Autumn 2005

Leadership

New challenges for USA

For the first time in history, American school leaders face the challenge of getting all students to standard on State tests. Achieving satisfactory results for many more students calls for changes in leadership styles and strategies. MICHAEL COPLAND and MICHAEL KNAPP report on learning-focused leadership.

Leadership for changing the way things are

MOST OF AMERICA’S current education workforce matriculated into a system of public schools that, over the course of the past 100 years or so, got fairly good at meeting the needs of some students. By and large, the system we inherited was designed to sort and select students through various mechanisms, producing high quality learning for some, or, in privileged communities, even most, and weeding out the rest. Yet in 2005, whether or not one agrees with the politics that have shaped recent education policy, one thing is clear: the imperative to ensure all children learn to high standards is inescapable. As a matter of policy and broad public consensus, merely meeting the needs of some is no longer ‘good enough’ for America’s public schools.

The task educational leaders face is complex and it is not always clear what they should be doing to contribute to learning goals. Even with enough time to focus, many school and district administrators report their time continues to be consumed by matters unrelated to learning improvement. How to make the shift from ‘some kids’ to ‘all kids’?

Three learning agendas

The central task facing educational leaders is to promote and sustain powerful, equitable learning, which entails providing all students, regardless of their backgrounds, the means to master challenging academic content and skills, develop habits of mind for future learning and prepare for fulfilling occupational futures and citizenship in a democracy. In seeking this end, leaders are in a position to nurture three interconnected sets of learning opportunities:

1. Opportunities for student learning.

What students learn in school and their opportunities for learning result from interactions among learners, teachers and content. Powerful and equitable interactions come about as teachers translate challenging content into terms that young people of different backgrounds and abilities can and want to master.

2. Opportunities for professional learning.

Teachers’ and administrators’ learning about their practice comes about in many forms, both formal and informal. Particularly when interacting with other professionals who offer ideas, critique, inspiration and moral support, teachers begin to see their practice differently and visualise how to enhance their students’ learning opportunities.

3. Opportunities for ‘system learning’.

Through inquiry into how a district or school functions and performs, leaders can support what we may call ‘system learning’. This means developing information and insight into the educational system as a whole, along with new policies, practices and structures meant to enhance its performance.

Each learning agenda is related to and can influence the others, as shown over the page in Figure 1. Thus, information about practice can be a major input into professional learning, which in turn reshapes practice, while both are simultaneously substance and result of system learning.

Figure 1.

Areas of strategic leadership action

Leading for learning means creating powerful, equitable learning opportunities for students, professionals and the system; and motivating or compelling participants to take advantage of these opportunities. Our research and dialogue with practitioners suggests that leaders can accomplish this by taking action in five areas that, together, make it more likely that all students will be offered a powerful and equitable education.

1. Establish a focus on learning.

A persistent, public focus on learning often develops through deliberation, driven by local concerns about student performance. In this process, leaders articulate a focus by invoking commitment to core values, drawing attention to (and interpreting) data, showcasing successful learning and teaching, and turning external pressures into local initiatives that spotlight student learning.

2. Build professional communities that value learning.

In schools and districts devoted to improving learning, leaders have built work cultures in which learning opportunities and mutual accountability for improving instruction prevail. Professional norms promote collaboration, knowledge sharing and collective responsibility for improving teaching and learning.

3. Engage external environments that matter for learning.

Leading for learning means interacting with the local community and more extended environments in ways that define and create opportunities for learning improvement. Leaders who do this work well engage with multiple environments that are made up of different constituent groups. They reach out to families and community members. They interact with professional organisations that protect and support teachers, staff and others. They also seek to engage with and influence larger policy environments which promulgate State reform policies, federal programs and policies, regulations and requirements.

4. Act strategically and share leadership.

Learning-focused leaders manage school and district programs and functions by linking these to a well-articulated, overall learning agenda. Such leaders rise above the fray of daily demands and crises of the moment to develop and implement strategies for creating learning improvement. Figure 2 highlights a range of pathways to student, professional or system learning that can promote educational improvement. Some pathways focus on content and how it is assessed; others concentrate on students or staff; and still others on workplace conditions or structures affecting teachers’ work. In the process of working along various pathways, leaders help others assume and exercise leadership from different positions at both school and district levels.

5. Create coherence.

Critical to learning-focused leadership is finding ways to develop a sense of clarity and coherent support for the improvement of instruction. When leaders stimulate and guide activity along multiple pathways, two questions arise: How well are the activities linked to one another? How effectively do they connect student, professional and system learning?

Coherence means more than aligning learning improvement activities. It also involves developing consensus for carrying out improvement activities, linking those activities to a compelling vision that emphasises powerful, equitable student learning and allocating resources to the activities. The broader the span of activities and people involved, the more difficult it may be for leaders to achieve coherence.

Figure 2.

Moving toward learning-focused leadership

Aspects of the framework introduced above point leaders towards promising possibilities, and suggest routes and strategies for realising them. For the many districts and schools that have not yet developed the kinds of leadership described above, the ideas within this framework offer perspectives and tools to focus the work and help educators visualise powerful, equitable student learning, along with professional and system learning. The framework underscores the central need for a persistent public focus on learning, and for professional communities that share those values. It prompts a hard and careful look at internal conditions and external environments, and points to places where leaders might search for solutions appropriate to their local settings. Ultimately, however, it is the work of motivated leaders that will advance educational systems towards powerful and equitable education.

References

Copland, M, Knapp, M, Talbert, J (2003). Leading for Learning: Reflective Tools for School and District Leaders, University of Washington, Center for Teaching and Policy, Seattle.

Knapp, M et al (2003). Leading for Learning Sourcebook: Concepts & Examples, University of Washington, Center for Teaching and Policy, Seattle.

Michael Knapp (left) is professor, and Michael Copland is assistant professor, in Educational Leadership & Policy Studies at the College of Education, University of Washington, Seattle.

The author owns the copyright in this article. For information related to the reuse of this work in any form please contact the publisher denise.quinn@curriculum.edu.au