THE Schools are social institutions
that play an important role in
what is arguably the most
complex responsibility of society:the healthy development of
children. The people who lead
schools must have a deep
understanding of the many
dimensions of this task, yet the
challenges fall within the general
category of crafting and carrying
out agreements among many
stakeholders. Some of these
agreements have long timelines
and reach into the heart of the
enterprise. The bulk of the
agreements, however, are short,
temporary arrangements that get
the various stakeholders–
students, teachers, parents,
policy makers –from one step in
the process to the next. Effective
schools are places in which these
agreements are fashioned and
honored successfully. Effective
educational leaders are people
who make that happen.
In the USA, the
responsibility for public schools
falls within the jurisdiction of the
states, but from an operational
perspective schools are the
business of local government.
The authority of principals and
superintendents derives from
that basic structure, and
educational leadership is
traditionally associated with the
people in those positions.
Accordingly, principals and
superintendents are the parties
most responsible for crafting the
essential agreements upon
which schools either succeed or
fail.
The role of these leaders has
evolved as society has changed
and as schools have been asked
to take on responsibilities that
far exceed the basic literacy and
numeracy skills that were
expected in the early days ofAmerican public schools. As
communities grew and schools
increased in size beyond the
point where a single teacher
could meet the needs of all
pupils, and as the amount of
schooling required of all children
increased, the position of
principal –a term that literally
implies the first teacher–or
headmaster was created to
provide instructional leadership
to ensure coordination among
the teachers. When the
continuing growth of
communities forced them to
create multiple schools, the
superintendent position was
created to coordinate the system
within those schools operated.
Beginning in the early 1960s
with the advent of
comprehensive high schools and
consolidated school districts, and
eventually in response to
increased demands placed upon
schools by the states and the
federal government, there was
dramatic growth in the number
of other administrative positions
in the district's central office.
These school leaders are more
specialized, working, for
example, in a single area such as
finance or curriculum.
School administration also
became differentiated through
positions associated with
content-area specialists and, in
some cases, basic assistance for
the principal. During the last
decades of the twentieth century,
there was steady growth in the
number of educators working in
districts who did not participate
directly in the instruction of
students. Pressures throughout
the schools and districts,
including the supervision of
these new administrators, and
the steady flow of multiple
mandates from state and federal
government, began to erode the
opportunity principals and
superintendents once had to
provide real leadership.
In the late 1990s, another notion
about educational leadership
arose. Recognizing the value of
distributing leadership
responsibility to those people
who were closest to student
learning, some educators began
to talk about the need for
teacher leadership. The concept
was unusual in a system that
associates leaders with people
who have specific titles. Also, the
idea that teachers might be
expected to provide leadership
for their peers, their schools, and
their profession while remaining
in the primary role as teacher
was a radical departure from the
norm.
A Challenging Environment
The basic context in which
schools operate makes
leadership difficult. Everyone, it
seems, has a vested interest in
schools. Each of the nation's
chief executives has regularly
tried to identify himself as the
"Education President." Governors
make similar assertions, and
states have a chief school officer,
either appointed or elected, who
is surrounded by an
administrative staff to oversee
the proper operation of schools.
Money, and who provides that
money, gives another road map
to lines of authority, and for all
but the nation's poorest schools,
the combined contributions of
state and federal dollars do not
equal the dollars provided by
local government and local
taxpayers. That balance leads to a
large amount of authority vested
in school boards, typically elected
officials, who run for these
offices for a variety of reasons, or
appointed people who have their
own allegiances.
Thrown into this mix are teacher
unions, connected with powerful
national associations, and other
unions serving the needs of
support staff. Anyone trying to
lead a public school cannot take
lightly the contract a district has
with a bus company, for
example, or with the
maintenance staff who have
control of very basic parts of the
operation. This list of interested
parties is far from complete, and
the challenges of leadership have
outpaced the profession's
capacity to recruit, prepare, and
sustain those who take on that
responsibility.
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