The leadership challenge: improving learning in schools

Building communities of professional learners is the key to meeting Australia’s school leadership challenge, according to this review of research. This report argues that the task of leading a school is now too complex and demanding a job for one person, and that improving schooling over time requires the enhanced capacity, not just of one person, but of many. Advances in science and technology, changes in demography, increased globalisation and pressures on the environment are causing education organisations to broaden and personalise curriculum and to rethink school structures and the role of the principal within them. The report calls for more research and policy attention to be given to the career paths of school principals in order to meet the challenge of identifying and developing the next generation of school leaders

Leadership for improving the quality of secondary education: Some international developments

Internationally, this is a “golden age” of school but it is taking place in the face of tremendous pressure for schools to be more publicly accountable. This mix of leadership and accountability has created a very new working context for both teachers and school leaders. There is a clear need to better understand the consequences of that context for the work of secondary school leaders. To help with this understanding, this paper identifies some of the international developments in that context in education and school leadership. It first focuses on work emanating from the OECD and then moves to recent developments in UK and Australia. All start at the broadest level by questioning what kind of education best serves society now and in the future. They then move to the question of how the education system is best organised in order to met the new demands, especially in terms of its governance and leadership. Three clear areas are identified from this work that involve a broadening of what counts for good schooling, governance and school leadership. A second focus on recent reviews of research on school leadership effects on student learning finds them consistent with these international and national developments, as well as suggesting directions forward for effective secondary school leadership

Successful School Leadership for Improved Student Outcomes: Capacity Building and Synergy

The research reported in this article builds on work commenced eight years ago with reviewing the literature and models of successful school leadership for improved student outcomes. When the findings of this review were combined with the results from case studies of successful schools it resulted in a preliminary model of successful school principalship. We examined a range of areas using further analysis of the case study data, detailed analysis of the subsequent quantitative surveys (developed in part from the preliminary model) and actual school literacy and numeracy results. We also included a measure of teacher perceptions of student social development. This inclusion is consistent with evidence that social skills have become many times more important in determining students' relative life chances in the 21 st Century than cognitive outcomes alone. The final part of our research used model building and powerful multi-level statistical analyses of the survey data. In this way, we examined all the factors that may influence a school’s success with student outcomes. Model building allowed us to construct inherently logical and theoretically defensible representations of the “world” in which successful schools exist, and the models can be statistically tested to see how well these representations explain the reality portrayed by the data collected.

Quality Australian evidence on leadership for improved learning

Where do those in schools start sorting the wheat from the chaff, genuine growth potions offering long-term improvement from the elixirs, shortterm opportunism and/or unrealistic expectations? The current and growing emphasis on evidence informed policy and practice is as good a place as any. The purpose of this paper is to take up the issues of the complexity and predictive validity of evidence, the need for evidence to be complex enough to come close to the reality faced by Australian schools and evidence that seeks to link leadership and student outcomes. Arising from detailed qualitative and quantitative research, two models are presented for consideration that better reflect this complexity and predictive validity than previous work in the field

Liderazgo para mejorar la calidad de la educación secundaria: Algunos desarrollos internacionales

Internacionalmente, es ésta una “edad de oro” de la escuela, pero está ocurriendo en un ambiente de tremenda presión para que las escuelas rindan cuentas más públicamente. Esta mezcla de liderazgo y responsabilidad ha creado un contexto de trabajo muy nuevo para los profesores y líderes escolares. Hay una clara necesidad de entender mejor las consecuencias de este contexto para el trabajo de los líderes en la escuela secundaria. Para ayudar a entenderlo, este artículo identifica algunas de las novedades internacionales en ese contexto de la educación y liderazgo en la escuela. Primero se centra en trabajos que emanan de la OCDE y, luego, incluye novedades recientes en el Reino Unido y Australia. Empieza en un nivel general preguntando que tipo de educación sirve mejor a la sociedad ahora y en el futuro. Después se examina la cuestión de cómo organizar mejor el sistema educativo para poder cumplir con las nuevas exigencias, sobre todo en términos de su gobierno y liderazgo. Se identifican claramente tres áreas en este trabajo que tienen que ver con una ampliación de lo que se considera una buena enseñanza, un buen gobierno y un buen liderazgo en la escuela. Un segundo enfoque sobre revisiones recientes de la investigación sobre los efectos del liderazgo escolar en el aprendizaje del alumno encuentra que coinciden con estos desarrollos internacionales y nacionales. También sugieren futuras directrices para un liderazgo eficaz en los centros escolares de Secundaria

Successful School Leadership for Improved Student Outcomes: Capacity Building and Synergy

The research reported in this article builds on work commenced eight years ago with reviewing the literature and models of successful school leadership for improved student outcomes. When the findings of this review were combined with the results from case studies of successful schools it resulted in a preliminary model of successful school principalship. We examined a range of areas using further analysis of the case study data, detailed analysis of the subsequent quantitative surveys (developed in part from the preliminary model) and actual school literacy and numeracy results. We also included a measure of teacher perceptions of student social development. This inclusion is consistent with evidence that social skills have become many times more important in determining students' relative life chances in the 21 st Century than cognitive outcomes alone. The final part of our research used model building and powerful multi-level statistical analyses of the survey data. In this way, we examined all the factors that may influence a school’s success with student outcomes. Model building allowed us to construct inherently logical and theoretically defensible representations of the “world” in which successful schools exist, and the models can be statistically tested to see how well these representations explain the reality portrayed by the data collected.

Leadership for improving the quality of secondary education: some international developments

Internacionalmente, es ésta una “edad de oro” de la escuela, pero está ocurriendo en un ambiente de tremenda presión para que las escuelas rindan cuentas más públicamente. Esta mezcla de liderazgo y responsabilidad ha creado un contexto de trabajo muy nuevo para los profesores y líderes escolares. Hay una clara necesidad de entender mejor las consecuencias de este contexto para el trabajo de los líderes en la escuela secundaria. Para ayudar a entenderlo, este artículo identifica algunas de las novedades internacionales en ese contexto de la educación y liderazgo en la escuela. Primero se centra en trabajos que emanan de la OCDE y, luego, incluye novedades recientes en el Reino Unido y Australia. Empieza en un nivel general preguntando que tipo de educación sirve mejor a la sociedad ahora y en el futuro. Después se examina la cuestión de cómo organizar mejor el sistema educativo para poder cumplir con las nuevas exigencias, sobre todo en términos de su gobierno y liderazgo. Se identifican claramente tres áreas en este trabajo que tienen que ver con una ampliación de lo que se considera una buena enseñanza, un buen gobierno y un buen liderazgo en la escuela. Un segundo enfoque sobre revisiones recientes de la investigación sobre los efectos del liderazgo escolar en el aprendizaje del alumno encuentra que coinciden con estos desarrollos internacionales y nacionales. También sugieren futuras directrices para un liderazgo eficaz en los centros escolares de Secundaria.Internationally, this is a “golden age” of school but it is taking place in the face of tremendous pressure for schools to be more publicly accountable. This mix of leadership and accountability has created a very new working context for both teachers and school leaders. There is a clear need to better understand the consequences of that context for the work of secondary school leaders. To help with this understanding, this paper identifies some of the international developments in that context in education and school leadership. It first focuses on work emanating from the OECD and then moves to recent developments in UK and Australia. All start at the broadest level by questioning what kind of education best serves society now and in the future. They then move to the question of how the education system is best organised in order to met the new demands, especially in terms of its governance and leadership. Three clear areas are identified from this work that involve a broadening of what counts for good schooling, governance and school leadership. A second focus on recent reviews of research on school leadership effects on student learning finds them consistent with these international and national developments, as well as suggesting directions forward for effective secondary school leadership.Grupo de Investigación FORCE (Formación Centrada en la Escuela). Universidad de Granad

OECD improving school leadership activity: Australia country background report

Prepared for the Australian Government by the Australian Council for Educational Research in 2006 and released in January 2008, this report provides information on school leadership in Australia, including school governance, the links between leadership and learning outcomes, the attractiveness of the leadership role, and training and professional development for school leaders. The report helped inform the OECD\u27s International Comparative Report on school leadership, due for release in April 2008

Politics and school education in Australia: a case of shifting purposes

Purpose – The paper aims to argue that there has been a privileging of the private (social mobility) and economic (social efficiency) purposes of schooling at the expense of the public (democratic equality) purposes of schooling. Design/methodology/approach – The paper employs a literature review, policy and document analysis. Findings – Since the late 1980s, the schooling agenda in Australia has been narrowed to one that gives primacy to purposes of schooling that highlight economic orientations (social efficiency) and private purposes (social mobility). Practical implications – The findings have wider relevance beyond Australia, as similar policy agendas are evident in many other countries raising the question as to how the shift in purposes of education in those countries might mirror those in Australia. Originality/value – While earlier writers have examined schooling policies in Australia and noted the implications of managerialism in relation to these policies, no study has analysed these policies from the perspective of the purposes of schooling. Conceptualising schooling, and its purposes in particular, in this way refocuses attention on how societies use their educational systems to promote (or otherwise) the public good