attitudes. Practical implications The study identified a potentially important lack of alignment between the espoused values and actions/decisions of school principals in Thailand. When combined with prior research conducted on leadership for educational reform in Thailand, our findings highlight the systemic nature of the problem faced in changing traditional patterns of behavior in Thai schools. More specifically, despite change in the nation’s educational goals, human resource management of the nation’s school leaders continues to produce administrators and managers rather than leaders, either instructional or moral. Originality/value The study extends prior studies of school leadership in the context of Thailand’s education reform that focused more specifically on principal instructional leadership in Thailand. In addition, this study of authentic school leadership is one of only a few conducted outside of Western societies.

School leaders' adoption and implementation of artificial intelligence

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Mark Tyson ◽  
Nicholas J. Sauers
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
Implementation Process ◽  
The Body ◽  
Snowball Sampling ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Adoption And Implementation

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine school leaders' experiences with adoption and implementation of artificial intelligence systems in their schools. It examined the factors that led educational administrators to adopt one artificial intelligence program (ALEKS) and their perceptions around the implementation process.Design/methodology/approachThis was a qualitative case study that included structured interviews with seven individuals who have adopted artificial intelligence programs in their schools. Participants were identified through purposive and snowball sampling. Interview transcripts were analyzed and put through a two-step coding process involving in vivo coding as well as pattern coding.FindingsTwo major themes emerged from this study pertaining to the state of the diffusion of artificial intelligence through the adoption and implementation process. The findings indicated that school leaders were actively engaged in conversations related to AI adoption and implementation. They also created structures (organizational) to ensure the successful adoption and implementation of artificial intelligence.Originality/valueThis is an original study that examined the experiences of school leaders who have adopted and implemented artificial intelligence in their schools. The body of literature related to artificial intelligence and school leadership is extremely limited.

COVID-19 – school leadership in crisis?

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 321-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alma Harris
Keyword(s):  
School Leadership ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
Scholarly Work ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Leadership Practice ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Changing Role

PurposeThis article explores how school leaders are responding during COVID-19 and what forms of leadership practice are emerging.Design/methodology/approachThis article draws upon the contemporary leadership literature and scholarly work.FindingsThis article proposes that the current crisis has shifted school leadership dramatically towards distributed, collaborative and network practices.Originality/valueThis article offers a commentary about the changing role of school leaders and their changing leadership practice during this pandemic.

Using Covariates to Improve Precision for Studies That Randomize Schools to Evaluate Educational Interventions

2007 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard S. Bloom ◽  
Lashawn Richburg-Hayes ◽  
Alison Rebeck Black
Keyword(s):  
Student Achievement ◽  
Elementary Schools ◽  
High Schools ◽  
School Districts ◽  
Middle Schools ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Educational Interventions ◽  
Urban School Districts ◽  
School Level ◽  
Baseline Covariates

This article examines how controlling statistically for baseline covariates, especially pretests, improves the precision of studies that randomize schools to measure the impacts of educational interventions on student achievement. Empirical findings from five urban school districts indicate that (1) pretests can reduce the number of randomized schools needed for a given level of precision to about half of what would be needed otherwise for elementary schools, one fifth for middle schools, and one tenth for high schools, and (2) school-level pretests are as effective in this regard as student-level pretests. Furthermore, the precision-enhancing power of pretests (3) declines only slightly as the number of years between the pretest and posttests increases; (4) improves only slightly with pretests for more than 1 baseline year; and (5) is substantial, even when the pretest differs from the posttest. The article compares these findings with past research and presents an approach for quantifying their uncertainty.

Principal professionalism in the time of COVID-19

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 367-374
Author(s):  
Corrie Stone-Johnson ◽  
Jennie Miles Weiner
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Traditional Public Schools ◽  
Collective Attention ◽  
Current Context ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Support Students

PurposeIn this paper, we describe the impact of COVID-19 on principals and their work. Drawing on prior research undertaken prior to the onset of the pandemic, we describe how principals were already grappling with difficult tensions associated with their expertise, autonomy, normative orientation and rewards that may have real implications for their work moving forward and how, in the current context of uncertainty and change we believe the issue of principal professionalism requires our collective attention and action.Design/methodology/approachOver the last year, we undertook a multistate qualitative study of 17 school leaders to explore how principals working in traditional public schools conceptualize the principal profession and their role within it. Briefly, we found that the principalship is an “emergent profession” characterized by shared but individually determined knowledge and skills; a normative orientation of service; confused notions of external expectations and rewards and ongoing tensions among all of these elements.FindingsProfessionalism may be a surprising lever for improving the capacity of school leadership. Through our research, we identified that little is known about professionalism as it relates to the unique work of school leaders, but that understanding more about it could lead to greater knowledge of how to encourage and retain them. In the current context of uncertainty, chaos and change, the pressure on leaders to stay in the role and to succeed has never been greater. Thus, it is critical that principals have the capacity to exert professionalism over their work and to have greater say in elements of it, recognizing that some decisions must be made at district, state and federal levels.Originality/valueWhile many studies investigate how teachers of various backgrounds and in different contexts think about teaching as a profession (e.g. Anderson and Cohen, 2015; Stone-Johnson, 2014b; Torres and Weiner, 2018; Hall and McGinty, 2015), we had difficulty identifying studies focused on principals and using frameworks of professionalism to understand how these activities reflect larger shifts in the profession itself. This is despite the changing nature of principals' work, which, like the work of teachers, has been and continues to be largely influenced by the increasing role of neoliberal principles and policies in education. The public nature of the work of school leadership and the potential to support students, families and the communities in which they live brings in sharp focus the necessity of greater understanding of it during the COVID-19 crisis.

The impact of teacher entrepreneurial behaviour: a timely investigation of an emerging phenomenon

2020 ◽  
Vol 58 (6) ◽  
pp. 697-712
Author(s):  
Chun Sing Maxwell Ho ◽  
Jiafang Lu ◽  
Darren A. Bryant
Keyword(s):  
School Leadership ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
School Context ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Professional Capital ◽  
Supplementary School ◽  
Entrepreneurial Behaviour ◽  
Instructional Roles ◽  
The Impact

PurposeThis study aims to understand of the role that teacher entrepreneurial behavior plays in developing teacher professional capital. The extant concepts around school leadership mostly encompass the transformative and instructional roles of school leaders in managing, mobilizing and supporting teachers for student achievement. However, school leadership has not focused strongly on promoting innovation and risk-taking for schools in a knowledge economy. As a timely promising response to the increasingly demanding and competitive school context, teacher entrepreneurial behaviour (TEB), which emphasizes teachers' willingness to take risks and be daring, has started to gain recognition in the school leadership literature, yet a nuanced understanding of TEB's potential impacts on schools is lacking.Design/methodology/approachBased on a combined consideration of institutionalized recognition and expert judgement, this study identified three innovative entrepreneurial teachers/teacher groups that had won the most competitive teaching award in Hong Kong. Employing a multiple-site case study design, this study conducted semi-structured interviews with 23 informants and collected supplementary school documents and records.FindingsThis study found that TEB enables the implementation of innovation and promotes cross-subject alignment. It cultivates trusting and coherent relationships among teachers. Teachers with TEB scaled up innovation among other teachers. Furthermore, entrepreneurial teachers enhance school attractiveness by creating competitive advantages.Originality/valueThis analysis showed that TEB enables formal and informal school leaders to bring forth critical school outcomes. This study elaborates how TEB enhances teachers' professional capital through building trusting and coherent relationships. It also adds to the research on school innovation by demonstrating that TEB fosters teachers' capacity for bottom-up innovation in the community.

Creating successful and unique schools: leadership, context and systems thinking perspectives

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Gurr ◽  
Fiona Longmuir ◽  
Christopher Reed
Keyword(s):  
School Leadership ◽  
Systems Thinking ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
System Thinking ◽  
Leadership Model ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Community Factors ◽  
Community Needs ◽  
Systems Model ◽  
Successful School

PurposeThrough discussion of research about the leadership of two schools, this paper explores the complexity of school leadership and how various contextual elements interact with the work of principals in schools that are attempting to create inclusive, rich, worthwhile and unique schools. A systems thinking leadership and context model is developed to frame the exploration of the two cases, which, in turn, helps inform the veracity and development of the model.Design/methodology/approachThe research reported is broadly based on multiple-perspective case studies that have included individual and/or group interviews with school leaders, teachers, students, parents and/or school council members, observation and document analysis. The focus for this paper is on evidence from the cases that elucidate the model.FindingsA leadership and context view of schools helps to understand how school leaders work with, within and influence various contextual factors to develop schools that are both successful and unique. The cases demonstrated how individual leadership factors including career histories, personalities and values coalesced with school and broader community factors in reciprocal ways that resulted in school-specific improvements.Research limitations/implicationsThe research is limited by the nature of bounded, small number, qualitative case research. Nevertheless, the authors suggest that the school leadership and context systems model the authors presented captures much of the complexity of the successful leadership of these schools. The authors further suggest that this model provides a conceptual contribution to the study of successful school leadership that moves beyond more linear leadership views. Implications of this research and the conceptual contributions that the authors advance are that leadership and context should be considered in reciprocal and nuanced ways across a complex variety of contextual levels.Practical implicationsThese cases explore the growth and development of new school communities and capture the dynamic interactions between leadership and context within the complex arrangements of policy, system, history and community. The cases demonstrated how individual leadership factors, including career histories, personalities and values, coalesced with school and broader community factors in reciprocal ways that resulted in school-specific improvements. These findings and the system thinking leadership model help school leaders to consider their own work in developing successful and unique schools.Social implicationsSchool leadership is important for school success, and schools that meet student and community needs are important for society. The authors’ system thinking leadership model helps school leaders improve their practice in creating more interesting and successful schools that meet student and community needs.Originality/valueAt a time when international sharing of information and international testing of schools is pushing towards a uniformity of thinking about what good schools should be, the reality of leading schools is far different. This paper contributes to the knowledge about how school leaders navigate contextual complexities to create successful and unique schools that meet local needs.

School leadership during a pandemic: navigating tensions

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3/4) ◽  
pp. 391-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah M. Netolicky
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Global Crisis ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Individual

PurposeThis paper explores, from the perspective of an Australian pracademic, how school leaders are leading during the global COVID-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThis essay explores the tensions navigated by school leaders leading during this time of global crisis, by looking to research as well as the author's lived experience.FindingsThe author finds that school leaders are navigating the following: accountability and autonomy; equity and excellence; the individual and the collective and well-being and workload.Originality/valueThis paper offers insights into school leadership, at all times but especially during times of crisis and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The roles of school leaders in developing future-ready learners: the case of Singapore

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 249-269
Author(s):  
Choun Pei Wong ◽  
David Ng
Keyword(s):  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
School Leadership ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
Leadership Preparation ◽  
Traditional Teaching ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Future Society

PurposeAn education system can only be successful if it can develop future-ready learners who can continue to learn after graduation, take on their future lifework and thrive in the future society and environment. This article examines the economic, social and environmental trajectories of Singapore and proposes that it is important for future-ready learners to develop habits of practices that will support the skills, knowledge and values that are pertinent to these trajectories.Design/methodology/approachSchool leaders are responsible for creating environments and implementing practices that are conducive for fostering habits of practices that are crucial for future-ready outcomes. The authors discuss the inadequacies of traditional teaching and learning practices in supporting these habits and elucidate how newer paradigms such as constructivism, connectivism, coagency and communities of practice might be more useful in achieving this. The authors also present a case study of a school leadership preparation programme that aims to develop future-ready learners.FindingsThis paper provides insights into how newer paradigms of teaching and learning can be supportive for developing desirable habits of practices for future readiness.Originality/valueThis discussion piece introduces a fresh concept – habits of practices – that is relevant in preparing future-ready learners in Singapore.

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