Instructional Leadership Role Research Articles

Superintendents’ and School Board Presidents’ Perceptions of the Purposes, Strengths and Weaknesses of Formal Superintendent Evaluations

The purpose of the present study was to determine superintendents’ and school board presidents’ perceptions of the purposes, strengths and weaknesses of formal superintendent evaluations, and the importance they attach to various superintendent functions. The superintendents and school board presidents who served as the subjects of this study were randomly selected from over one-third of the school districts of New York State. The findings indicated that, in general, the superintendents and school board presidents’ perceptions of the major purposes, the strengths and weaknesses of formal superintendent evaluation as well as the importance they attach to various superintendent functions were quite similar. However, there were a few notable exceptions. While almost two-thirds of the school board presidents indicated that improving the instructional leadership role of the superintendent was a major purpose of superintendent evaluation, only about one-eighth of the superintendents shared that view, and while only 16% of the school board presidents indicated that a major weakness of formal evaluation procedures for superintendents was that they require evaluation skills most board members do not possess, fully 43% of the superintendents saw this as a major weakness.

Research Handbook Helps Principals Define Social Studies

Principals who are conscious of their instructional leader ship role in the school and classroom will find vital direc tion from a new handbook of social studies research.

Principal Instructional Leadership and School Achievement: The Application of Discriminant Techniques

ABSTRACT The instructional leadership role of the principal has received much attention in the literature. The present study draws upon emerging research and explores the basis for predicting school academic achievement from the instructional leadership behavior of principals. A model of instructional leadership was examined to determine its predictive power in correctly identifying high‐ and low‐achieving elementary and high schools in two distinct cultural contexts. A total of 265 teachers and principals from California and the Marshall Islands participated in the study. The results indicate that school academic achievement can be predicted from a knowledge of principal instructional leadership behaviors. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.

Why Not a PrincipalTeacher?

In over thirty years as a high school English teacher, department chairman, and college English professor, I have found that this shift in role-which, unfortunately, has been fostered over the years by administrators and education professors-has been detrimental to the teaching staff, and to students as well. school principal is critical in setting the proper educational tone in the school, something that can be accomplished only by a principal teacher, not a principal manager. This may seem like a minor problem in the midst of other educational ills, but it is not. More than fifteen years ago, Ben Harris, in Supervisory Behavior in Education, stated that the primary function of the principal, as the instructional leader of the school, is to provide a learning experience for students. Harris acknowledged, however, that in reality principals do not devote much time to the improvement of instruction. This view was reiterated in a recent edition of the National Association of Secondary School Principals Bulletin, The Principal as Instructional Leader. contributors concluded that although principals do provide some instructional leadership, they do it primarily through observations and evaluations, rapport with the staff, and conferences. Harold McNally's earlier findings in the 1974 National Elementary Principals' Chautauqua Series (cited in Palaniuk 1987) were even more negative. He found that principals do not exercise instructional leadership to any significant degree, although it is widely agreed that this is their most important responsibility. Many administrators today have dropped the teacher portion from the original designation of their duties. There can be little doubt that the strong and important instructional leadership role is frequently set aside by the principal because of the immediacy and pressure of

Instructional Leadership: Focus On Curriculum Responsibilities

Insufficient attention has been devoted to the curricular dimen sions of the instructional leader ship role of principals. Principals must attend to eight curricular issues as they manage the teach ing-learning process.

The Principal as Mentor, Partner of Assistant Principals

Most assistant principals aspire to the principalship. Principals play an important role in helping assistant principals attain that goal by sharing the instructional leadership role with them and working side-by-side with them in every aspect of school administration.

Expanding Instructional Leadership Through the Department Chair

Here's how one school district has attempted to expand the instructional leadership role in its secondary schools through the selection and training of a group of department coordina tors. Since no such position had previously existed, it was an opportunity to define and develop this new role based on the research on instructional leadership and school culture.

The Social Context of Effective Schools

This article analyzes differences in the operation of school effectiveness factors in high- and low-SES effective schools. Observable differences are found on several effectiveness variables. The social context of the effective schools appears to influence the breadth of the curriculum, the allocation and use of instructional time, the instructional leadership role of the principal, the nature of the school reward system, and the type of expectations embedded in school policies and practices. These findings, though tentative, indicate that practitioners should not treat the well-publicized effectiveness factors as generalizable to all school settings. In addition, the results suggest that researchers concerned with understanding the process of effective schooling should focus on the manner in which these schools translate contextual expectations into school policies and classroom practices.

How Can Principals Improve Their Instructional Leadership?

Study after study has affirmed the role of the principal as instruc tional leader. Principals, however, question how they can best exercise that leadership. A principal himself, the author con ceptualizes here the role of instructional leadership and then describes how to fulfill the role.

THE SUPERINTENDENT AS INSTRUCTIONAL LEADER: FINDINGS FROM EFFECTIVE SCHOOL DISTRICTS

The study reported on in this article examines how instructional leadership is exercised by superintendents in effective school districts. We employ concepts drawn from school effectiveness studies and from organizational literature on coordination and control in an attempt to understand how superintendents organize and manage instruction and curriculum in these effective districts. Specific instructional management practices are examined within a framework of six major functions, setting goals and establishing expectations and standards, selecting staff, supervising and evaluating staff, establishing an instructional and curricular focus, ensuring consistency in technical core operations, and monitoring curriculum and instruction. Based on interviews with superintendents from 12 of the most instructionally effective school districts in California and analysis of selected district documents, we present descriptions of district‐level policies and practices that these superintendents use to coordinate and control the instructional management activities of their principals. Similarities and differences in the patterns of control and coordination found in these districts are highlighted. The implications of the findings are then examined in light of recent findings regarding coupling and linkages in schools. The results of this study suggest that superintendents in instructionally effective school districts are more active “instructional managers” than previous descriptions of superintendents would have led us to expect. In particular, coordination and control of the technical core appears more systematic in these districts. The results do not, however, provide a uniform picture of how instruction is coordinated and controlled. A wide range of both culture building activities and bureaucratic policies and practices were emphasized by the superintendents in this study as they exercised their instructional leadership roles.

The Curriculum Council: One Way To Develop the Instructional Leadership Role

Principals can use the curriculum council to develop the pro fessional management function and establish a position of edu cational leadership within their schools.