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Author: Bruce G. Barnett Publisher: IAP ISBN: 1623963842 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 291
Book Description
Our fourth book in the International Research on School Leadership series focuses on school leadership in an era of high stakes accountability. Fueled by sweeping federal education accountability reforms, such as the United States’ No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Race to the Top (R2T) and Australia’s Performance Measurement and Reporting Taskforce, school systems around the world are being forced to increase academic standards, participate in high-stakes testing, and raise evaluation standards for teachers and principals. These results-driven reforms are intended to hold educators “accountable for student learning and accountable to the public” (Anderson, 2005, p. 2, emphasis in original). While policymakers and the public debate the merits of student achievement accountability measures, P-12 educational leaders do not have the luxury to wait for clear guidance and resources to improve their schools and operating systems. Instead, successful leaders must balance the need to create learning communities, manage the organizational climate, and encourage community involvement with the consequences testing has on teacher morale and public scrutiny. The chapters in this volume clearly indicate that as school leaders attend to these potentially competing forces, this affects their problem-solving strategies, ability to facilitate change, and encourage community involvement. We were delighted with the responses from colleagues around the world who were eager to share their research dealing with how leaders are functioning effectively within a high-accountability environment. The nine chapters in this volume provide empirical evidence of the strategies school leaders use to cope with problems and negotiate external demands while improving student performance. In particular, the voices and actions of principals, superintendents, and school board members are captured in a blend of quantitative and qualitative studies. The breadth of studies is impressive, ranging from case studies of individual principals to cross-district comparisons to national data from the National Center for Education Statistics. To highlight important findings, we have organized the book into five sections. The first section (Chapters 2, 3, and 4) highlights the problem-solving strategies used by principals and superintendents when pressured to turn around low-performing schools. In the second section (Chapters 5 and 6), attention is devoted to ways in which school leaders act as “buffers” by reducing the impact of external demands within their local school contexts. Next, Chapters 7 and 8 explore creative ways in which financial analyses can be used to assess the cost effectiveness of programs and services. Chapters 9 and 10 examine how principals enact their instructional leadership roles in managing curriculum reforms and evaluating teachers. Finally, in the last section (Chapter 11), Kenneth Leithwood synthesizes the major themes and ideas emerging across these chapters, paying particular attention to practical issues influencing school leaders in this era of school reform and accountability as well as promising areas for future research.
Author: Bruce G. Barnett Publisher: IAP ISBN: 1623963842 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 291
Book Description
Our fourth book in the International Research on School Leadership series focuses on school leadership in an era of high stakes accountability. Fueled by sweeping federal education accountability reforms, such as the United States’ No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Race to the Top (R2T) and Australia’s Performance Measurement and Reporting Taskforce, school systems around the world are being forced to increase academic standards, participate in high-stakes testing, and raise evaluation standards for teachers and principals. These results-driven reforms are intended to hold educators “accountable for student learning and accountable to the public” (Anderson, 2005, p. 2, emphasis in original). While policymakers and the public debate the merits of student achievement accountability measures, P-12 educational leaders do not have the luxury to wait for clear guidance and resources to improve their schools and operating systems. Instead, successful leaders must balance the need to create learning communities, manage the organizational climate, and encourage community involvement with the consequences testing has on teacher morale and public scrutiny. The chapters in this volume clearly indicate that as school leaders attend to these potentially competing forces, this affects their problem-solving strategies, ability to facilitate change, and encourage community involvement. We were delighted with the responses from colleagues around the world who were eager to share their research dealing with how leaders are functioning effectively within a high-accountability environment. The nine chapters in this volume provide empirical evidence of the strategies school leaders use to cope with problems and negotiate external demands while improving student performance. In particular, the voices and actions of principals, superintendents, and school board members are captured in a blend of quantitative and qualitative studies. The breadth of studies is impressive, ranging from case studies of individual principals to cross-district comparisons to national data from the National Center for Education Statistics. To highlight important findings, we have organized the book into five sections. The first section (Chapters 2, 3, and 4) highlights the problem-solving strategies used by principals and superintendents when pressured to turn around low-performing schools. In the second section (Chapters 5 and 6), attention is devoted to ways in which school leaders act as “buffers” by reducing the impact of external demands within their local school contexts. Next, Chapters 7 and 8 explore creative ways in which financial analyses can be used to assess the cost effectiveness of programs and services. Chapters 9 and 10 examine how principals enact their instructional leadership roles in managing curriculum reforms and evaluating teachers. Finally, in the last section (Chapter 11), Kenneth Leithwood synthesizes the major themes and ideas emerging across these chapters, paying particular attention to practical issues influencing school leaders in this era of school reform and accountability as well as promising areas for future research.
Author: Zehava Rosenblatt Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1351024086 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 128
Book Description
Accountability and Culture of School Teachers and Principals studies the degree to which teachers and principals in eight countries view themselves as taking responsibility, working by clear standards, reporting transparently, and accepting feedback at work. The book focuses on cultural values that explain variation in accountability levels of school educators, drawing on data from Canada, China, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands, Spain, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. It addresses the question of whether cultural values, specifically collectivism and individualism, are related to teachers’ and principals’ external and internal accountability dispositions. It also explores the intriguing role of organizational support and key school personnel in school reforms across the world, providing a new way to understand school accountability. The book will be of great interest for academics, post-graduate students, and scholars in the field of education policy and international and comparative studies in education.
Author: David Didau Publisher: Hachette UK ISBN: 1913808734 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 258
Book Description
Uncertainty is a fact of life. You can never know enough to make perfect decisions. Understanding this helps us balance an awareness of our tendency towards overconfidence with an acceptance of our own fallibility. The book discusses two opposed models of school improvement: the deficit model (which assumes problems are someone’s fault) and the surplus model (which assumes problems are unintended systemic flaws). By aligning ourselves to a surplus model we can create a system of Intelligent Accountability. The principles that make this possible are trust, accountability and fairness. While we thrive when trusted, unless someone cares about – and is holding us to account – for what we do, we’re unlikely to be our best. Some teachers deserve more trust and require less scrutiny than others, but in order to satisfy the demands of equality we end up treating all teachers as equally untrustworthy. The more we trust teachers, the more autonomy they should be given. To pursue a system of fair inequality we must accept that autonomy must be earned.
Author: Claire Wyatt-Smith Publisher: Springer ISBN: 9811320268 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 340
Book Description
This is the foundational book for the new series, Teacher Education, Learning Innovation and Accountability. The book canvasses research, practice and policy perspectives in teacher education across diverse geographic, social and political contexts. It explores the lifespan of teacher development from initial preparation through to graduate classroom practice as it occurs in an intensifying culture of standards and regulation. The characterization of initial teacher education (ITE) in a crucible of change permeates throughout the book. The chapters open up new ways of thinking about innovation and accountability in ITE and the professionalization of teaching, exploring fundamental questions, such as “Who are the actors in teacher preparation and how do they interact? How can we learn about the quality of teacher education? Where can we hear the voices of teacher educators and preservice teachers, as well as school-based teacher educators? What are the new and emerging roles of others in teacher education who have not been involved previously, including employing authorities?” (p. 22). While the book provides responses to these and other provocative questions, it also offers new insights into innovative teacher education from a wide range of policy and practice contexts.
Author: Anthony Bryk Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation ISBN: 161044096X Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 238
Book Description
Most Americans agree on the necessity of education reform, but there is little consensus about how this goal might be achieved. The rhetoric of standards and vouchers has occupied center stage, polarizing public opinion and affording little room for reflection on the intangible conditions that make for good schools. Trust in Schools engages this debate with a compelling examination of the importance of social relationships in the successful implementation of school reform. Over the course of three years, Bryk and Schneider, together with a diverse team of other researchers and school practitioners, studied reform in twelve Chicago elementary schools. Each school was undergoing extensive reorganization in response to the Chicago School Reform Act of 1988, which called for greater involvement of parents and local community leaders in their neighborhood schools. Drawing on years longitudinal survey and achievement data, as well as in-depth interviews with principals, teachers, parents, and local community leaders, the authors develop a thorough account of how effective social relationships—which they term relational trust—can serve as a prime resource for school improvement. Using case studies of the network of relationships that make up the school community, Bryk and Schneider examine how the myriad social exchanges that make up daily life in a school community generate, or fail to generate, a successful educational environment. The personal dynamics among teachers, students, and their parents, for example, influence whether students regularly attend school and sustain their efforts in the difficult task of learning. In schools characterized by high relational trust, educators were more likely to experiment with new practices and work together with parents to advance improvements. As a result, these schools were also more likely to demonstrate marked gains in student learning. In contrast, schools with weak trust relations saw virtually no improvement in their reading or mathematics scores. Trust in Schools demonstrates convincingly that the quality of social relationships operating in and around schools is central to their functioning, and strongly predicts positive student outcomes. This book offer insights into how trust can be built and sustained in school communities, and identifies some features of public school systems that can impede such development. Bryk and Schneider show how a broad base of trust across a school community can provide a critical resource as education professional and parents embark on major school reforms. A Volume in the American Sociological Association's Rose Series in Sociology
Author: Terrence E. Deal Publisher: John Wiley & Sons ISBN: 1119210194 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 336
Book Description
The most trusted guide to school culture, updated with current challenges and new solutions Shaping School Culture is the classic guide to exceptional school leadership, featuring concrete guidance on influencing the subtle symbolic features of schools that provide meaning, belief, and faith. Written by renowned experts in the area of school culture, this book tackles the increasing challenges facing public schools and provides clear, candid suggestions for more effective symbolic leadership. This new third edition has been revised to reflect the reality of schools today, including the increased emphasis on high-stakes testing, federal reforms such as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), state sponsored improvement programs, and other major issues that impact organizational culture and the role of school leaders. Each chapter features new examples and cases that illustrate persistent problems, spelling out key cultural implications and offering concrete examples of overcoming the challenges while maintaining a meaningful learning environment. The chapter on toxic schools continues to provide the field's most trusted advice on navigating this rocky terrain, and the discussion's focus on how to manage negativity remains especially integral to besieged school administrators across the U.S. Recent years have jolted the nation's school system with a number of new developments that spell problems for the cultural tapestry of schools. This book provides expert perspective and sage, doable advice for administrators tending to external pressures while sustainingor evolvinga more positive school culture. Navigate new challenges including Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and waning confidence and faith Turn around a toxic school culture with confidence and success Foster a culture of passion, purpose, and meaning Adopt a more active form of symbolic leadership to support students, faculty, staff, parents, and community Test scores as the primary metric, relentless reforms, waning public support, and timid initiatives wrapped in bureaucratic packaging: while among the most prominent issues administrators face are only the tip of the iceberg. Shaping School Culture charts a route through competing pressures to help educational leaders hew a positive learning environment for schools.
Author: Richard M. Ingersoll Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 9780674038950 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 370
Book Description
Schools are places of learning but they are also workplaces, and teachers are employees. As such, are teachers more akin to professionals or to factory workers in the amount of control they have over their work? And what difference does it make? Drawing on large national surveys as well as wide-ranging interviews with high school teachers and administrators, Richard Ingersoll reveals the shortcomings in the two opposing viewpoints that dominate thought on this subject: that schools are too decentralized and lack adequate control and accountability; and that schools are too centralized, giving teachers too little autonomy. Both views, he shows, overlook one of the most important parts of teachers' work: schools are not simply organizations engineered to deliver academic instruction to students, as measured by test scores; schools and teachers also play a large part in the social and behavioral development of our children. As a result, both views overlook the power of implicit social controls in schools that are virtually invisible to outsiders but keenly felt by insiders. Given these blind spots, this book demonstrates that reforms from either camp begin with inaccurate premises about how schools work and so are bound not only to fail, but to exacerbate the problems they propose to solve.
Author: Richard Lambert Publisher: IAP ISBN: 1607525232 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 243
Book Description
School districts today face increasing calls for accountability during a time when budgets are stretched and students’ needs have become increasingly complex. The teacher’s responsibility is to educate younger people, but now more than ever, teachers face demands on a variety of fronts. In addition to teaching academic content, schools are responsible for students’ performance on state-wide tests. They are also asked to play an increasingly larger role in children’s well-being, including their nutritional needs and social and emotional welfare. Teachers have shown themselves to be more than capable of taking up such challenges, but what price is paid for the increasing demands we are placing on our schools? Understanding Teacher Stress in an Age of Accountability is about the nature of teachers stress and the resources they can employ to cope with it. Accountability is a two-way street and the authors in this volume suggest remedies for reducing teacher stress and in all likelihood increasing student learning—greater administrative support, more and better instructional materials, specialized resources targeted at demanding children, parental support, and professional recognition. Readers will discover that lack of funding, low pay, concerns about academic performance and student misbehavior, and increased public and governmental scrutiny are not exclusive to the United States. In this volume, the third in a series on Research on Stress and Coping in Education, authors from Australia, Turkey, Malaysia, and the Netherlands sound the same alarms, post the same warnings, and draw similarly disturbing conclusions.
Author: Jo Anne Anderson Publisher: ISBN: 9789280312768 Category : Educational accountability Languages : en Pages : 26
Book Description
This booklet offers a set of principles and strategies to be considered in the development and implementation of results-based accountability systems. Technical and political issues are addressed as well as the ways in which educators, policymakers, and community members can use the information from accountability systems to improve results.
Author: Bruce G. Barnett
Author: Bruce G. Barnett
Author: Zehava Rosenblatt
Author: Robert J. Marzano
Author: David Didau
Author: Claire Wyatt-Smith
Author: Anthony Bryk
Author: Terrence E. Deal
Author: Richard M. Ingersoll
Author: Richard Lambert
Author: Jo Anne Anderson