Improving School Leadership: Where do we stand

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• Improving School LeadershipWhere do we stand?
• Beatriz Pont
• Education and Training Policy Division

Brussels, VLOR 2nd Workshop of Participating
Countries 1-2 February 2007
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Today I will speak about.

• Why are we here today? Present and background
• Different ways to look at the issue of school
  leadership complementarity of parallel tasks
• Outputs and calendar

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What brings us together today?

• Rising expectations of schools and schooling
  (knowledge economy, globalisation, migration,
  decentralisation)
• Greater accountability for schools and principals
• From teachers with additional responsibilities to
  full time managers of human and financial
  resources
• Instructional leadership
• Staff evaluation
• Budget management
• Performance assessment
• Community relations
• Held accountable for results
• THE SUPER PRINCIPAL

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Why is it important?

• This activity ranked 3 out of 29 activities for
  the Education Committee Programme of Work
  (2007-2008)
• Research evidence shows that
• Principals have an indirect impact on schooling
  outcomes
• Principals are important for school reform
• There are pressing issues of attracting, training
  and developing good leaders as well as replacing
  existing ones.
• Shortages of high-qualified school leader
  candidates. Australia 92 of principals expected
  to retire/resign more than five years before they
  'have to'. England 4/10 deputy/assistant
  principals no plans to become a principal 4/10
  principals considering early retirement (Earley
  et al, 2002).

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What brings us together 22 participants

• Australia
• Austria
• Belgium (French)
• Belgium (Flanders)
• Chile
• Denmark
• Finland
• France
• Hungary
• Ireland
• Israel

• Korea
• The Netherlands
• New Zealand
• Norway
• Portugal
• Slovenia
• Spain
• Sweden
• United Kingdom (England)
• United Kingdom (N. Ireland)
• United Kingdom (Scotland)

Network of experts
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Complementary ways of looking at school leadership

• The challenge
• To provide policy-makers and others with timely
  analysis to help formulate school leadership
  policies leading to improved teaching and
  learning
• Synthesising research on issues related to
  improving leadership in schools
• Identifying innovative and successful policy
  initiatives and practices
• Facilitating exchanges of lessons and policy
  options among countries and
• Identifying policy options for governments to
  consider.

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What Key Issues to respond to

• What are the roles and responsibilities of school
  leadership
• How to best develop effective school leadership

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Complementary ways of looking at school leadership

• Analytical strand Country Background Reports to
  focus on policies and structures that impact on
  the role and development of effective school
  leadership (January 2007)
• Innovative practices strand Case studies to
  innovative practices
• New models of school organisation and management
  that distribute leadership roles and
  responsibilities in innovative ways (UK October
  2006, Finland, January 2007 Belgium April 2007)
• Promising programmes and practices to prepare and
  develop school leaders (TBD)

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Complementary ways of looking at school leadership

• Workshops and conferences To contribute to
  exchange of information and to move forward our
  thinking
• PISA analysis Looking at PISA data to try to
  establish associations between leadership and
  different measures of school outcomes.
• Description of the situation
• Performance measures
• Indirect measures
• Student's perception of teacher support
• Student's attitude towards school
• Students' sense of belonging at school.

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Principal autonomy in school decisions
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Principal decisions on budget allocations within
schools
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Principal responsibility in determining course
content
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Principal responsibility in establishing teacher
salary increases
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How Outputs and calendar of the Activity

• International workshops (2006 and 2007)
• Expert papers
• Selected case studies (2006-2007)
• A final international conference (2008)
• A final comparative report (2008)

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• activity documents to be found in
• http//www.oecd.org/edu/schoolleadership
• Thank you very much.
• Beatriz.pont_at_oecd.org