Demystifying Assessment Leadership

In a climate of accountability, the development of assessment literacy among school professionals has become critical to school success. The provision of assessment leadership is viewed as the means by which such literacy can be enhanced. The writers examine the conditions under which student achievement gains can be realized. Implications of assessment reform for the instructional leadership role are translated into the knowledge, appreciations and skills that can help principals transform assessment leadership expectations into instructional leadership practice.

PARENTS AND COMMUNITY, AND SCHOOL: A GENERAL OVERVIEW

This Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy special issue, “Parent and Community Participation in Educational Improvement,” was inspired by the recognition of the ecological nature of schools; participative approaches to educational improvement, educational policy development, and school decision-making have become commonplace. It is, however, one matter to theoretically and/or philosophically accept parents and the larger community as contributors to educational goals, and rather quite another to enunciate this Zeitgeist of collaboration, partnership, or authentic engagement in mutually beneficial ways. In other words, this special issue is premised on the assumption that an academic exploration of parent and community engagement in education is required to strengthen the discourse beyond an uncontested and romanticized rhetoric of school community

Principals as Assessment Leaders in Rural Schools

This article reports a study of rural school principals’ assessment leadership roles and the impact of rural context on their work. The study involved three focus groups of principals serving small rural schools of varied size and grade configuration in three systems. Principals viewed assessment as a matter of teacher accountability and as a focus for the school professional team. They saw themselves as teachers first, stressing their importance as sources of teacher support, serving a ‘buffer role,’ ameliorating external constraints to effective assessment and learning. Bureaucratic environments and trappings of large-scale assessment were seen to be incompatible with the familial nature of rural professional contexts. Other constraints were the logistical challenges of small student populations, higher instances of multi-graded classrooms, and the absence of grade-alike professional interaction. Conversely, smallness enabled professional interaction and transformational leadership. Finally, the quality of system-level support emerged as a critical catalyst for assessment leadership at the school level