Instructional leadership: theories, practices, and school effectiveness

Instructional Leadership

What did the author say?

Halverson, Grigg, Prichett & Thomas (2005) propose in their article, presented before the National Council of Professors Educational Administration, a new analytic framework for understanding instructional leadership. The authors propose that educational leadership is a dynamic process, one that cannot be manipulated through one answer alone. Rather, the authors propose that education is as dynamic as the world itself. Students are diverse. They require complex systems because they are complex systems. The authors consider how leaders in the educational system work with teachers to build data-driven instructional systems or DDIS; they do this as proposed by the authors, by creating programs that use existing school functions and activities. In doing so, information flow is promoted throughout the school.

What does the author mean?

The authors suggest that the flow of information is vital to student achievement. In the past random acts were used to measure student achievement including "ceaseless scrutinizing of tests, quizzes and writing samples." These were used to evaluate what students did not know. A better approach however, may be to assess what children do know. Many schools are beginning to understand what factors are more critical to analyze including attendance, how valuable small class size is, and the value of community outreach programs. Community outreach programs are invaluable to schools. As the authors point out, data-drive leadership is a new approach that doesn't require simply the use of data; rather it is a "challenge for leaders to reshape central practices and cultures in school, to act intentionally to new kinds of problems."

This can only be accomplished when an efficient data flow system is established and facilitated within an educational system. When this system is in place, a school or community of schools can act not simply internally, but also externally. Then, educational facilities also become parts of the community, and instructional practices become embedded into communities where they become accountable to their communities. Ideally this can be a system that leaders and educators can access to acquire information about students, achievements, gaps in learning and other factors that are essential to the well-being of growth and achievement. A data system is something educational leaders should feel comfortable making public to the community at large. Leaders must work in collaboration with student educators to facilitate this process. Typically implementation of a data flow system will require a "system" or in this article a six-step "cycle" that involves the acquisition of a data management system, alignment of the system with the old data management system, feedback and testing of the system to see how well information flows within the educational community.

How does this information contribute to your understanding of instructional leadership?

Instructional leadership has as much to do with growth, change, and technology as it does with personalization of education toward student goals, skills, abilities and learning styles. In the past, the principal was considered the instructional leader; everyone was to model their example from the principal. Today, everyone has a chance to be instructional leaders, as everyone can learn from everyone. The principal can still "manage" the system, but that doesn't mean that sole instructional leadership is the responsibility of the principal alone. There is more to a community than simply the principal leader. Owens (2001) notes that in the clamor for school reform there is a great need for school leaders to understand what is known about the organization and organizational behavior.. Leaders including principals and their administrators have to understand what the political realities are in their community, and those centered on their work, experience and their personal views with relationship to the organization they work for. While they may disagree with some of the principals of instructional leadership, they still need to examine assumptions, beliefs, and behaviors in their school to bring about change and improvement. Learning educators and leaders have to take into consideration the flow of knowledge into their specific learning institution. This knowledge may complement the knowledge of other learning educational institutions throughout the community.

This feat has traditionally been accomplished through paper collection and files, and traditional simple computer services. However, just as corporations use complex data management systems, so too should educational facilities manage the flow of knowledge in their facilities, so students, teachers and administrators can best use the resources they already have on hand to serve students. Educational and instructional leadership can benefit many ways by doing this, even in the way of conserving resources and saving in the way of budgetary resources.

This article showed that there is no one "primary reason, silver bullet" or magic answer to explain gains in instructional leadership or programming. Rather, it is the combination of factors that result in "broad improvements" in student achievement and learning. This is a critical fact; it is critical that leaders understand that there are many factors built into the educational system that when, designed to work together will help develop complex and effect instructional systems. A data collection system can help analyze these factors so that education can work together and develop the best possible systems from which to develop effective students (Barth, 1991).