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Schools are social institutions that play an important role in what is arguably the most complex responsibility of society: the healthy development of children. The people who lead schools must have a deep understanding of the many dimensions of this task, yet the challenges fall within the general category of crafting and carrying out agreements among many stakeholders. Some of these agreements have long timelines and reach into the heart of the enterprise. The bulk of the agreements, however, are short, temporary arrangements that get the various stakeholders–students, teachers, parents, policy makers–from one step in the process to the next. Effective schools are places in which these agreements are fashioned and honored successfully. Effective educational leaders are people who make that happen.
In the United States, the responsibility for public schools falls within the jurisdiction of the states, but from an operational perspective schools are the business of local government. The authority of principals and superintendents derives from that basic structure, and educational leadership is traditionally associated with the people in those positions. Accordingly, principals and superintendents are the parties most responsible for crafting the essential agreements upon which schools either succeed or fail.
The role of these leaders has evolved as society has changed and as schools have been asked to take on responsibilities that far exceed the basic literacy and numeracy skills that were expected in the early days of American public schools. As communities grew and schools increased in size beyond the point where a single teacher could meet the needs of all pupils, and as the amount of schooling required of all children increased, the position of principal–a term that literally implies the first teacher–or headmaster was created to provide instructional leadership to ensure coordination among the teachers. When the continuing growth of communities forced them to create multiple schools, the superintendent position was created to coordinate the system within those schools operated.
Beginning in the early 1960s with the advent of comprehensive high schools and consolidated school districts, and eventually in response to increased demands placed upon schools by the states and the federal government, there was dramatic growth in the number of other administrative positions in the district's central office. These school leaders are more specialized, working, for example, in a single area such as finance or curriculum.
School administration also became differentiated through positions associated with content-area specialists and, in some cases, basic assistance for the principal. During the last decades of the twentieth century, there was steady growth in the number of educators working in districts who did not participate directly in the instruction of students. Pressures throughout the schools and districts, including the supervision of these new administrators, and the steady flow of multiple mandates from state and federal government, began to erode the opportunity principals and superintendents once had to provide real leadership.
In the late 1990s, another notion about educational leadership arose. Recognizing the value of distributing leadership responsibility to those people who were closest to student learning, some educators began to talk about the need for teacher leadership. The concept was unusual in a system that associates leaders with people who have specific titles. Also, the idea that teachers might be expected to provide leadership for their peers, their schools, and their profession while remaining in the primary role as teacher was a radical departure from the norm.
A Challenging Environment
The basic context in which schools operate makes leadership difficult. Everyone, it seems, has a vested interest in schools. Each of the nation's chief executives has regularly tried to identify himself as the "Education President." Governors make similar assertions, and states have a chief school officer, either appointed or elected, who is surrounded by an administrative staff to oversee the proper operation of schools. Money, and who provides that money, gives another road map to lines of authority, and for all but the nation's poorest schools, the combined contributions of state and federal dollars do not equal the dollars provided by local government and local taxpayers. That balance leads to a large amount of authority vested in school boards, typically elected officials, who run for these offices for a variety of reasons, or appointed people who have their own allegiances.
Thrown into this mix are teacher unions, connected with powerful national associations, and other unions serving the needs of support staff. Anyone trying to lead a public school cannot take lightly the contract a district has with a bus company, for example, or with the maintenance staff who have control of very basic parts of the operation. This list of interested parties is far from complete, and the challenges of leadership have outpaced the profession's capacity to recruit, prepare, and sustain those who take on that responsibility.
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