No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
The School Principal: Managing in Public
Abstract
When we think about school principals, most of us imagine a figure of vague, yet intimidating authorityâfor an elementary school student, being sent to the principalâs office is roughly on par with a trip to Orwellâs Room 101. But with School Principal, Dan C. Lortie aims to change that. Much as he did for teachers with his groundbreaking book Schoolteacher, Lortie offers here an intensive and detailed look at principals, painting a compelling portrait of what they do, how they do it, and why. Lortie begins with a brief history of the job before turning to the daily work of a principal. These men and women, he finds, stand at the center of a constellation of competing interests around and within the school. School district officials, teachers, parents, and students all have needs and demands that frequently clash, and it is the principalâs job to manage these conflicting expectations to best serve the public. Unsurprisingly then, Lortie records his subjectsâ professional dissatisfactions, but he also vividly depicts the pleasures of their work and the pride they take in their accomplishments. Finally, School Principal offers a glimpse of the future with an analysis of current issues and trends in education, including the increasing presence of women in the role and the effects of widespread testing mandated by the government. Lortieâs scope is both broad and deep, offering an eminently useful range of perspectives on his subject. From the day-to-day toil to the long-term course of an entire career, from finding out just what goes on inside that office to mapping out the larger social and organizational context of the job, School Principal is a truly comprehensive account of a little-understood profession.
... Headmasters, on the other hand, head institutions composed of adults and children, and are invested in the performance of those adults as well as the students. While every new academic year is a new start for teachers who begin with a fresh group of students, in most cases, putting problems from previous groups behind them, for the typical headmaster, the opening of a new academic year is not so joyful an experience as most of the students, families and staff members are the same as the previous year, bringing their similar characteristics and outlooks with them (Lortie, 2009). In contrast to teachers, the relationships headmasters share with particular students and their families tend to be longlasting. ...
... While most of them are headmasters and can be regarded as school leaders in the sense of the term, they have not yet reached the position of an educational leader (Lortie, 2009). ...
... Highly effective headmasters are not only skilled in resolving conflicts once they have been ignited but have also mastered ways to cut down on the frequency of their eruption. Effective handling of conflict situations requires considerable time to establish the facts of the situation, to gauge the emotions involved, and to find potential bases for resolution (Lortie, 2009). It may thus be necessary to arrange and conduct a series of meetings with the parties involved, depending on the seriousness of the conflict. ...
This report of the ‘Impact Assessment of the School Leadership Development Programme’ (SLDP), piloted by British Council, is organized in the following manner. This chapter provides an introduction to school leadership and the importance of effective leadership and management for school improvement and enhanced learning outcomes. Chapter two provides a literature review of the major contemporary theories in school leadership and management. Chapter three provides an overview of the SLDP design and a description of the programme development and implementation throughout the period of the programme (August 2013 to May 2015). Chapter four explains the methodology followed by this study. Chapter five discusses the preliminary phase of the impact study which involved desk research of practice and content analysis of the five modules that formed the content for Phase 1 trainings of the programme. This chapter elaborates on the training materials in light of the programmes core principles and assumptions. Chapter six reviews the findings from the baseline and endline assessment which used questionnaire surveys as tools. Chapter seven reviews the findings from the midline assessment which involved field visits to the sampled districts, and discusses the participants’ responses to the implementation of the programme in the field. Chapter eight, based on the research team’s interaction with the school leaders on the field, discusses what do the school leaders really want to be trained on? Chapter nine concludes by specifically examining the data collected to try to answer the question of whether there are any ‘effects’, and if those effects can be related to and associated with the SLDP. This chapter also summarizes our recommendations for the various aspects of SLDP which could be included in the future phases of the programme.
... I had just completed my first year as a principal and was beginning my second year at a historically low performing elementary school in Central Texas. Despite being a product of a district's grow your own (GYO) principal preparation program and a graduate of a Texas-based university principal certification program, as well as completing a Texas Education Service Center principal leadership program, I could relate to the 87% of principals in one study who reported they felt ill-prepared to be a campus leader (Lortie, 2009). ...
... A potential benefit of this study is that district leaders will be able to identify principal preparation programs that can increase the campus leadership capacity within their own districts. Effective principal preparation is crucial; however, results of one study of principals in suburban schools showed that only 13% of campus leaders felt prepared to be principals (Lortie, 2009), indicating new leaders often are thrust into the position with inadequate preparation. Studies like this one support the need for additional studies on more creative and more effective ways of preparing principals. ...
... Participants also noted that graduates who were practicing principals had made significant improvements to their campuses. University-district partnerships for principal preparation are a viable option to meet the needs of districts that struggle to find effectively trained principals (Hall et al., 2016) by developing confident school leaders who will be ready to lead a campus (Lortie, 2009). Results of the current study indicate all stakeholders involved were positively affected by the university-district partnerships examined. ...
... According to Lortie (2009), there are significant benefits to researching the role of the principal given that the principal's position is central to the functioning of a school (p. ...
... According to Lortie (2009), beginning principals said they had to learn much during their first few years and cited two areas they needed to improve in. The most important two categories were identified as "specific relationships and people skills" (p. ...
... There is no one problem that makes the principalship challenging, but there are multiple issues that converge to make the challenges confronting principals "unique" (Lortie, 2009). Those numerous challenges can make the role of the principal daunting and sometimes overwhelming. ...
Many large urban school districts contend with many of the same challenges. Such districts are required to address (a) the needs of disproportionately more students from low-income families, (b) low student achievement, (c) high staff mobility rates, (d) fewer resources, and (e) significantly more accountability. Despite those challenges, a large percentage of the African American male principals in this study elected to remain in this large suburban/urban school district. Therefore, studying the reason why they remain is important. According to Lortie (2009), there are significant benefits to researching the role of the principal given that the principal’s position is central to the functioning of a school.^ The purpose of this study was to understand why African-American male principals with five or more years of experience and who earn effective or highly effective evaluations have elected to remain in the role of principal in this school district. This study is important given the dearth of males of color in the field of education. The results of this study will help provide this district and other districts with valuable information pertaining to why African American male principals continue working in such a district. Knowing the motivating factors causing these principals to stay is important. ^ This qualitative study explores the experiences of veteran and effective African American male principals through in-depth interviews. Experienced and effective African-American male principals are in many ways coveted by school systems given that there is a lack of such candidates. Other districts around the country that struggle to attract and retain experienced and effective educators of color may be able to gain insight from this study and, thereby, be able to replicate this district’s practices with recruiting and retaining male principals of color. It is important to study school districts where people of color are recruited and retained so that we can model their successes (MaGee, 2016). This study provides a model of African American male principals’ success in a suburban/urban school setting.
... Though it can be argued from a historical perspective whether these shifts are more challenging than in times past, growing anecdotal evidence suggests that educational leaders are increasingly needing to make complicated and difficult decisions with severely limited resources and time under the conditions of today's changing ecology of schools (Mendels, 2012;Lytle, 2012;Ginsberg & Multon, 2011;Badams, 2012). For principals in particular, the shifts have greatly added to the list of tasks and actions for which they are responsible, forcing many to make tough decisions about important organizational, programmatic, and staffing priorities while being held under high levels of public scrutiny (Lortie, 2009). This dissertation argues that such difficult choices made by school leaders often result in smaller, daily challenges tied to everyday school operations and dealings with teachers, staff, and parents. ...
... Emerging research highlights the importance of school principals to school improvement efforts, and given that there is only one of these positions in each school, the study of principals holds the promise of providing researchers deeper insight into the challenges of school leadership today. Lortie (2009) argues that: ...
... Principals interact constantly with the key parties involved in schoolingteachers, students, parents, and central officials… what we learn from and about principals can deepen our understanding of how American schools and school districts function; that understanding, in turn, can provide a more reliable base for [future] efforts to improve the schools. (p. 3) Hence, given the importance of principals in school quality and improvement efforts (see Lortie, 2009;Leithwood, Harris, & Hopkins, 2008), insights regarding the role social identity may play in understanding and navigating challenge in educational leadership holds promise but is largely missing from the greater body of research. These gaps in the research illustrate that the field-at-large continues to struggle with understanding the indirect ways in which quality leadership impacts student achievement, particularly when it comes to dealing with difficult issues, many of which involve issues related to social identity, power, and control. ...
Recent literature highlights the importance of principals on school improvement efforts and suggests that the tasks and responsibilities of educational leaders are becoming increasingly complex. While a growing body of research exists examining the impact of identity, beliefs, and prior experiences of students and teachers on teaching and learning, much less is known about how the lived experiences and identities of school leaders might influence the ways in which they lead schools. This collective case study examines the relationship between social identity and leadership for three principals – one public, one charter, and one independent – all located on the East Coast of the United States. It explores how school leaders draw upon aspects of their identity to make meaning of their experiences and how such interpretations influenced their leadership development and current thinking and practice.^ Key findings focus around three major themes. First, participants tended to identify at least one important social identity which impacted their decision to become leaders and thus their development as principals. Secondly, social identities of value shape the ethic by which they choose to lead, and lastly, considerations of congruence between the ecology of the school and the principal’s valued social identities influences his or her perception of leadership challenges. These findings suggest that not only are issues of social identity important contributors to a sense of belonging, credibility, and authority within the context of schools, they can lead to an increased willingness by the principal to take risks, to be vulnerable with others, and can contribute to an increased need to “compensate” for aspects of who they are which they perceive as stigmatized in regards to their ability to lead. Questions emerge, however, regarding methodological challenges in studying such personal issues related to social identity and the limitations of a leader’s own awareness of the ways in which they influence their work in schools and communities. Implications of this research suggest the need for a more nuanced approach to how school leadership is understood and researched and thus how principals might be better prepared and supported.
... The school principal profession offers an example of the ongoing tension experienced by middle managers who operate in the field of education (Lortie, 2009;Lowenhaupt, Spillane, & Hallett, 2016). This field has become increasingly complex, with multiple stakeholders and ongoing pressure for improvement from international initiatives, national demands and neighborhood constituents (Rousmaniere, 2007). ...
... School principals sit at the top of the hierarchy of the school they run and are responsible for the students, teachers and school administration employees. At the same time, they are employees of a governmental system and work under the authority of a senior administration (Lortie, 2009). In that sense, their organizational position is similar to that of middle managers in other organizations, However, the middle management position of school principals comes with a twist. ...
Education policies are rarely implemented as they have been written or planned. Instead, school principals interpret and apply these policies according to their professional role identity and sensemaking. This study highlights the importance of the micro-institutional context. Specifically, it addresses the professional role identity and sensemaking of individuals who are responsible for policy translation and implementation. I find that policy implementation depends on the interlaced relations between the principal professional role identity and sensemaking. As such, principals differ in the way they notice, process and react to different policies. These variations in policy adaptation and implementation, resulting in organizational heterogeneity.
... Principals' supervision of teachers occurs in a complex, multi-faceted, socially situated environment. Lortie (2009), describing the difficulties of evaluation, said, "school management is fundamentally interactive in nature," and that "the major complexities that emerge focus on relationships with other people" (p. 124). ...
... This conclusion suggests that modifying the implementation of highly structured, state-driven, consequential evaluation policy is essential to principals for maintaining relationships within the supervisory principal-teacher dyad. It reinforces research suggesting that teacher evaluation is a complex, multi-faceted, and relationship driven supervisory activity (Glickman et al., 2013;Lortie, 2009;Zepeda, 2017). ...
https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/preview.cgi?article=1014&context=jes
Abstract
Driven by Race to the Top funding and quickly designed and deployed in 2010-2011, a new teacher evaluation policy in Tennessee altered principals’ supervisory practices regarding their use of time for observation and reporting, their interaction with teachers, and the methods for giving teachers performance ratings. In addition, student test score data were integrated into final ratings, and professional consequences were linked with those ratings. Researchers in this study followed fourteen school principals over a five-year period to understand how their perceptions of new evaluation policy components affected their implementation. Data were analyzed using the structural and human resource frames of Bolman and Deal (2017) to interpret policy demands, principals’ perceptions, and variations in implementation. Findings indicate that principals appeared to reject strict application of the policy’s structurally focused components and procedures, while supporting collaborative, human resource-oriented approaches for promoting teacher growth and professional development.
Data were analyzed using two frameworks: structural and human resources (Bolman & Deal, 2017) to help interpret principals’ supervision and evaluation perspectives. The frameworks allowed a dual perspective analysis of policy effects on principals. Findings indicate that principals appeared to reject strict application of the policy’s structurally focused tools and procedures, while supporting collaboration on policy components promoting teacher growth and professional development
... It is not until leaders have demonstrated their desire to leave or have informed their supervisor of their soon departure that the recruitment and planning process begins. Because of the sense of urgency and lack of time, school districts often show preference for informal recruiting processes, such as "tapping" in lieu of continuous formal recruitment or succession planning (Lortie, 2009;Myung et al., 2011). ...
... Tapping is defined as the identification of candidates (i.e., teachers) in one's school that display leadership ability and are encouraged to become school leaders by their supervisors (Lortie, 2009). This practice can be a gamble because the principal's judgement is often based on the teacher's ability as an educator or their experiences supervising small quantities of students; contrarily, those competencies may not be transferable to successfully leading an entire school. ...
The purpose of this study was to examine whether there exists a relationship between selection practices of school districts (i.e., whether the principal was hired from within the district as an internal hire or hired from outside the district as an external hire) and changes in minimal proficiency in school math and reading achievement. More pointedly, we examined whether the hiring type of principals bears any association with the percentage of low performers at the school. The units of analyses were all newly appointed elementary principals in the state of Wisconsin in 2010, who consecutively led a school in a principal role for five years (2010-2014). Based on results obtained from the five-year panel regression analysis, hiring type was not found to be statistically significant. However, descriptive examination of trends indicate the performance of schools led by internal hires fare worse than those led by external hires and that the relationship between hiring type and minimal reading proficiency appears to change across time. Results are discussed.
... Though this program is very helpful to prepare teachers who will be inaugurated as principal. Lortie (2009) [17] The Education Authorities hold the highest responsibility in preparing teachers to be nominated as school principals. The Education Authorities can work hand in hand with LPPKS as the government institution bearing the authority of conducting PPP and issueing Certificate of School Principal. ...
... Though this program is very helpful to prepare teachers who will be inaugurated as principal. Lortie (2009) [17] The Education Authorities hold the highest responsibility in preparing teachers to be nominated as school principals. The Education Authorities can work hand in hand with LPPKS as the government institution bearing the authority of conducting PPP and issueing Certificate of School Principal. ...
... We focus on principal talk because principals are in a difficult "middle manager" position mediating the policy environment and multiple stake-holders, especially local and state government policymakers (Kowalski, 2010;Lortie, 2009;Rallis & Goldring, 2000;Tucker & Codding, 2002). Recent policies have placed principals in the center of reform efforts, granting these school-level leaders greater freedoms, along with greater accountability and new responsibilities (Darling-Hammond et al., 2007;Hill et al, 2009;Orr et al., 2005;Ouchi, 2009;Wong & Nicotera, 2007). ...
... Large-scale reforms have placed pressure on principals to act as change agents and transformational leaders (Fullan, 2002;Orr et al., 2005). Additionally, new autonomies have led to a more active role for principals as coalition-builders responsible for leading decision-making (Hill et al., 2009;Lortie, 2009;Shipps & White, 2009). ...
Over the last few decades high-stakes accountability has become commonplace in education policy, both in the U.S. and internationally. In this paper, we consider the role of school leaders and ‘accountability talk’ in implementing this shift through a case study of one urban school principal’s talk during a period of reform. Consistent with broader policy discourses, the 650 instances of principal rhetoric in 14 elementary school meetings reflected issues of standardization and assessment through rational appeals to logic (logos). However, the principal’s ‘accountability talk’ also relied on rhetorical sequences that wove these rational appeals together with moral (ethos) and emotional (pathos) claims, thereby connecting the accountability paradigm to more established discourse associated with the educational profession. We argue that school principal talk is a primary means through which broader institutional changes and local work practices become coupled together, often in ways that blend apparently competing models of organization. As such, accountability talk should be of both empirical and theoretical interest for scholars studying school leadership and education reform.
... We think of leader caring as associated primarily with the relational side of school leadership. Indeed, much of school leaders' work occurs through talk and interaction, and through the individual relationships that school leaders have with teachers and students (e.g., Gronn 1983;Lortie 2009;Spillane and Hunt 2010). But leader caring extends beyond relational aspects of leadership to a wide range of tasks that can be filtered through a lens of caring. ...
... While working outside of the school consumes relatively small proportions of most principals' time (Horng et al. 2010;Lortie 2009), interacting with, developing, and managing elements of the external environment to the benefit of the school and its students can be very important (Briggs and Wohlstetter 2003;Epstein and Sanders 2006;Sanders and Harvey 2002). This work may be particularly relevant to caring and its impact on students. ...
This article examines the importance of caring in schools and school leadership. It analyzes the concept of caring and how it functions and introduces a model of caring school leadership situated within this broader exposition. The analysis and model are informed by literature including academic and professional works from education and education-related fields and disciplines—philosophy, ethics, feminist theory, positive psychology, and the organizational sciences. In addition, the analysis and model draws on literature of human-service occupations—health care, social services, and the ministry—that consider caring and caring leadership at both interpersonal and organizational levels. The synthesis of this literature results in a multidisciplinary and cross-occupational model that extends and deepens current understanding and theory about caring school leadership.
... The interview form used by Lortie (2009) was reviewed and the questions were determined according to the purposes of the research. After discussing questions in accordance with the purposes of the study, new interview questions were added to the form and a draft interview form was established. ...
... Nowadays schools are operating in a rapidly changing world, which requires continuous changes, whose management is usually entrusted to the principals. They have to work with and to address the needs of teachers, students, parents, school bodies, institutional representatives, local community, and external stakeholders (Lortie, 2009). Various administrative, pedagogical, infrastructural, and developmental aspects of schools depend on principals' decisions. ...
Teacher collaborative learning remains one of the fundamental professional development methods that help teachers improve their professional skills and competencies. Consequently, responsible institutions as well as scholars and experts encourage and instruct teachers to partake in collaborative learning activities as much as possible. Nevertheless, teacher collaborative learning does not happen per se. Due to various factors and circumstances, teachers have to be counselled, encouraged, and supported for taking part in such activities. This responsibility and competence is usually entrusted to school principals. This research shows that principals play a major role in this process by fostering organizational learning, collaborative culture, creating a trustworthy environment, making structural arrangements, and securing infrastructural facilities. It also shows that collaborative learning in the research context takes place in a limited number of formats, mainly in the activities of professional communities and mentoring pairs, and principals have to apply various leadership approaches for protecting and advancing the collaborative climate in the schools they run. This article, which presents only one portion of a doctoral research, is based on the data collected from 518 teachers and eight principals of 24 schools in Kosovo. The sequential-explanatory mixed-method approach was utilized to collect the data. Descriptive and inferential statistics were employed to analyze the quantitative data and the qualitative ones were explored through the thematic analysis.
... Better qualified teachers have effective and efficient teaching processes that will make a difference in students' educational achievements. On school management factors, school principals can influence students' learning achievements through the allocation of human and material resources and the creation of a school learning culture (Lortie, 2009;Sanfo, 2020a). Studies on the effect of these factors on students' learning achievements suggest that actions of teachers and principals in GMA are often disrupted (Owusu & Dwomoh, 2012;Adu-Gyamfi, 2014), which implies that they might explain learning achievements differences between GMA and NGMA. ...
Research shows that learning achievements inequalities exist between students from gold mining areas and those from non-gold mining ones. However, there is no evidence on factors that explain this "new" geographic educational inequality. Exploiting the gold mining boom in Burkina Faso, this study employed re-centered influence function decomposition to explore students' background and school factors which explain these learning achievements inequalities and also estimate the proportion of inequalities explained by unmeasured factors. Findings suggest that, relative to student background factors, most of the learning achievements inequalities between the two types of areas are explained by school factors. Moreover, unmeasured educational factors explain a non-negligible proportion of the inequalities, higher for students on the lower and upper tails of the learning achievements distribution. Suggestions for policymakers are discussed based on the findings of the present study.
... Educational reform and other top-down approaches are often used in an attempt to change teachers' practices and school quality (Gottfried et al. 2011). However, historically, schools at large are impermeable to change (Lortie 2009;Ravitch 2001). As educational reforms diffuse through federal, state, and district purviews, schools may intentionally or unintentionally loosely couple policy enactment with instructional practices (Bidwell et al. 1997;Coburn and Russel 2008;Weick 1976). ...
... Research on the decision to become a teacher points to a number of motivating factors, most of which identify the intrinsic desires of working with children and making a difference in their lives, as key motivations in teachers' career decisions (Bradley & Loadman, 2005;Lortie, 1975;Salomon, 2010). Research on the intent to become a principal seems to point to intrinsic motivations as well, but with a desire to broaden the span of influence and reach (Hancock et al., 2006;Lortie, 2009). ...
This mixed methodology study explored the reasons that teachers in Israel are motivated to become school leaders, and the relative importance of the different discouraging factors that worked against such interest. A cross-national Israeli survey included 39 individual interviews, 2 focus groups of 25 teachers each, and a questionnaire completed by 149 teachers working in Jewish schools. Findings indicate a sense of mission and personal challenge motivated our sample. The most significant discouraging factor was the perceived inability to circumvent bureaucratic constraints imposed by the Ministry of Education. Implications and reform efforts for reducing bureaucratic constraints upon school leaders are discussed.
... Research on the decision to become a teacher points to a number of motivating factors, most of which identify the intrinsic desires of working with children and making a difference in their lives, as key motivations in teachers' career decisions (Bradley & Loadman, 2005;Lortie, 1975;Salomon, 2010). Research on the intent to become a principal seems to point to intrinsic motivations as well, but with a desire to broaden the span of influence and reach (Hancock et al., 2006;Lortie, 2009). ...
This mixed methodology study explored the reasons that teachers in Israel are motivated to become school leaders, and the relative importance of the different discouraging factors that worked against such interest. A cross-national Israeli survey included 39 individual interviews, 2 focus groups of 25 teachers each, and a questionnaire completed by 149 teachers working in Jewish schools. Findings indicate a sense of mission and personal challenge motivated our sample. The most significant discouraging factor was the perceived inability to circumvent bureaucratic constraints imposed by the Ministry of Education. Implications and
... In this context, professional status can be interpreted as a basis for justifying the autonomy of the teaching profession. The autonomy of teachers represents a hurdle for school leaders in that they have to enforce state quality criteria, but from a legal point of view have no way of imposing sanctions or bestowing rewards (Lortie, 2009). ...
The implementation of a new school type has changed the context of school leadership in Austrian lower secondary schools. An interview study with 25 secondary‐school leaders was undertaken. The goal of the study was to inquire how school leaders conceptualise their role in the local policy adaptation of a centrally driven reform. The results indicate that school leaders saw themselves as double agents in facing increasing demands from within and without schools for legitimating their work. Neo‐institutionalist theory is used for explaining the role of school leaders as gap managers. The concept of gap management is deployed for describing the role of school leaders as balancing multiple and contradictory interests at school and among local actors such as teachers, parents, students, and community partners.
... Improving school effectiveness to help students learn better is not however straightforward, but the literature seems to be consistent that quality school principals are key to the improve performance in schools (Botha, 2016;Wokadala, 2016). According to Lortie (2009), principalship is at the heart of the life of schools, and evidence suggests that they have an effect on the quality of their schools. Principals organize the school personnel, time, and allocate resources within schools. ...
School principals play an important role in student performance through personnel management, allocation of resources an engagement of education stakeholders. Employing rigorous three-level hierarchical linear model, this paper investigates how principals’ factors are related to students’ learning achievements in Burkina Faso, and how the effects of these factors vary depending on schools or communes. Results suggest that being an effective principal is not related with gender. However, a relevant preparation program is associated with higher students’ performance. Furthermore, the quality of school management, community management practices and in-service pedagogical training for principals can contribute to improve students’ outcome, but under the condition of a school context with necessary resources and support from stakeholders. Implications of the findings for school effectiveness research and education policy were discussed.
... Konu ile ilgili teorik olarak yazılıp çizilenler okul müdürünün bir rol model ve ideal olarak kavramlaştırılmasının önemine işaret etmesine karşın akademik çalışmalar daha çok okul müdür ve müdürlerinin rol ve sorumluluklarına yoğunlaşmaktadır (Berkovich ve Eyal, 2017;Best, 2016;Cooper, 2009;Fuller, Young ve Baker, 2011;Riehl, 2000;Sergiovanni, 2001;Stringer ve Hourani, 2016). İlgili alanyazın okul yöneticilerinden beklenen davranış ve rollerde ciddi değişmeler olduğunu göstermektedir (Balcı, 2011;Bottery, 2004;Hart, 1992;Leaf ve Odhiambo, 2017;Lortie, 2009). Bu ve benzeri sebeplerle söz konusu bu değişimlerin müdür yardımcıları ve öğretmenlerin bilişsel yapılarında nasıl kavramsallaştırıldığı üzerinde durulması gereken bir husustur. ...
The purpose of this study was to determine the qualities of an ideal
school principal according to the perceptions of assistant principals who work in Turkish primary schools. This study was designed with an
exploratory pattern which is one of the mixed research methods. The
study group was comprised of 15 assistant principals who were selected via the criterion sampling method. Data were collected via ‘structured interview’ and a ‘decision-making grid’ form. Content analysis, grid similarity formula and basic component analysis-based exploratory factor analysis were used for the analysis of the data. The results of this study indicated that there were similarities and differences between the components and structures related to the qualities of an ideal school principal. In addition, it was determined that only the “feeling confident” structure was within the non-ideal school principal dimension.
... Relatively little is known about the moves that school leaders make to give sense in order to mobilise others to act. Such moves are, we argue, of particular interest given the inherent tensions that arise as increasingly high-stakes and intrusive-toinstruction accountability policies collide with the norms of local control and teacher autonomy (Lortie, 1975(Lortie, , 2009. Indeed, the very idea of government policy as a legitimate source of direction for classroom practice represents a significant departure from schools' traditionally decoupled arrangements where teachers made decisions about instruction (Hallett, 2010)-a departure that may require particular kinds of sense-giving skill on the part of school leaders. ...
Using a micro-sociological approach, this chapter examines how school leaders and teachers negotiate the meanings of emerging high-stakes accountability policy in formal school meetings. In doing so, the chapter examines how policy advanced at the macro level gets worked out at the micro level in school administrative practice. Exploring policy in school administrative practice, we uncover how school leaders work to advance the legitimacy of external policy, negotiate its meanings, and attempt to compel teachers’ cooperation. School leaders in our study did so by deploying formal authority, as well as various tactics described in earlier theoretical work on social influence, such as invoking a shared in-group identity and/or underscoring moral worth. In deploying these social tactics, school leaders engaged not only in rhetorical framing but also rhetorical footing as they worked to convince teaching staff of policy’s legitimacy and its meanings for classroom instruction. Our account demonstrates how these negotiations extended beyond the technical implications for instruction as school leaders and teachers renegotiated what it means to be a professional educator in a shifting policy environment, and who, or what holds authority on matters of teaching practice in particular.
... A full future investigation into student gain data would call for the following language, and identities for teachers as they benefit from the training and put "new methods" practices into classrooms for students. However, the changed roles and relationships await not only training and implementation, they will require sociological adjustment as they begin and continue to be seen in actual classroom use (Lortie 1975;2009). The result of this is that change in teacher behavior is almost certainly to be seen to be slow-as if telling and showing teachers is enough to make them change. ...
Evaluation report of a National Teacher Education inservice education program
... School principals sit at the top of the hierarchy of the school they run and are responsible for the students, teachers, and school administration employees. At the same time, they are employees of the state (i.e., a school district or an MOE) and work under the authority of a senior administration (Lortie, 2009). School principals are simultaneously the leaders of their school and are managed by other administrators. ...
... On the one hand, the latest SASS data, representing data during the 2011-2012 school year reported that 52% of public school principals were female, doubling the demographic representation of women from 1987from -1988from (Hill et al., 2016. Indeed, as a result of his extensive study of suburban elementary principals, Lortie (2009) suggests, "continuing research is clearly needed on how shifts in gender affect organizational operations in general and schools in particular" (p. 193). ...
This article situates the counternarrative of three African American female school principals and their leadership practices toward equity using a critical race theory framework (CRT). The data come from a larger exploratory study that addressed the understanding of the so-called achievement gap by school leaders. Four prevalent themes emerged through the use of a CRT analysis: (1) Mind-set toward opportunity gap; (2) recognizing issues: race, racism, and interest convergence; (3) holistic approaches toward “Our” students; and (4) the (real) opportunity of loss. I conclude with four contexts for implication for school leadership practice.
... Instructional supervision and formative and summative evaluation of teachers continues to be a critical role and responsibility of school administrators (Kachur, Stout, & Edwards, 2013;Lortie, 2009;Marzano, 2011). Understanding appropriate forms of interaction to inspire and motivate teachers can play an important role in the mentoring and development of teachers (Pajak & Glickman, 1989;Siens & Ebmier, 1996;Snow-Gerono, 2008). ...
... The lack of psychological readiness has a negative implication. Lortie (2009) significant preparation for their new position; of those, only two did not talk about things they had to learn. On their first day on the job, the rest of these men and women began work without a clear idea of what they were expected to do; they knew practically nothing, for example, about the many routines they were expected to carry out; they were forced to rely heavily on the building secretary, if they were lucky enough to have an experienced one, during those initial months (Lortie, 2009, p.31-32). ...
This descriptive study reports on the learning readiness of teachers in the Indonesia Principal Preparation Programme (PPP). The Republic of Indonesia Ministry of Education and Culture has decreed that school principal candidates are to have school principal certificates before they can be appointed as school principals. The school principal certificate can only be attained by completing the PPP, one of the important stages of which is education and training. As a form of learning, education and training in the PPP demands school principal candidates to exhibit learning readiness. It has long and widely been acknowledged that learning readiness is one of the most important determining factors of success in learning. The PPP itself, in short, is a programme designed to equip teachers with previously determined competencies to enable them to take on the role of school leader and school manager. The PPP consists of several stages, which are: proposal of principal candidates, selection, and education and training. Each stage of the PPP comes with certain requirements. This study focuses on the stage of education and training. The preconditions of this stage determine the success of the process of learning and the achievement of the learning goals. Based on this notion, this paper aims to describe the training readiness of teachers nominated as school principals, with particular regard to their physical, psychological, and material readiness. Further attention is given to proposing possible alternatives to improve PPP training readiness. The method used in this study is the descriptive qualitative method. Data were collected through pre-test and post-test, questionnaires, and document study. Descriptive statistics were employed to analyse the data. The analysis results show that, while teachers’ material readiness for training is relatively high, they lack psychological and physical readiness. Better time management, competent trainers, a contextual curriculum, and a matriculation programme are proposed as alternatives to improve psychological and physical readiness.
... Instructional supervision and formative and summative evaluation of teachers continues to be a critical role and responsibility of school administrators (Kachur, Stout, & Edwards, 2013;Lortie, 2009;Marzano, 2011). Understanding appropriate forms of interaction to inspire and motivate teachers can play an important role in the mentoring and development of teachers (Pajak & Glickman, 1989;Siens & Ebmier, 1996;Snow-Gerono, 2008). ...
... Some scholars have predicted that new teacher evaluation systems, like other types of education reforms, will have little impact on principal leadership, citing a lack of skills to perform teacher evaluation well, a lack of time to do so, and deeply embedded school norms around teacher autonomy as major stumbling blocks to these policies (Kennedy, 2005;Lortie, 1975Lortie, , 2009Murphy et al., 2013). Studies of evaluation system enactment show that principals need substantial assistance to collect and make use of observation data, which many school districts may not have the resources to support . ...
Teacher evaluation systems that pair measures of teacher observation with measures of student achievement or growth have become widespread. However, little attention has focused on the impact of teacher evaluation systems—and, in particular, the intensive collection and use of data from teacher observations—on principals. Drawing on interviews with approximately 60 principals in 6 urban school districts, we describe how teacher observation policies are reshaping school leadership. Principals report spending time in new ways, citing benefits to teacher evaluation, such as collecting evidence about teacher performance to provide specific, evidence-based, formative feedback to teachers. They navigate new expectations around data use, particularly in the area of teacher “talent manage-ment,” such as teacher support. These changes come with substantial challenges, including lack of time to complete duties, deterioration of relationships, and lower visibility in schools, raising the possibility that teacher evaluation systems may be increasing principal stress and burnout.
... Studies have revealed school leadership has substantial impact on student achievement (Hallinger and Heck, 1998;Louis et al., 2010). In addition, the principalship has become complex with increased accountability for student achievement (Lortie, 2009), a call for instructional leadership (Ervay, 2006), distributed leadership (Spillane et al., 2004), and a continuing requirement for sound management (Hallinger and Snidvongs, 2008). With the increasing job complexity, a concern has been developing over the attractiveness of the principalship (Pounder and Merrill, 2001), which augments the problem of shortages of qualified candidates for the principal position (Roza, 2003). ...
The importance of effective school leadership is well known. The inevitable changing of school leaders raises concerns over the successfulness of the succession process. Directly linked to leader succession is socialization; therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the processes and practices of school systems that control the organizational socialization of school principals as they succeed into the principalship. Using a multiple-case study approach, this qualitative inquiry examined the practices of four US school systems regarding the socialization of principals. The study, framed by organizational socialization theory, found a custodial response to socialization supported by collective, formal, serial, and investiture tactics. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of what system leaders and policy-makers might consider in supporting the socialization process of new principals.
... School leaders, particularly school principals, play an important role in assigning school staff to leadership positions, and to other positions within their schools; in turn, these assignments predict the work ties that can lead to the development of social capital (Spillane et al., 2012;Spillane et al., 2015). Principals, for example, often select specific teachers in their schools and assist in their promotion into the principalship (Lortie, 2009;Myung, Loeb, & Horng, 2011). Principals are more likely to select teachers with more prior leadership experience, but are also more likely to select teachers who are male and who share their race/ethnicity (Myung et al., 2011), suggesting that homophily may be a factor in the selection process. ...
Purpose: School leaders are central to the development of work-related ties among school staff. Although prior work has examined the predictors of the presence of work-related ties, little is known about the breakup or dissolution of ties among school staff. This study examines the extent of tie dissolution among school staff, as well as both the individual- and organizational-level predictors of the breakup of ties. Research Methods: This study uses social network analysis of 4 years of survey data from 14 elementary schools in one suburban U.S. district. Social network models predict the likelihood of the breakup of a tie between school staff in three types of networks: close colleague networks, and instructional advice networks in mathematics and language arts. Findings: Work-related ties between school staff dissolve at high rates from year to year, and ties that dissolve generally do not re-form. Aspects of the formal school organization—particularly changing grade levels and losing leadership positions—predict the breakup of ties, while individual-level factors such as commitment to the school, perceptions of school leadership, and beliefs about instruction generally do not predict tie dissolution. Implications for Research and Practice: School leaders should carefully consider grade reassignments and changes in leadership positions, as these changes strongly predict the breakup of ties between school staff. School leaders should also invest in the promotion and maintenance of cross-grade ties after changes to grade-level assignments.
... While the above research points to school administrators' potential to provide meaningful feedback to teachers toward instructional improvement, there are several institutionalized challenges to realizing this potential, especially in middle schools. First, there is a historical and institutionalized norm that separates classroom instruction from school administration (Lortie, 2009;Meyer & Rowan, 1977;Wolcott, 1973). Although the accountability movement and No Child Left Behind have opened the doors of classrooms to administrators, the decoupling of instruction from administrative leadership might persist. ...
Purpose: This study examines the content and efficacy of instructional leaders’ expectations and feedback (press) in relation to the improvement of middle school mathematics teachers’ instruction in the context of coherent systems of supports. Research Method/Approach: This mixed methods study is a part of a larger, 8-year longitudinal study in four large urban school districts across the United States. We used transcripts of interview data, surveys, and video recordings of instruction of 271 cases, over 4 years, to determine the content of administrator press, as reported by teachers, and the relationship between the content and change (if any) in instruction. To do so we used qualitative coding of interview transcripts, and ran a series of statistical models to examine the nature of the variance in and impact of administrative press. Findings: Most of the administrators’ press, as reported by teachers, was not targeted toward specific teachers’ mathematics instruction in ways that would likely lead toward improvement in those practices. Rather, the press focused on content-neutral instructional practices or classroom management and organization. Implications for Research and Practice: The instructional leadership practice of administrator observation and feedback is widespread, yet understudied as it relates to changes in teacher practice. Our findings indicate that current policies that mandate principals to spend substantial time in classrooms are unlikely to result in significant improvements in the quality of instruction unless meaningful resources are invested to support administrator learning.
... Each primary prompt included a series of secondary prompts, some based on the work of other school leader research (Lortie, 2009), to probe within responses and support reluctant participants. For example, "Describe your principal preparation route." ...
Based on survey data collected from 237 principals including narrative responses to open-ended items, this study explores how personal, institutional, and professional factors contribute to interest in principalship in Ethiopia. A key finding indicated earning a degree in a field other than educational leadership diminishes one’s proclivity for the principalship while another found working in metropolitan centers boosts the attraction for the role. As political loyalty trumps professional qualification in the appointment of the principalship in Ethiopia, policymakers must decouple politics from the principal recruitment processes, especially in rural schools where encroachment from local administration deters interests in the position.
Principal autonomy has been identified as an important ingredient in effective and healthy schools. However, little is known about the various dimensions of the phenomenon and how it takes form in different contexts. This article presents an analytical device contributing to further understand the complex nature of principal autonomy. The device follows the seminal work of Richard Ingersoll on autonomy in school organisations operationalised as decision-making and control. Moreover, we put forward a multidimensional device to organise decisions and control in several schooling domains: educational, social, developmental and administrative. By exemplifying the device on principals’ perceptions of autonomy in the very North of Sweden, Norway and Finland, we can reveal important differences between the three Nordic neighbouring cases. Related to these reforms, principals’ work can be compared in terms of different grades of complexity and risk, with corresponding consequences for their autonomy.
This article focuses on Nordic school leaders and how rural principals experience autonomy and control in current governance regimes using a sample of principals in the very north of Norway and Sweden as a case. An analysis instrument constituting four different schooling domains (educational; social; developmental; administrative) and the ways in which autonomy and control are perceived within each domain structured the analytical work. The analysis showed that both Norwegian and Swedish principals experience a high degree of autonomy within the four domains. Regarding control, principals of the two countries intimated that control is generally more evident within the educational and administrative domains and less evident within the developmental and particularly within the social domain. Regarding differences between the two countries, Norwegian principals experienced more control from regional and local municipal level compared to their Swedish colleagues. The findings add important pieces to the current body of research on rural principals and school system governance.
This chapter examines school leadership in the United States as it relates to the changing context for public education. In the midst of demographic shifts that have led to growing diversity across the country, public schools serve as key points of contact for immigrant youth and their families. At the same time, an expanding accountability system has put pressure on administrators to demonstrate academic achievement. Balancing the values of embracing diversity on the one hand and accountability pressure on the other challenges leaders to take responsibility for building school cultures that promote learning for all students. School leaders, empowered to shape school culture, curriculum, and teacher practice, rely on more than technical expertise as school leadership includes social and moral dimensions. As school leaders work to adapt and build capacity, they take on new roles as community advocates, innovators, and policy brokers. Helping educators to adapt instruction to incorporate language, identity and socioemotional learning, leaders are responsible for supporting professional learning within schools. Grounding their work in the needs of their communities and working toward the common good, they also serve as bridges to external resources and support. The chapter ends with implications for leadership training and support.
In this chapter, I discuss the justification for a linguistic turn in the study of school improvement with an emphasis on the language of leadership, and in particular persuasion, in the implementation of reform. In addition to exploring the ways in which discourse analysis can be used more generally to understand the nature of school improvement, I also focus on the particular method of rhetorical analysis as it can be leveraged to understand how the structure of language can be in and of itself an improvement strategy for educational leaders. After discussing the methodological approach, I share examples of studies of principals’ talk in the context of reform and the findings that emerged. I then consider the methodological implications of this rhetorical and linguistic turn, before ending with implications for future research and practice about the role of language in improvement efforts.
This article broadens our understanding of street‐level governance by examining how citizen performance, organizational publicness, and group bias moderate racial discrimination among street‐level managers (SLMs). We examine this topic with an experiment in which we requested enrollment information from public and charter school principals while randomly assigning a putative student’s race and ability. As expected, SLMs discriminated based on race and positive performance information mitigated this discrimination. Surprisingly, negative performance information also reduced discrimination. Turning to publicness, we find no evidence that less‐public organizations (charter schools) exacerbated anti‐Black discrimination. Finally, we show that White SLMs discriminated against Black citizens. However, Black SLMs worked in more administratively‐difficult settings and, perhaps as a result, responded at lower rates; thus, Black citizens were equally likely to receive responses from White and Black SLMs. Therefore, improving access to public agencies may require representativeness and support for SLMs working in challenging organizational environments.
Urban schools are becoming increasingly linguistically diverse. However,
principals are not adequately prepared to address linguistic variation, and
in particular, issues related to African American Language (AAL). This study
explores the language ideological voices of urban school administrators. Focus
group sessions were conducted with 15 administrators of predominantly
African American schools about the function of AAL in their students’ lives.
Participants demonstrated variation in views toward AAL and struggled
to name the language. These discussions were mediated by multiple, even
competing, language ideologies, as they attempted to converse about the
use of AAL in schools.
The purpose of this scoping review is to analyse the literature concerning principals’ problems and challenges, beginning in 2003 and ending in 2019. The research team conducted an extensive search to locate relevant academic literature, comprising 17 years of research, and a total of 153 documents were analysed. According to the findings, most of the documents (71%) correspond to the last six years (2014–2019), and most are studies from Anglo-Saxon countries (55%). The results point to eight main categories related to the complex nature of the job (the management challenge, the complexity challenge and the learning challenge), and interactions with different stakeholders (problems with educational authorities and educational policy; the staff and teaching process; the students; the families and the school community; and the society). Although the importance given to each category varies from one context to another, problems concerning the complex nature of the job and with the educational authorities and the educational policy are the most recurrent. A significant increase in the number and complexity of problems and challenges throughout the times was noticed, which seems to enhance the need for changes in educational policies and the careful design and implementation of leadership training programmes.
This article presents the findings of a qualitative study of four middle school principals in one urban school district. It focuses on principals’ almost exclusively negative descriptions of the families and communities served by their schools. Whereas much previous writing on this topic has attributed such deficit attitudes to a few bad-thinking educators, this article argues that these principals beliefs are in fact aligned with prevailing attitudes about urban communities, the purposes of schooling, and what leadership can and should do in urban schools Remedying principals’ deficit frameworks is a prerequisite for school improvement and will require selecting, preparing, and supporting principals differently; it will also require making visible the systems of belief that obstruct connections between urban schools and communities
Teacher autonomy has become an increasingly popular research topic over the past decade, reflecting wider national and global education trends. In this light, this article investigates and compares the perceptions of German and Swedish teachers concerning their professional autonomy. We analyse teachers’ perceptions using a grid, and view teacher autonomy as a multidimensional phenomenon taking place in different domains (educational, social, developmental and administrative) and at different levels (classroom, school, profession). The findings show that the teachers interviewed in Germany and Sweden value autonomy in various domains and dimensions differently, even if there also are many similarities. In instruction, that is, the educational autonomy domain, they perceive themselves to be very autonomous, in particular in relation to choices of content and method. Autonomous work in the classroom arena is also seen as the very core of the teaching profession. Overall, German teachers perceive themselves to be significantly involved in more areas of their work, and they refer much more to decisions which are to be made, whereas their Swedish colleagues are more concerned about control. Finally, we discuss the findings in relation to different nation-specific forms of extended or restricted autonomy teacher autonomy.
Purpose: In U.S. public schools, principals must implement reforms that require instructional leadership across subjects, though little is known about subject-specific supervision. Methods: Through interviews with 26 K–8 principals, we examine instructional leadership for science. Findings: Our findings showed that science supervision occurred rarely; principals used a “content-neutral” approach that did not emphasize science-specific aspects of instruction. Principals explained this in terms of external accountability pressures in literacy and mathematics, as well as their own lack of science knowledge. Implications: We argue for subject-specific resources for principal supervision. For classrooms to change, principals must provide subject-specific support for teachers.
This inquiry focuses on the overall instructional leadership approaches used by exemplary principals in three high performing Canadian provinces to overcome three persistent obstacles to effective teacher supervision and evaluation: (a) the management challenge, (b) the complexity challenge, and (c) the learning challenge. Analysis of data collected from interviews, focus groups, observations, field notes, documents, artifacts, and reflective research journals yielded the following four assertions: (a) Shared, distributed, and collective approaches to overall instructional leadership deepen and widen impact. (b) Effective supervision and evaluation are part of a career-long continuum of practice that fosters teacher growth while ensuring quality teaching. (c) There are multiple learning pathways to effective overall instructional leadership. (d) Policy contexts that place teacher supervision and evaluation practice within a broader conception of overall instructional leadership are beneficial.
This qualitative study examines how accountability policies impact school principals’ social justice commitment. The study involved semi-structured interviews with twenty-two Ontario principals. Findings show that principals responded to the accountability policies with strikingly mixed emotions. Some grudgingly accepted the mandates and reluctantly sought to accommodate directives in their agenda. Some critiqued the reforms by highlighting the inequities and drawbacks in the performance-based tests. Others showed significant resistance to the reform and strategically used their power to navigate toward what they felt was best for their students. Such mixed sentiments among principals revealed a deeper struggle among them in navigating the system.
Reflecting post-bureaucratic organisation theory, education reformers intended charter schools to empower school-level leaders, most typically principals, with autonomy to pursue clear, student-centred missions. Yet little research explores whether charter school principals have more power than traditional public school counterparts. We summarise the limited literature addressing the issue. Second, we present findings from interviews with nine charter leaders from six US states who have experience in leading both charter and traditional public schools, a unique data set. Both prior research and our findings suggest that generally, leaders feel more likely to be held accountable for results in charter schools than in traditional public schools. Furthermore, without oversight from school boards and central office administrators, charter leaders report having more power over budget and personnel, and more ability to collaborate with teachers. At the same time, standalone charter leaders report needing business support and training, while those from charter management organizations feel free to focus on academic success.
Purpose
Although leadership evidence highlights the importance of cooperative principal-teacher relationships, research has not looked thoroughly at the content behind principal-teacher interactions. In this study we use self-determination theory and organizational conversation to develop Principal Support for Student Psychological Needs, a concept that represents principal-teacher interactions based on social and psychological factors contributing to student learning. The empirical part of the study tests the relationship between Principal Support for Student Psychological Needs and faculty trust in students and student self-regulated learning.
Design/methodology/approach
Hypotheses were tested with a nonexperimental, correlational research design using ex post facto data. Data were collected from 3,339 students and 633 teachers in 71 schools located in a metropolitan area of a southwestern city in the United States. Hypotheses were tested with a 2-2-1 multilevel mediation model in HLM 7.0 with restricted maximum likelihood estimation.
Findings
Principal Support for Student Psychological Needs had a positive and statistically significant relationship with faculty trust in students and self-regulated learning. Additionally, faculty trust mediated the relationship between Principal Support for Student Psychological Needs and self-regulated learning.
Originality/value
This is one of the first studies to examine school leadership by the content that is exchanged during principal-teacher interactions. Principal Support for Student Psychological Needs establishes a theoretically-based framework to study leadership conversations and to guide administrative practices. Empirical results offer encouraging evidence that the simple act of framing interactions around the science of wellbeing can be an effective resource for school principals.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.