school leadership professional standards essay

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School leadership

Strengthening school leadership to improve teaching and learning is one of the strategies put forward to achieve target 4.c of the Education 2030 Agenda, which addresses the need to increase the supply of qualified teachers (UNESCO, 2016; United Nations, 2015). Studies have shown that school leadership has the second-largest in-school impact on student learning outcomes, behind only classroom teaching (UNESCO, 2018; VVOB, 2018). Through a managerial lens, school leaders can also help achieve target 4.a – provide safe, non-violent, inclusive, and equitable learning environments. In addition, by establishing a clear vision and promoting a positive culture, they can propel their schools to achieve targets 4.1 (equitable and quality education for all) and 4.5 (eliminate gender disparities and allow equal access to education for all vulnerable populations).

What we know

School leadership aims to get the best out of teachers and students. It can fall under either transformational or instructional/pedagogical leadership (Day and Sammons, 2014; UNESCO, 2018). Transformational leadership pertains to big-picture vision and structural reorganization, while instructional leadership refers to establishing the importance of teaching and learning to improve outcomes (Day and Sammons, 2014; OECD, 2016). School leadership roles include responsibilities that encompass both leadership (such as goal-setting or teacher evaluation) and management duties (resource management, teacher deployment) (UNESCO, 2018; Vaillant, 2015). Those in management roles establish day-to-day organization in a school while also providing control and oversight to teachers and students (Day and Sammons, 2014; UNESCO, 2018). While principals take on many of these tasks, school leadership can also include senior teachers, community members, other school administrators, and government officials (Spillane, Paquin Morel, and Al-Fadala, 2019; UNESCO, 2019b). School leaders also play a key role in developing community and family participation within the school (UNICEF, 2009).

School leaders establish the culture and organization necessary for schools to provide quality teaching and therefore have an indirect, but important, effect on student learning (OECD, 2016; UNESCO, 2018; World Bank, 2018). Studies have found that school leaders who provide better management services have a positive correlation to student outcomes (Bloom et al., 2014; Leaver, Lemos, and Scur, 2019). Other data has shown that principals that provide more instructional leadership increase teacher collaboration and sense of purpose (OECD, 2016). By providing effective guidance, training, and working conditions to teachers, school leaders and managers create the best possible environment for learning (Jensen, Downing, and Clark, 2017; UNESCO, 2019a). 

School leaders may have very different amounts of power and authority based on the governance structure in a country (OECD, 2016). There are large variances globally in the extent of decentralization that has occurred within education systems, resulting in the development of different leadership methods (Vaillant, 2015). Some countries have empowered schools and local school leadership, running on a system of school-based management (Garcia Moreno, Gertler, and Patrinos, 2019; Yamauchi, 2014). These systems, with independent budgets and staffing decisions, allow greater autonomy for school leaders (Garcia Moreno, Gertler, and Patrinos, 2019; Vaillant, 2015). Other countries have more centralized systems in which school leaders directly follow guidance from ministries of education (UNESCO, 2019a; Vaillant, 2015).

Lack of established qualifications for school leaders. Many countries lack formalized policy guidance on the requirements to become a principal or head teacher (Tournier et al., 2019; UNESCO, 2019b). In these cases, school leadership positions often go to senior teachers who may lack training or preparation for these roles (Education Commission, 2019; UNESCO, 2019b). Some countries appoint school leaders as political favours or with little transparency in the selection process (Tournier et al., 2019). Such issues can lead to the appointment of inexperienced and untrained leaders, which seriously hampers the effectiveness of schools and can have a negative impact on student learning.    Lack of incentive to become a school leader.  School leadership is a demanding profession, especially in contexts where resources are limited. The responsibilities transferred to schools under decentralization have considerably increased the activity portfolio of the school head. He or she must be able to manage the human, material, and financial resources of the school, to plan and manage the school improvement plan, but also to bring together actors within and around the school through the development of partnerships (Vaillant, 2015). Principals and other school leaders tend to work longer hours and have more responsibilities than teachers, but often receive little extra pay or other tangible incentives (OECD, 2020; Tournier et al., 2019; UNESCO, 2018). In many countries, a school leadership role represents a final position for senior teachers and offers little career mobility (OECD, 2019; Tournier et al., 2019). These factors can dissuade highly motivated teachers or other quality candidates from seeking school leadership positions.

School leaders can become full-time managers.  While instructional and pedagogical training is a key aspect of the job, many countries still use principals as simple administrative managers. A large part of their job is accountability reporting, which adds to the pressure of the work (Education Commission, 2019; UNESCO, 2018). School leaders in centralized systems can be submerged with top-down tasking or seeking approval from local or national authorities (UNESCO, 2019a). This lack of instructional leadership can lead to less teacher innovation and collaboration, and potentially affect student learning outcomes (Day and Sammons, 2014).

Lack of data on school leadership.  There is a lack of basic data about school leadership, such as qualifications or turnover. There remains a lack of integrated and comparative research in terms of effective school leadership policies and practices globally (Spillane, Paquin Morel, and Al-Fadala, 2019; UNESCO, 2018). This proves especially true in low- and middle-income countries, as much research focuses on high-performing systems and high-income countries (Day and Sammons, 2014; Jensen, Downing, and Clark, 2017; OECD, 2016, 2020). This dearth of research stems from a lack of both established policies and data collection, with much of the available information self-reported in documents such as the survey accompanying the Programme for International Student Assessment test (Leaver, Lemos, and Scur, 2019; UNESCO, 2018). All of these issues make developing effective, evidence-based strategies for school leadership extremely difficult in low-income countries.

Equity and inclusion

School leaders are vital to promoting equity.  School leaders drive the culture and focus of schools, and can be instrumental in promoting school equality and equity (UNESCO, 2017). They have an enormous impact on how vulnerable student populations receive instruction (Spillane, Paquin Morel, and Al-Fadala, 2019; UNESCO, 2018). By properly selecting and training teachers and instilling an equitable environment, school leaders can greatly enhance vulnerable students’ learning outcomes, especially in disadvantaged schools (UNESCO, 2017; Vaillant, 2015; VVOB, 2019). However, challenges including poor training or heavy administrative burdens can hinder this.

Leadership demographics.  Globally, the proportion of men in school leadership and management positions is higher than within the general teaching force (GEM Report Team, 2018; OECD, 2020; UNESCO, 2018). When women do attain leadership positions, these tend to be in primary or smaller schools rather than larger secondary or tertiary institutions (UNESCO, 2018, 2019b). Due to the ability of female principals and leaders to help encourage girls to stay in school, this lack of female leadership can have detrimental effects on learning equity (UNESCO, 2019b).

Policy and planning

Develop national standards for school leadership.  To better develop expectations for school leaders, policy-makers can establish codified standards, expectations, and recruitment strategies (Day and Sammons, 2014; OECD, 2020; UNESCO, 2018, 2019a). High-performing systems tend to integrate leadership standards and recruitment into their overall vision and goals for improving schools and learning outcomes (Jensen, Downing, and Clark, 2017). By developing transparent recruitment processes that seek candidates with the required skill sets, systems can set school leaders up for success (OECD, 2020; UNESCO, 2019b). Such measures help establish school leaders as an important part of the education system instead of merely viewing school leadership as a routine managerial task.

Develop a leadership career path.  To attract and retain the best leaders, principal and other leadership positions should not simply be coronations for senior teachers at the end of long careers. Instead, policies should establish leadership or administrative career paths with a clear progression that is separate from classroom teachers. This can incentivize performance and motivate ambitious leaders (Tournier et al., 2019). To better promote professional development practices and incentivize professional growth, such training can be linked to certifications or career milestones (UNESCO, 2019a). Research from the United States on the development of systematic processes for the strategic management of school leaders at district level points to school improvement and improved scores in mathematics and reading (Gates et al., 2019).

Provide training and professional development opportunities.  School leaders need proper initial training and continuous professional development to succeed (OECD, 2020; UNESCO, 2018, 2019a). As with in-service teacher training, continued training is key for principals and other school leaders (OECD, 2016; UNESCO, 2018; VVOB, 2019). Such training should promote leadership techniques, pedagogical and instructional guidance, and the vision and overall goals of the school system (Jensen, Downing, and Clark, 2017; Schleicher, 2012; UNESCO, 2019a, 2019b). Research has found that principals participating in instructional leadership training are then more engaged with teachers at their schools (OECD, 2016; VVOB, 2020). This type of training and development is especially vital as more systems move towards decentralization, and the required responsibilities of school leaders change and expand. 

Investigate the potential for distributed leadership.  Research shows that when leadership is not based on a single individual, the potential for improvement and innovation at the school level is increased. Such distributed leadership allows for delegating tasks among the different school actors and alleviates the workload of the school head. It also helps to involve teachers more actively in the management and functioning of the school, and to diversify their career opportunities (Breakspear et al., 2017).

Promote mentoring and relationship-building between school leaders and teachers.  School leaders play an important role in mentoring, which is key to improving teacher motivation, especially for new teachers (Tournier et al., 2019). While standards and training goals for school leaders remain context specific, policies should encourage all school leaders to establish and build relationships with their teachers (OECD, 2020). This comes not only through improving pedagogical techniques but also through seeking teacher input in decision-making, understanding their needs, and building trust (Day and Sammons, 2014; Tournier et al., 2019; UNESCO, 2018). Such actions can help in the day-to-day administration of schools, but they can also increase teacher motivation, collaboration, and sense of purpose (OECD, 2016; Tournier et al., 2019). School leaders (and schools) also benefit from building relationships outside of the school community and being part of networks, clusters, and professional learning communities (VVOB, 2018).

Plans and policies

• Rwanda: Teacher development and management policy (2007)
• Cook Islands: Governance, planning, and management (2016)
• UNESCO-IIEP; International Academy of Education. Recruitment, retention and development of school principals (2005)
• VVOB. CPD diploma courses for school and sector leaders ( Part 1   Part 2   Part 3 ) (2019)

Bloom, N.; Lemos, R.; Sadun, R.; van Reenen, J. 2014. Does management matter in schools . Working paper 20667. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.

Breakspear, S.; Peterson, A.; Alfadala, A.; Khair, M. S. B. M. 2017. Developing agile leaders of learning: School leadership policy for dynamic times . Qatar: World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE).

Day, C.; Sammons, P. 2014. Successful school leadership . Reading: Education Development Trust.

Education Commission. 2019. Transforming the education workforce: Learning teams for a learning generation . New York: The Education Commission.

Garcia Moreno, V. A.; Gertler, P. J.; Patrinos, H. A. 2019. School-based management and learning outcomes: Experimental evidence from Colima, Mexico . Policy Research working paper WPS 8874. Washington, DC: World Bank Group.

Gates, S. M.; Baird, M. D.; Master, B. K.; Chavez-Herrerias, E. R. 2019. Principal pipelines: A feasible, affordable, and effective way for districts to improve schools . Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.

Global Education Monitoring Report Team. 2018. Global education monitoring report gender review 2018: Meeting our commitments to gender equality in education . Paris: UNESCO.

Jensen, B.; Downing, P.; Clark, A. 2017. Preparing to lead: Lessons in principal development from high-performing education systems . Washington, DC: National Center on Education and the Economy.

Leaver, C.; Lemos, R.; Scur, D. 2019. Measuring and explaining management in schools: New approaches using public data . Policy Research working paper WPS 9053. Washington, DC: World Bank Group.

OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). 2016. School leadership for learning: Insights from TALIS 2013 . Paris: OECD.

––––. 2019. Working and learning together: Rethinking human resource policies for schools . OECD Reviews of School Resources. Paris: OECD.

––––. 2020. TALIS 2018 results (Volume II): Teachers and school leaders as valued professionals . Paris: OECD. 

Schleicher, A. 2012. Preparing teachers and developing school leaders for the 21st century: Lessons from around the world . Paris: OECD.

Spillane, J. P.; Paquin Morel, R.; Al-Fadala, A. 2019. Educational leadership: A multilevel distributed perspective . Qatar: WISE.

Tournier, B.; Chimier, C.; Childress, D.; Raudonyte, I. 2019. Teacher career reforms: Learning from experience . Paris: IIEP-UNESCO.

UNESCO. 2016. Incheon declaration and framework for action for the implementation for sustainable development goal 4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning . Paris: UNESCO.

––––. 2017. A guide for ensuring inclusion and equity in education . Paris: UNESCO.

––––. 2018. Activating policy levers for Education 2030: The untapped potential of governance, school leadership, and monitoring and evaluation policies . Paris: UNESCO.

––––. 2019a. Policy brief: School leadership in Central Asia . Paris: UNESCO.

––––. 2019b. Teacher policy development guide . Paris: UNESCO.

UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund). 2009. Child friendly schools manual . New York: UNICEF.

United Nations. 2015. Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development . New York: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

Vaillant, D. 2015. School leadership, trends in policies and practices, and improvement in the quality of education . Paris: UNESCO.

VVOB. 2018. Putting SDG4 into practice: School leadership. Technical brief no. 1 . Brussels: VVOB.

––––. 2019. Annual report 2018: Unlocking the potential of teachers and school leaders for SDG4 . Brussels: VVOB.

––––. 2020. Leading, teaching and learning together: Report on the early impact of the programme . Brussels: VVOB.

World Bank. 2018. World development report 2018: Learning to realize education’s promise . Washington, DC: World Bank Group.

Yamauchi, F. 2014. An alternative estimate of school-based management impacts on students’ achievements: Evidence from the Philippine s. Policy Research working paper WPS 6747, Impact Evaluation series no. IE 113. Washington, DC: World Bank Group.

Related information

• Are good school principals born or can they be made?
• School-based management

Leadership Development for School Leaders

To offer recommendations which build or strengthen the capacity of aspiring and practicing leaders to lead high-performing schools.

In this age of increased accountability, research has taught us that school leaders are crucial to improving instruction and raising student achievement. In fact, The Wallace Foundation has found that school leadership “is second only to teaching among school-related factors in its impact on student learning.” Effective school leaders focus their work on the core issues of teaching and learning and school improvement. Many school districts face a severe shortage of educational leaders due to many factors, including retirement and principals choosing to leave the profession due to job pressures and lack of incentives. Additionally, many potential leaders are choosing not to apply for openings, thus creating a shallow applicant pool.

Guiding Principles

Successful schools require leaders who can perform at optimum levels and who have the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to meet complex challenges.

NASSP has more than 40 years of experience in the development of leadership assessment and development centers and has integrated the best research and best practice on leadership development into workshops, training, and resources. NASSP’s Building Ranks offers specific recommendations, strategies, and multiple tools to principals, assistant principals, and leadership teams to assist them in leading learning and building culture to ultimately improve student performance.

In 2015 the National Policy Board for Educational Administration (NPBEA), of which NASSP is a part, and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) developed the new Professional Standards for Educational Leaders (PSEL) , formerly known as the ISLLC standards. These foundational principles for school leaders are designed to serve as a broad set of national guidelines that states can use as a model for developing or updating their own standards. PSEL provides guidance and insights about the traits, functions of work, and responsibilities of school leaders.

Aligned to the PSEL standards, the NPBEA also developed the National Educational Leadership Preparation (NELP) standards. NELP provides greater specificity around performance expectations for beginning-level building and district leaders. These standards will be used to review educational leadership programs through the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) advanced program review process.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Federal Policymakers • Fully fund Title II, Part A, of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) at its authorized level of $2.295 billion per year, which districts and schools rely on to invest in principal residencies, job-embedded and cohort-based professional learning, and mentorship opportunities for aspiring principals. • Restore funding for the School Leadership Recruitment and Support Program found in Title II, Part B, of ESSA, to no less than $30 million per year for the recruitment, training, and development of effective principals. • Support legislation to improve accountability for teacher and principal preparation programs. • Expand the Teacher Quality Partnership Grants in Title II of the Higher Education Act to include residency programs for principals. • Enact legislation to provide grant funding to State Education Agencies and Local Education Agencies to create principal induction and mentorship programs. Recommendations for State Policymakers

• Adopt the 2015 Professional Standards for Educational Leaders and align principal evaluation and support systems to the standards.
• Fund sustained leadership development to improve teaching that results in increased student achievement, including legislation funding local education agencies to create principal induction and mentorship programs.
• Tie leadership development programs to the attainment of national, state, and local standards and student achievement.
• Tie leadership development to meaningful assessment of leadership capacity including knowledge, skills, and dispositions. Diagnosing a leader’s strengths and improvement needs is required for meaningful professional development that results in changed behavior.
• Provide principals with multiple opportunities to undertake the study of pedagogy and to refine their leadership and management skills directly tied to improving teaching and learning.
• Remove age and seniority barriers to state licensure eligibility
• Align graduate level programs and courses with state and school district professional development programs.

Recommendations for District Leaders

• Allocate districts funds annually for leadership development for every principal and assistant principal.
• Allocate districts funds for training prospective principals and examine and implement “grow your own principal” programs.
• Provide professional development activities that help beginning principals create professional learning communities in their schools.
• Provide district funding and opportunities to engage principals and assistant principals in ongoing, sustained, job-embedded leadership development that focuses on knowledge, skills, and dispositions that will improve a principal’s or assistant principal’s ability to lead and manage middle level and high schools in an optimal fashion.
• Provide training to enable beginning principals to involve parents, especially parents of limited English proficient and immigrant children, in their child’s education.
• Provide training on how to understand and use data and assessments to improve and personalize classroom practice and student learning.
• Provide beginning principals training in implementing schoolwide adolescent literacy and mathematical initiatives.
• Principal mentoring from exemplary principals or superintendents
• Induction and support for principals during their first three years of employment as principals
• Incentives, including financial incentives, to principals who have a record of improving the academic achievement of all students, but particularly students from economically disadvantaged families, students from racial and ethnic minority groups, and students with disabilities

Recommendations for School Leaders

• Increase advocacy efforts at the federal, state, and local level to ensure funding and policy decisions meet the needs of their community, school, and professional growth as a leader.
• Provide assistant principals and other emerging leaders with increased responsibilities and professional development that will adequately prepare them to lead schools.
• Participate in evidence-based mentoring and residency programs.
• Complete federal, state, and district staffing surveys to provide policymakers with a better understanding of current job demands and opportunities for improvement.

Education Commission of the States (2018).  50-State Comparison: School Leader Certification and Preparation Programs.  Denver, CO: Deven Scott. Retrieved from www.ecs.org/50-state-comparison-school-leader-certification-and-preparation-programs/.

The Council of Chief State School Officers (2008).  Educational Leadership Policy Standards: ISLLC 2008 (as adopted by the National Policy Board for Educational Administration).  Retrieved from www.danforth.uw.edu/uwdanforth/media/danforth/isllc-2008.pdf.

Institute for Educational Leadership (2000).  Leadership for student learning: Reinventing the principalship.  Washington, D.C. Retrieved from http://mymassp.com/resourcesforprincipals/pdf/principalship_taskforce.pdf.

Murphy, J., Elliot, S. N., Goldring, E., Porter, A. C. (2006).  Learning-centered leadership: A conceptual foundation.  Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED505798.pdf.

National Association of Secondary School Principals (2018).  Building Ranks K-12: A Comprehensive Framework for Effective School Leaders.  Reston, VA.

National Policy Board for Educational Administration (2015).  Professional Standards for Educational Leaders 2015.  Reston, VA. Retrieved from http://npbea.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Professional-Standards-for-Educational-Leaders_2015.pdf.

The Wallace Foundation (2003).  Beyond the pipeline: Getting the principals we need, where they are needed most.  New York, NY. Retrieved from www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/Documents/Beyond-the-Pipeline-Getting-the-Principals-We-Need.pdf.

The Wallace Foundation.  School leadership.  Retrieved from www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/school-leadership/pages/default.aspx.

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Why is school leadership key to transforming education? Structural and cultural assumptions for quality education in diverse contexts

Monica mincu.

1 Department of Philosophy and Educational Sciences, University of Turin, Palazzo Nuovo, Via Sant’Ottavio, 20, 10124 Torino, TO Italy

2 Institute of Education, UCL, Centre for Educational Leadership, London, United Kingdom

Failing to recognize the role of leaders in quality and equitable schooling is unfortunate and must be redressed. Leadership is fundamentally about organized agency and collective vision, not managerialism, since it is an organizational quality, not merely a positionality attribute. Most important, if change is to be systemic and transformative, it cannot occur uniquely at the individual teachers’ level. School organization is fundamental to circulating and consolidating new innovative actions, cognitive schemes, and behaviors in coherent collective practices. This article engages with the relevance of governance patterns, school organization, and wider cultural and pedagogical factors that shape various leadership configurations. It formulates several assumptions that clarify the importance of leadership in any organized change. The way teachers act and represent their reality is strongly influenced by the architecture of their organization, while their ability to act with agency is directly linked to the existence of flat or prominent hierarchies, both potentially problematic for deep and systemic change. A hierarchical imposition from above as well as a lack of leadership vision in fragmented school cultures cannot determine any transformation.

In recent years, transformation has emerged as a high priority in key policy documents (OECD, 2015 , 2020a , 2020b ; Paterson et al., 2018 ; UNESCO, 2021 ) and been recognized as a major pillar on which the very future of education is based. A galvanized international scene has put transformation at the top of the agenda. One reason is found in the recent Covid-19 emergency and the need to recover, and possibly to “build back better”. Other reasons are longer-term and relate to dissatisfaction with the quality of education in many parts of the world. Major international agencies have been directly involved in reform and have variously endorsed “educational planning” (e.g., Carron et al., 2010 ), systemic reform in highly centralized countries, school autonomy (framed as school-based management or decentralization), systemic adjustment and restructuring (e.g., Carnoy, 1998 ; Samoff, 1999 ), and accountability (Anderson, 2005 ), as well as capacity building and development (De Grauwe, 2009 ). However, in practice, only segments of reforms have been enacted, focusing on one aspect of the school system while neglecting others, without considering the larger governance and school architecture, and local pedagogical cultures. Some agencies have also expressed a renewed interest in innovation and the possibility to measure it (Vincent-Lancrin et al., 2019 ), from a rather managerial perspective.

The transformation of education is a trendy movement nowadays, with the potential to generate lasting change through wide-reaching actions, not just stylistically or in local projects. Transformation of this kind will occur when structural and organizational conditions are in place in a range of different settings. When this happens, transformation as a revamped concept of change can be wholeheartedly embraced. Nonetheless, both academic and development-oriented NGO research has long dedicated itself to and learned from systemic change, improvement, and reform, based on what have been defined as effective practices (Ko & Sammons, 2016 ; Townsend, 2007 ). The school effectiveness findings are typically transversal principles of what has proved valuable despite contextual variation, whilst noting the local variability of such principles (Teddlie & Stringfield, 2017 ) especially in low and middle income countries (Moore, 2022 ) and even in similar areas of education development (Boonen et al., 2013 ; Palardy & Rumberger, 2008 ). Some variability often occurs between consolidated and less consolidated school systems. School improvement has been based on scholars’ findings on school effectiveness, as these two areas can merge up to a certain point (Creemers & Reezigt, 2005 ; Stoll & Fink, 1996 ). Reform at the top and improvement at the ground level have long been trialed in different national and organizational settings and with different school populations, with the aim of establishing generalizability or local variation. Quality teaching (Bowe & Gore, 2016 ; Darling-Hammond, 2021 ; Hattie, 2009 ) or teachers (Hanushek, 2010 , 2014 ; Mincu, 2015 ; Akiba & LeTendre, 2017 ), as well as equitable effective practices (Sammons, 2010 ) have also been classic research topics that have emerged center-stage in any change project.

In order for quality-promoting endeavors such as change, improvement, and reform to produce a transformed education, several assumptions are indispensable: (a) recognize the larger school and organizational context as crucial, alongside school architecture and processes, (b) define what quality education means across a variety of country contexts and with regard to specific structural arrangements and pedagogical cultures, (c) distinguish the degree and type of autonomy for schools and teachers, and estimate the effectiveness of their mixed interactions, (d) understand and cope from a change perspective within a variety of school cultures, (e) recognize the structural limitations faced by school leadership, as well as the margins to produce local, gradual improvement that can pave the way to radical transformation, and (f) start any significant change at the school level, in the interaction of leaders and teachers.

What is school leadership and how can it bring about change? On the one hand, leadership is about a vision of change, collectively shaped and supported. In this sense, radical change—i.e., transformation—cannot occur without leaders and especially school leaders. In addition, an effective vision about a desired change grows from the interactions of the school actors and is stimulated and orchestrated by the school leadership. An imposition from above as well as a lack of leadership vision in fragmented school cultures cannot determine any transformation, nor its subsequent stability or growth, given that some grass roots changes happen accidentally, in limited school areas. In fact, if change is to be systemic and transformative, it cannot occur at the individual teachers’ level, as then it cannot be circulated and consolidated in stable, coherent collective practices. Action at the school level is fundamental for change to occur and last, as well as for individual teachers to be encouraged, supported, and rewarded for their innovative behavior. On the other hand, change is often conceptualized as a gradual process of a series of stages (Fullan, 2015 ; Kotter, 2012 ), carefully incorporating structural and cultural adjustments (Kools & Stoll, 2016 ). Transformation, a less orthodox and robust concept, incorporates the desire for more abrupt and radical change. It is imagined as a possibility to “leapfrog”. This desire to move rapidly forward resonates with the “window of opportunity” phase when big changes can occur more smoothly. However, at the school and even systemic level, complex changes resulting in net improvements are most often gradually prepared and stimulated, since any change is cultural in essence, and as such it needs time to occur. Another relevant aspect is related to leadership as an ingredient and quality, not just a positionality attribute. Both assumptions suggest the inevitability of its role to any change in education as an organized endeavor.

Larger contexts and school organizations are key in any transformation

Education does not occur in an organizational vacuum, since deschooling, mass home-schooling, or online-only paradigms are neither implemented nor envisioned. In addition, a concept of education exclusively posed in philosophical and theoretical terms, especially when aimed at transforming the status quo, neglects to take into account that schooling is enmeshed with different organizational and governance forms, at times in contradiction with its own theoretical bases. Most important, forms of sociality such as those sustained by schools have not declined in relevance but increased, in the aftermath of the global online experiment of the pandemic emergency. At the same time, improvements and even radical changes in education have been embraced and actively promoted in certain parts of the world. For instance, in Norway, renewed weekly timetables are in place, allowing for deep learning as well as better integration with virtual knowledge in high-stakes exams. One should not forget that most pupils around the world are educated in environments displaying significant structural convergences across countries, despite locally diverse values. Such teaching-oriented settings are characterized by the centrality of the adult as teacher, and most often by textbook-based education. The organizational arrangements are linear, based on daily subjects and teachers’ contractual time, mainly dedicated to teaching activities (the stavka system, see Steiner-Khamsi, 2016 , 2020 ) or to ad hoc self-help actions in extreme emergency contexts. Linked to these, school cultures can be both hierarchical (rules are delivered “from above”) and fragmented, since class teachers may be left to themselves without adequate professional support. Whilst the reality is nuanced and school typologies are in any case sociological abstractions, most systems can still be described as basically centralized or decentralized, depending on the level of autonomy granted to schools or local authorities. The larger school contexts as well as the local ones are even today very diverse in these two cases, despite a global increase in diversified combinations of centralization of some aspects and decentralization of others. What Archer ( 1979 ) theorized in her landmark work is still a key valid explanation of how school organizations usually operate and change. With renewed categories, a centralized system is largely characterized by “hierarchies”, real or perceived, and less by “networks and markets”, whilst in the case of decentralized systems, the opposite is true. The same differences can be highlighted in more comprehensive or selective school types, whose visions and ways of functioning are coherent with their structural patterns and influence, and in turn, with how leaders perceive their role and mission.

In terms of leadership, differing configurations will bring differing consequences. Centralized countries with weak school autonomy approach the role of school leaders in a rather formalist way: as primus inter pares or as administrative and legal head. In these settings, the intermediate level is also very weak and largely based on ad hoc tasks. Flat organizations may not support leadership as an essential element in the school’s operational life, and instead focus primarily on teaching, which is mainly viewed as an individual endeavor. School organizations at odds with leadership as a system quality, both in organizational and instructional terms, often exhibit forms of fragmentation (Mincu & Romiti, 2022 ), even in societies that may share a collectivistic or communitarian ethos, such as in East Asia. In countries with significant school autonomy, leadership structures are more manifestly in place, given the increased tasks performed by schools. Often, an excess of hierarchical leadership is a major negative outcome. However, the school context can be characterized by mixed combinations of types of governance (hierarchies, networks, markets) (Mincu & Davies, 2019 ; Mincu & Liu, 2022 ), which have a significant influence on the way leadership is oriented and how it accomplishes its visionary, organizational, and instructional functions within the school and in relation to society. School leadership is both a processual quality and a positional trait, and thus it can be variously performed in high autonomy school systems. In the case of centralized arrangements, it can be much harder to identify leadership as process where there is just some form of leadership positionality: a legal school head or the existence of subject-matter departments. School contexts and organizations around the world are also diverse in terms of leadership configurations and roles: some schools may share the same leader (Italy), some may not provide many leadership positions at all (India), and others may specify a headship position which does not in fact offer any leadership or cohesion in organizational and pedagogical matters. Indeed, leadership may be entirely missing from certain school systems.

To summarize, the way teachers act and represent their reality is strongly influenced by the architecture of their organization, along with the quality, direction, and margins of power that can be exerted by leadership at the school and intermediate levels. Nevertheless, schools are large organizations, and as such a certain amount of alignment and direction is needed, which is what leadership provides.

The autonomy of schools and that of teachers are not mutually exclusive

Closely related to the first assumption, for a functional and dynamic school organization, a certain amount of school autonomy is required to adequately balance teachers’ autonomy. In high school autonomy systems, there is a tendency to assume that teachers’ autonomy is quite reduced, and this is certainly the case if the education model is accountability-oriented and leadership is hierarchical. In less autonomous systems, huge resistance to instill more autonomy at the school level is usually deployed—for example, in strongly unionist cultures, which aim to extend and expand teachers’ independence. This translates into quite radical teachers’ autonomy on pedagogical matters, as is the case in certain European school systems (Mincu & Granata, 2021 ).

An excess of teachers’ autonomy is detrimental to coherence and alignment at the school level and affects both quality and equity. The metaphors of teachers in their classes as eggs in their egg crates or lions behind closed doors, in the words of a ministry official in Italy, are particularly telling about flat, non-collaborative structures. The idea that high teacher autonomy may automatically support collegiality in flat organizations is not supported by the reality on the ground in certain school systems. In sociological terms, any human organization requires a certain amount of hierarchy and collegiality. In fact, a certain quantity of school autonomy is beneficial in many ways and can enhance teachers’ agency: (a) it emphasizes the role of leaders, including the possibility for teachers to act with leadership, (b) it offers a direction that can be shared, (c) it stimulates people to come together in effective ways (communities of practice) whilst presenting the risk of some contrived collegiality, and (d) it encourages teachers to feel more supported in their own work and professional development.

In a nutshell, leadership’s margins of influence are shaped not only by overall system governance, but also by the amount of school autonomy they enjoy. In addition, the extent of organizational autonomy is directly linked to the existence of flat or prominent hierarchies, both potentially problematic for deep and systemic change.

School cultures converge and diverge in multiple ways within and across countries

Pedagogical transformation is about a change in cultural assumptions, which entails a slow process of cognitive and emotional modification that has to be supported beyond school walls by concerted social and economic actions. Structural change will not be successful without an adjustment in people’s cognitive schemes about their practices and values. How teachers conceive of teaching and learning, and of equitable and inclusive approaches, is not essentially a matter of “lack of training”, for which more preparation may be the solution. It is instead a matter of deep pedagogical beliefs, whose roots are shared and societal. How to discipline class misbehavior, for example, and even what inappropriate classroom behavior is, varies widely across societies: it denotes (generational at times) power distance, gender relations, assumptions about individuality and collectivistic entities, as well as merit recognition and social envy avoidance. For Hargreaves ( 1994 ), school culture is the result of the intertwining of attitudes such as individualism, collaboration, contrived collegiality, and “balkanization”, i.e., fragmentation of ethical goals. Stoll ( 2000 ) herself describes schools in terms of social cohesion and social control as traditional, welfarist, “hothouse”, or anomic. In contrast, for Hood ( 1998 ), there are four possible combinations of social cohesion and regulation: (a) fatalistic: compliance with rules but little cooperation to achieve results, (b) hierarchical (bureaucratic): social cohesion and cooperation and a rules-based approach, (c) individualist: fragmented approaches to organizing that require negotiation among various actors, and (d) egalitarian: very meaningful participation structures, highly participatory decision-making, a culture of peer support.

In reality, mixed combinations of two, three, or more types of cultures can be found and supported by a variety of factors within and beyond schools as organizations. Some Southern European realities, as well as some Eastern European systems, belong to the individualist typology: weak collaboration and weak hierarchy, given the absence of a teaching career structure with levels of preparation and strong autonomy of the individual teacher. Some aspects of institutional “fatalism” are present, because a certain culture of respect for rules nevertheless exists, and of egalitarianism of a rather formal type. In fact, while the collegial culture on a formal level may appear robust—given the presence of collegial bodies—in practice organizational coherence remains very weak. The reason lies in the fact that these bodies can also decide not to agree on any systemic solution and defer decisions to the individual teacher, since teacher autonomy is still the superior criterion governing informal culture in schools. In the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian school systems, for example, schools express more coherent and cohesive cultures that oscillate between very hierarchical and more participatory models, with more diffuse leadership (Seashore-Louis, 2015 ). Even though these latter school systems favor a mostly cohesive ethos, it is not uncommon to find fragmented and inconsistent schools with weak leadership.

As an example of how school cultures work, a culturally well-rooted premise that teachers “are all good” is very much at work in certain flat hierarchical or Confucian-oriented school cultures, meaning they are equally effective because morally oriented for the profession. This is, in fact, a convenient belief allowing those within it to oppose forms of evaluations (including between peers and in the wider community of parents and stakeholders) and to resist more school autonomy and cohesiveness measures that might be envisioned by school or system leadership. Whilst teachers may be reluctant to work together and observe each other (as in a lesson study format) in most countries, this may be particularly the case where teachers’ autonomy is quite radical, where collaboration and mentoring are not common practices, or where stimulated by school arrangements and work contracts (e.g., in Italy; see Mincu & Granata, 2021 ).

Another way to characterize pedagogical cultures is with reference to formalism (respect for rules and social distances, focus on adults’ role and transmissive pedagogies) or to progressivism (more egalitarian interactions and a focus on the learner and their way of acquiring and creating knowledge). There are many ways in which various school cultures can be appropriately characterized, offering plenty of nuances and details of social, economic, and cultural stratifications and contradictions: for instance, in certain East Asian contexts, there is a combination of Confucianism, socialist egalitarianism, and revised individualism of consumption or of possession, based on previous rural forms of it. However, along the lines of centralized/decentralized typologies that are still valid for describing school functioning and structures, the reality of countries around the world allows scholars to characterize school cultures as formalist versus progressivist. It is legitimate to do so in spite of the local nuances and anthropological cultures that may filter and support such pedagogies (Guthrie et al., 2015 ).

Any cultural change imposed from above or from abroad may be doomed to failure if the hardware is that of centralized systems and if school actors are not allowed to engage in a cultural exercise of adaptation, adequately supported with infrastructural measures. Whilst there is no single model, there are some pillars of good teaching and some key lessons about how to produce change. A major premise is that any change must reach the school level and be able to activate and energize its school actors. School systems may be distinguished therefore in terms of formalist/progressivist typologies, which is coherent with other types of systemic characteristics, including lack of leadership (be it hierarchically formalized, legally representative only, or peer-oriented) that may preclude any effort of cultural transformation.

Without leadership, individual teachers may act as a loosely connected group, without vision and motivation to produce an expected and socially praised change. The expectation to encourage reforms from the regional and district level, when not from the top, is purely utopian. Schools remain remote realities in such change models. Most systems in poorly resourced contexts are entangled in hierarchical school models and grounded in traditional power distance and colonial legacies. Without significant leadership processes stimulated by school principals at the very heart of such systems, cultural and new structural processes cannot be expected. To produce cultural change, the top leadership stratum must create the proper conditions, such as salaries, workload, and other incentives for training and knowledge dissemination; but action and cognitive schemes characterize the school level and teachers cannot be blamed for what they cannot do by themselves.

Defining quality for present times education in context

We cannot move toward possible futures without deeply understanding what good education can be in our present societies, in a variety of localities around the world. Research has long dedicated itself to the task of defining quality in education, particularly in the fields of school effectiveness and school improvement. Meta-research has become a bestseller scholarly genre (Hattie, 2009 ), and the drive toward evidence-based knowledge has been equally impressive, across universities, NGOs, and other major international players. Research studies distinguish between quality teachers (their attributes, amount of preparation, and years of experience) and teaching quality, based on dimensions of quality teaching that produce effective learning. Since structures and cultures can be effectively encapsulated in categories (centralized/autonomous, formalist/progressivist, etc.), quality teaching is also condensed (a) in key dimensions, for instance by Bowe and Gore ( 2016 ), subsuming further aspects, or (b) as rankings of most effective factors in terms of learning.

Mistrust of evidence-based and best-practice research traditions is justified when ready-made solutions are implemented without adaptations and the engagement of those involved. Even the adoption of South-South solutions can be ineffective at times (Chisholm & Steiner-Khamsi, 2008 ). Since problems in education are messy and “wicked” (Ritter & Webber, 1973 ) changes must be systemic and cultural.

Anderson and Mundy, 2014 proved that improvement solutions and practices in two groups of countries—developed and less developed—are very much convergent. Both developing and developed countries present a series of common challenges: the need for fewer top-down approaches, for instance, and for approaches less narrowly focused on the basics. Comparative evidence and perspectives on student learning in developing countries converge on a common cluster of instructional concepts and strategies: (a) learning as student-centered, differentiated, or personalized, associated with using low-cost teaching and learning materials in the language which students understand, and (b) the appropriate use of small group learning in addition to large group instruction. This enables regular diagnostic and formative assessment of student progress to guide instructional decision-making, clear directions, and checking student understanding of the purpose of learning activities. It also involves personalized feedback to students based on assessments of their learning, and explicit teaching of learning skills to strengthen students’ problem-solving competencies. With the possible exception of low-cost learning materials, these prescriptions for good teaching are consistent with international evidence about effective instruction (Anderson & Mundy, 2014 ). But quality teaching and teachers equally assume specific contextual meanings. For instance, Kumar and Wiseman ( 2021 ) indicate that traditional measures of quality (teacher preparation and credentials) are less relevant in India compared to non-traditional measures such as teachers’ absenteeism and their attitude/behavior toward their students.

Teachers alone cannot make a better school

Teachers and their actions at the classroom level are key to inspiring learning and students’ progress. Nonetheless, a misreported finding from an OECD ( 2010 ) study that “the quality of an education system can never exceed the quality of its teachers” is only partially correct. In fact, the full quotation said that the system’s quality cannot exceed the quality of its teachers and leaders. The incomplete quote mirrors a common misconception that teachers alone can and should improve the system. Instead, teachers are part of organizations, and as such they behave and respond to dynamics in place in those contexts, and not as individuals, or as a professional group, not even in the most unionized countries. The quality of a public service cannot be attributed solely to its members, but also to their organization and to specific choices made by its leadership, which is responsible for organizational vision and translating theories into action. Launching heartfelt calls for teachers to change their practices is both naive and sociologically inaccurate regarding how people act and behave in social organizations, such as schools. The presence of leadership as a processual and qualitative dimension at the school level also indicates the existence of the structures of school leadership teams and middle managers, in which leadership is robustly in place as positionality.

In this sense, the quote indicates the relevance of teachers’ work in carefully designed organizations, in which hierarchy and horizontal interactions of collaboration between peers are in a functional equilibrium. In other words, schools and teachers’ autonomy reciprocally reinforce one another.

Whenever teachers are required to act with leadership, autonomy, and innovation, the larger system and school culture should be carefully considered. Teachers cannot by themselves be directly responsible for systemic changes. National-level teams of experts cannot blame teachers for a lack of change when the necessary knowledge and resources are not cascaded effectively to the school level. As the end point of the chain of change, teachers cannot be accused for a lack of success and adequate culture to facilitate innovation when decision makers do not consider the school architecture and how leaders are prepared and ready to support a change in culture. This has been the case with reforms in less resourceful countries around the world, often in highly centralized systems, where more progressivist changes are expected from teachers in the absence of proper consideration of the school architecture, long-standing interactions with the school leaders, and the overall pedagogical culture. Unfair blame for these teachers is expressed at times by international or national teams of experts, unrealistically expecting individual teachers to produce significant structural and cultural changes, otherwise they play the part of “those who wait on a bus” for a change to happen. The possibility to develop, to act innovatively, and to be motivated for teaching depends largely on the organizational support received by teachers at the school level from their head teacher and the wider environment. Professional development is a key ingredient that impacts teacher quality (Cordingley, 2015 ), and its effectiveness and provision depends heavily on the school leadership. Without support from the larger school context and leadership, even the most autonomous teachers may not act with the necessary teaching quality that can make a difference, as clearly illustrated by TALIS 2020.

Leadership, as an organizational quality, is indispensable

The final assumption involves the idea that one cannot crudely distinguish between teachers and leaders, especially middle managers and more informal leaders. Obviously, there is a continuum between such roles: teachers themselves can act with agency and leadership, formally or informally, and head teachers may draw upon their experience as teachers.

Since schools are organizations and not collections of individuals, the field of school effectiveness and school improvement has incontrovertibly identified the influence of leadership as vital: “school leadership is second only to classroom teaching as an influence on pupil learning” (Leithwood et al., 2008 ). Through both organization and instructional vision (Day et al., 2016 ), effective leadership significantly enhances or diminishes the influence that individual teachers have in their classes. Regardless of cultural considerations, when teachers’ work is uncoordinated and fragmented, the overall effect in terms of learning and education cannot be amplified and adequately supported. A lack of coherence within organizations is unfavorable to more localized virtuous dynamics that may be diminished or suffocated.

Moreover, unjustified allegations of managerialism and the striking absence of this topic from key policy documents, including those of UNESCO ( 2021 ), should be highlighted. Whilst the “executive” components implicit in any leadership function must be in place in organizations enjoying wide autonomy, this does not necessarily translate into managerialism and quasi markets. It is indeed the larger school context that can make an autonomous school perform in a managerial way or simply, with broader margins of action, that can facilitate good use of teachers’ collective agency, as in some Scandinavian countries. In order to produce even modest change, let alone radical transformation, we must overcome the widely held misconception that leadership has to do with managerial tasks, competition, and effectiveness from a highly individualistic stance. Whilst this can be the case in certain country contexts and with particular disciplinary approaches, educational leadership does not simply overlap with managerialism as a technical ability. It is essentially about vision and collaboration around our global commons, as well as locally defined school goals.

School leadership is correctly identified as a key strategy to improve teaching and learning toward SDG4 (the Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action adopted by the World Education Forum 2015). A specific task assigned to school leadership is an increase in the supply of qualified teachers (UNESCO, 2016 ). At the same time, the need to transform schools is sometimes decoupled from the potential of school and system leadership to ensure such transformation. Failing to recognize the role of leaders in quality and equitable schooling must be rectified. A humanistic vision and a focus on the global public good cannot be at odds, programmatically, with a field dedicated to understanding how contemporary schools are organized and how they operate.

Conclusion: Leadership is about organized agency, not managerialism

Innovations in education are complex because they can often be incremental and less frequently radical, but some have the potential to be truly transformative. The more effective tend to be small micro-context innovations that diffuse “laterally” through networks of professionals and organizations but need facilitation and effective communication from above to be deep and long-lasting. They are never just technical or structural, but rather cultural and related to visions about education. In this context, leadership and leaders are crucial in a variety of aspects, but foremost in shaping a coherent organization and engaging collectively to clarify and make explicit key pedagogical and equity assumptions, which has a dramatic direct and indirect influence on the effectiveness of the school. Most significantly, school leadership at all levels is the starting point for the transformation of low-performing (and) disadvantaged schools.

We should not underestimate the impact that the larger political, social, and economic context has on schools and leaders around the world. A variety of autonomous schools can perform in a managerial way or simply make good use of teachers’ collective agency, and a variety of less autonomous organizations may dispose or not of a certain dose of organizational coherence and leadership (Keddie et al., 2022 ; Walker & Qian, 2020 ).

What has proved valuable in most contexts may not always be effective in every case; a balance has to be struck between cultural awareness related to pedagogies in contexts and lessons learned across cultural boundaries. Available universal solutions have to be pondered, and adaptations are always required. It can be the case that, in certain conditions, we borrow not only solutions but the problems they address, in the way these are rhetorically framed. However, since convergences occur in structures and cultures, problems may also converge across contexts. In addition, micro-changes occur fluidly at any time, but for transformation to emerge, we need to draw on the accumulated wisdom and the potential implicit in system and school leadership. Last but not least, the complexity lying at the heart of learning from others and from comparison should not be assumed to be insuperable.

is an associate professor in comparative education with the Department of Philosophy and Education, University of Turin, and a lecturer in educational leadership with the Institute of Education, University College, London. She has acted as a consultant with UNESCO and other major Italian NGOs. She engages with education politics and governance from a social change and equity perspective.

Open access funding provided by Università degli Studi di Torino within the CRUI-CARE Agreement.

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Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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First-Ever Professional Standards for Principal Supervisors Released

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The first-ever standards meant to clarify what principal supervisors should know and be able to do to help principals improve teaching and learning in schools were released on Monday.

The model standards break down the job of principal supervisors—the people who evaluate and coach principals and have a range of different job titles—into three broad areas. They look at the supervisors’ role in helping principals become better instructional leaders; the supervisors’ role as liaisons between schools and central offices; and the supervisors’ own responsibility to ensure that they continue to improve and develop as district leaders.

The eight standards are voluntary and are rooted in principal supervisor performance standards developed by the University of Washington’s District Leadership Design Lab.

The standards describe specific benchmarks, along with steps that supervisors should take to meet them. They deal with the supervisor’s role in areas such as evaluations and support, helping principals to foster inclusive learning environments, and advocating for equitable distribution of school resources.

The first standard, for example, says that “principal supervisors should dedicate their time to helping principals grow as instructional leaders.” Actions include spending time in schools observing principals and the impacts of their leadership; helping principals improve teacher-effectiveness, student learning, and achievements; and identifying central office and other support for principals so that supervisors can focus on instructional leadership.

You can view all eight standards here.

The standards can be used to help guide recruitment, plan professional development, and help districts to think and plan strategically for the position, according to the Council of Chief State School Officers, which released the benchmarks. They are meant to be useful to states, districts, education leadership preparation programs, and those who deliver professional development for education leaders.

The CCSSO noted that the standards were not expected to serve as job descriptions because principal supervisors’ duties vary widely from district to district.

“These new standards bring much-needed clarity to the role of principal supervisors,” Chris Minnich, the executive director of the CCSSO, said in a statement. “The standards will enable states and districts to elevate the role of supervisors so they can focus on helping principals improve instruction, learning and ultimately student achievement.”

The supervisor standards land nearly a month after revised professional standards for educational leaders were released.

A Focus on Principal Supervisors

The principal supervisors’ role has come into sharper focus in recent years, with the emphasis shifting from ensuring compliance to rules and regulations to coaching principals to become better at preparing students to be college and career-ready.

But the scope, duties, and number of principals that supervisors oversee vary from district to district. A 2013 study by the Council of the Great City Schools, for example, found that the number of principals overseen by one supervisor can be as high as 67, as it was in New York City when the survey was taken.

Since then, districts have been increasingly zeroing-in on the position. In January, Education Week looked at how some districts from Omaha, Neb., to Denver, Colo., to Jacksonville, Fla., were reshaping the job, requiring that supervisors spend more time in schools and making changes in their central offices to support both the supervisors and principals.

“Having principal supervisors spend significant time in schools coaching principals is a relatively new concept for most school districts,” said MaryAnn Jobe, the director of leadership development at AASA, The School Superintendents Association. “As a result, the districts don’t yet have the necessary structures in place to support that type of work. It will take some time for districts to redesign the role of principal supervisors so they are spending most of their time building principals’ capacity.”

The Wallace Foundation launched an initiative last year to redefine the role of principal supervisors in eight districts and track the impact. Even districts that did not receive the grant—such as Omaha—are forging ahead. (The Wallace Foundation provides some support to Education Week for coverage of extended learning time and leadership.)

The foundation also provided financial support to the CCSSO to “refresh” the professional standards for school leaders, formerly known as ISLLC, and to develop the supervisor standards.

“These standards come at a time when we are learning more about the importance of principal supervisors in developing school leaders as instructional leaders,” Jody Spiro, the foundation’s director of education leadership, said in a statement to Education Week.

Spiro said that in the eight districts that are intensely focusing on the supervisors, the foundation was “already seeing that changing the role of principal supervisor is having an impact across the district—from schools to the central office—in delivering the kind of mentoring and ongoing support that is valued by principals, especially those in their first years on the job.”

A version of this news article first appeared in the District Dossier blog.

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Reflections on school leadership

With the recent publication of the Developing your school with Cambridge guide, aimed at school leaders and teachers, it is a good time to reflect on what school leadership really means.

Everything about a school needs to focus on student learning with the dignity and development of each individual at its heart.

While schools have much in common, every school is a unique community and leadership needs to be situational and come from within. Outstanding school leaders strive to improve both the components and the dynamics of the system. This includes a concern for curriculum, assessment, the school’s culture and values, the role of parents and the community. Above all school leadership should be focused on improving learning through developing better teaching as teachers are the most powerful influence on student learning.

Good leadership is a necessary condition for educational excellence

The best schools understand the difference between leadership and management, viewing leadership as a process rather than a position of authority. Great leaders get the best out of the system by creating, implementing, monitoring, reviewing and refining goals practices and policies so that student learning outcomes are continuously improved. It also involves, in the words Geoff Southworth , the ‘liberation of talent.’ Teachers and students, fully supported, are leadership resources of enormous power and potential. For this reason leadership is best viewed as a collective responsibility and widely distributed.

Accountability and standards are critical

School evaluation practices, teacher appraisal and professional development systems need to reflect the complex nature of the educational process. They should involve teachers as reflective practitioners conscious that they have a role in improving both their own and institutional practice. Involvement breeds confidence, commitment, ownership and dignity.

It can result in raising a wide range of educational standards as well as creating a culture of excellence based on the needs of the school at that particular time. All leadership is situational; inexperienced teachers need more directed support from experienced colleagues and progress needs to be benchmarked to meaningful targets with individuals held to account.

While every school is unique and leadership should ideally come from within, there is particular value in sharing practice and experience with schools supporting each other as critical friends.  One example of an initiative that focuses on developing networks and the capacity for school leadership is Leadership for Learning [LfL] at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. This is a vibrant network concerned with learning and leadership, and the connection between the two.  LfL has developed a framework of ideas, principles and processes that have been successful in different contexts throughout the world and which are currently being practised by 16 Cambridge schools working with the Faculty of Education.

LfL practice is based on the following beliefs:

• Learning and leadership are a shared enterprise, as much as an individual one
• Leadership should be ‘distributed’ and exercised at every level
• Collaborative modes of working strengthen both teams and individuals
• An independent, critical perspective, informed by research is vital
• The status quo and received wisdom should be persistently questioned

Nurturing student leadership has never been more important in a world where education is even more about ‘’ providing young people with the competence and self-confidence to tackle uncertainty well.’’ Employers are desperate for students who are adaptable, able to be ‘intelligent in the face of change’ [Claxton, 1990], able to work together and lead teams effectively.

Leadership starts with ‘knowing yourself’ and developing self-confidence, empathy and resourcefulness. This cannot be taught but it can be nurtured and needs to be infused in every day school life and culture rather than become a mere marketing slogan. Schools are part of a community and must acknowledge their responsibility to contribute to and play a leadership role in community life. Learning and leadership do not begin or end at the school gate.

At Cambridge we will be working on improving the support and training we provide in the school leadership area. The potential for networking and sharing research-based international best practice is unique amongst our diverse range of schools. There is something very powerful about a community of schools and partners in so many different countries and contexts sharing practice and learning from each other.

Claxton, G [1990] Teaching to Learn: A Direction for Education. Cassell Education, London. UK.

MacBeath J. and Dempster, N. (Eds.) (2008) Connecting Leadership and Learning: Principles for practice. London: Routledge

Southworth, G. [2011] Speech given at the Cambridge Teachers Conference on School Leadesrhip

Related blogs

Reflections on this year’s Cambridge Schools Conferences: working together to help learners reach their potential

Using data for school improvement: What the Cambridge School Self Evaluation service tells us about reflective practice in education

Testing times – why test anxiety is an important issue for schools

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Professional Standards for Effective School Leadership in Rwanda

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Professional standards for effective school leaders describe key roles, responsibilities and functions of school leaders together with key competences required of them to fulfil their responsibilities and achieve school goals. Accordingly, they define the primary work of school leaders which has relatively high impact on student learning success and the extent to which the work should be done so every student in school can succeed. They are “exemplary” professional standards that communicate minimum performance expectations to educators, professional associations, policy makers and the public about the work of effective educational leaders.

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