Developing Leaders for Democratic Schools

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Developing Leaders for Democratic Schools

• Tony Bush
• University of Warwick

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Introduction

• Global interest in school leadership
• Schools require effective leaders
• Reform changes the demands on leaders
• Shift to democracy from centralised systems
• The Soviet period could be characterised as
  extremely centralised, totalitarian and
  over-politicised (Berzina 2003 159).

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Democratic Schools

• Two main dimensions
• Devolution to school level of powers held by the
  external bureaucracy
• Allocation of powers within the school to
  leaders, teachers and lay people
• Democratic schools need more than competent
  administration interpersonal skills and
  leadership of learning.

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Developing Leaders for Democratic Schools
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The Case for Leadership Development

• High quality leadership is vital to improve
  schools
• Second in importance to classroom teaching (5-7)
• Talented leadership required to enhance learning
• Principals are more than just head teachers and
  need specialised preparation
• Eastern Europe requirements for new heads
  teaching diploma, teaching experience and
  Communist party membership (Berzina 2003)

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Why heads need specialised training

• The principals role has expanded
  accountability and devolution
• Complexity of school contexts globalisation and
  technological change
• A moral obligation to train leaders
• Leadership preparation makes a difference
• Professional and organisational socialisation

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Developing Leaders for Democratic Schools

• South African School City

• South African School Township

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The content of leadership development

• International curriculum (Bush/Jackson 2002)
• Leadership of learning/curriculum
• Managing people
• Managing resources
• Legal and policy framework
• Managing links with parents the community
• Knowledge for understanding (Bolam 1999)

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Leadership development processes

• Shift from what leaders know to what they can do
• Individualised learning
• Facilitation
• Mentoring
• Coaching
• Group learning
• Action learning
• Networking

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Designing leadership development

• Four dimensions require consideration
• The learning environment (where to learn?)
• Learning styles (adult learning is different)
• Learning approaches (active not passive)
• Learning support (matching)
• (Bush, Glover and Harris 2007)
• Avoid passive and sterile knowledge acquisition
  (Bjork and Murphy 2005)

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Developing Leaders for Democratic Schools
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The impact of leadership development

• Individual leaders or school development?
• Succession planning or individual needs?
• Standards-based or holistic development?
• Content-led or based around processes?
• Aiming at a specific repertoire of practices?
• Campus-based or school-based?
• Aiming at equity and diversity?

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Developing Leaders for Democratic Schools

• Mexican School

• One on One

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Evaluating impact

• Two main limitations of most evaluations
• Based on self-reported evidence, rather than the
  views of the participants role set.
• Usually short-term, before school impact can be
  assessed.
• The impact of leadership is indirect, making it
  difficult to assess.

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Leadership for democratic schools

• Many stakeholders, not singular accountability
• Need to share power and to delegate (distributed
  leadership)
• Latvian courses do not always correspond to the
  contemporary needs of school direktors (Berzina
  2003 161).

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Developing Leaders for Democratic Schools
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Model of stakeholder involvement

• Basic based on local or national hierarchy
• Intermediate based on principals judgement
• Advanced based on teachers collective views
• Comprehensive based on collective views of all
  stakeholders
• What stage have you reached?