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Improving School Leadership Second Workshop of
Participating Countries Brussels, 1 February, 2007
Session A School Governance and Leadership
Prof. Michael Schratz University of Innsbruck,
Austria
 

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FRAMEWORK FOR LEADERSHIP PRACTICES

• Agency
• Transformational leadership practices are
  necessary for a successful school leader.
  (Southworth, 1998, Leithwood et al., 1999)
• Evidence from many schools varying in
• - size
• - location
• - level

2) Structure Implications of accountability-drive
n policy context for school leaders
 

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GOVERNANCE is a useful concept not least
because it is sufficiently vague and inclusive
that it can be thought to embrace a variety of
different approaches and theories, some of which
are even mutually contradictory. (Pierre
Peters, 2000, p. 37)
 

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APPROACHES TO ACCOUNTABILITY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR
SCHOOL GOVERNANCE AND LEADERSHIP (Leithwood, 2001)

• Market approaches
• Decentralization approaches
• Professional approaches
• Management approaches

 

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APPROACHES TO ACCOUNTABILITY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR
SCHOOL GOVERNANCE AND LEADERSHIP (Austria)

• Reform initiatives are eclectic
• causes overload problem by piling policies upon
  policies
• results in sense of confusion and uncertainty
• ? leads to de-energizing effects of fragmentation
• creates leadership dilemmas
• school heads are pulled in different directions
  simultaneously

 

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APPROACHES TO ACCOUNTABILITY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR
SCHOOL GOVERNANCE AND LEADERSHIP (Austria)

• 4 principles for future policy development
  (Future Commisssion)
• systematic quality management (teacher school
  policy)
• more autonomy and more responsibility
• ? improvement of the teacher profession
• more research and development and better support
  systems

? Good governance
 

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Bildungspolitik/Öffentlichkeit
Nationaler Bildungsbericht
Qualifizierung und Entwicklung
Diagnose und Monitoring
Vernetzung und Policy Analysis
BMBWK - IQS
Nationales System
Systemmonitoring
Bildungsstatistik
Fokussierte Evaluation
Nationale Entwicklungsprojekte
Vorgabe Vergleichsdaten
Regionaler Bildungsplanaggreg. Daten
Schulaufsicht
Region/Land
Metaevaluation
Regionaler Bildungsplan
Krisenintervention
Selbstevaluation
Aggregierte Daten
Referenzdaten, Standards, Instrumente
Regionaler Bildungsplan
Schulprogrammaggreg. Daten
Schulleitung / SGA
Schule
Schulprogramm
Personalentwicklung
Benchmarking
Selbstevaluation
aggreg. DatenBerichte
Vorgaben Vergleichsdaten Schulprogramm
Lehrer/innen
Lehrer/Unterricht
Leistungsbeurteilung
Leistungsrückmeldungen
Individualfeedback
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SCHOOL GOVERNANCE MODELS (Examples)

• Bureaucratic Model (Austria, Germany)
• Local Empowerment Model (Finland, Sweden)
• School Empowerment Model (UK, Netherlands)

 

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SCHOOL GOVERNANCE AND LEADERSHIP
Distribution of school leadership

• Making use of collective leadership capacities of
  schools
• Austria
• flat hierarchical structure
• ? strong focus on one (wo)man as a leader
  (school head)
• ? leadership is not shared by many people
  (steering groups etc.)
• restricted autonomy in finances and resource
  allocation
• ? few possibilities to use financial
  incentives
• ? flow of resources through regional or
  national level (in-service,
  etc.)
• restricted curricular autonomy
• ? little attraction for leadership in
  curriculum development
• restricted personnel autonomy
• ? difficulty to empower for
  collective action

 

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Reform areas for school governance and
consequences for leadership (Austria)

• disentangle the complex decision-making
  structure (fewer levels)
• move towards more local empowerment or school
  empowerment models
• ? create more autonomy in curricular, personnel,
  financial issues
• clarify overall aims (standards) and create
  congruency of tasks, competences and
  responsibility on all levels
• balance internal and external evaluation
  systems
• specify the role of school inspectors
• intensify qualification of school heads (?
  Leadership Academy)

 

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Basic responsibility of school leaders

• Improve education for students in their own
  schools
• Serving the best interests of their students
• How can this be done?
• Little research evidence (challenge to follow
  the chain of effects)

 

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SUB-SYSTEMS
RESULT LEVEL
SYSTEMSLEVEL
ACTIONLEVEL
INTERACTION LEVEL
competencedevelop-ment
motivation/ experience
classteams
recognition
people
goalorientation
clearvision
yearcohorts
awarenessof self
planning
Leadership impacts on
individualencourage-ment
reflection/ anticip-ation
gain ofinsight
culture
subjectteams
celebratingachieve-ment
hetero-geneousgrouping
learningbydoing
structure
variable cooperation
Awareness of the effects in taking goal-oriented
steps
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