Students demonstrate the ability to advocate for all stakeholders and create vibrant educational environments.
Students possess knowledge and skills to transform organizations using organizational theory, management skills, leadership strategies, and data.
Students can apply theory and research to address compelling problems in urban education.
Students are capable of planning and conducting research studies with the purpose of improving educational practices.
Students exhibit foundational knowledge to incorporate ethical, legal, and professional behaviors to enhance equitable educational opportunities for all students.
2. In this Chapter,
ďź Narrow the focus to the administration of
schools and first provides an overview of the
importance and necessity of administration
of complex institutions in our society, with
the concept policy in use describing
administrative activity.
ďź Describe critical areas of administrative
responsibility and frameworks for
understanding administrative processes and
skills, as well as three administrative rolesâ
manager, politician, and leader.
ďź Finally Make a case for the primacy of the
leadership role and describes in some detail
the quality and substance of leadership in
education.
MR. VATH VARY 2
3. ⢠Who are school
administrators?
⢠What are their
responsibilities?
⢠How do they obtain and
exercise authority?
⢠Are they really necessary?
⢠Can schools function
successfully without them?
MR. VATH VARY 3
AN OVERVIEW
4. AN OVERVIEW
MR. VATH VARY 4
Educational administrators
at all levels, from
superintendent to
department chairperson to
team leader, assume key
roles in the process of
building quality education.
⢠Sound education policy at the state
and federal levels are important,
Policy alone is not the solution to
school problems.
⢠The joint efforts of:
⢠competent and committed
professionals who work with
youngsters day after day,
⢠the commitment and support a
school enjoys from its
community, and
⢠organizational and other
logistical support provided to the
schoolâprocesses that are the
domains of educational
leadership and administration.
5. MR. VATH VARY 5
POLICYAND
POLICY IN
USE
⢠Some experts argue that
too much emphasis is
given to the educational
policy development
process and
⢠not enough to the
articulation of policy into
administrative designs
and structures and the
embodiment of policy into
school practice.
Policymakers create policy, and
professionals articulate policy
in practice. Policymakers
decide, and professionals do.
⢠Separating the two may
be ideal, but in practice it
is more myth than
reality.
⢠A more realistic view of
the policy process in
practice makes a
distinction between
policy as stated and
policy in use.
6. POLICY AND POLICY IN USE
MR. VATH VARY 6
⢠Policy in use refers to
policy that is created as
guidelines are
interpreted, mandated
characteristics are
weighed, differential
priorities are assigned,
action theories are
applied, and ideas
come to life in the form
of implementing
decisions and
professional practice.
⢠Policy in use is the policy that is felt by
students and teachers as schooling takes
place. It results from the interpretation of
policy statements.
⢠Examples of a policy in use are the
administrative actions and directions of a
central office staff in implementing a new
board of education policy statement for a
literacy program that balances phonics and
"whole language" approach.
⢠Administrative actions and directions as
policy in use might include decisions
about instructional materials, staff
development, instructional approaches,
and other implementation issues.
7. ADMINISTRATION DEFINED
School administration
is generally defined as a process of working with and
through others to accomplish school goals effectively
and efficiently.
There is a performance quality to most definitions of
administration, and since resources are limited and decisions
must be made as to how best to allocate these resources,
efficiency becomes an additional quality.
MR. VATH VARY 7
9. Leadership Vs.
Administration
Leadership
⢠initiates new
structures,
procedures, and
goals.
⢠emphasizes
newness and
change.
⢠is viewed as
superior
Administration
⢠refers to the
normal
behaviors
associated with
one's job.
⢠comes to be
seen as a less
essential, lower-
status activity
MR. VATH VARY 9
10. ADMINISTRATION DEFINED
⢠The school principal's job, for example,
⢠is to coordinate, direct, and support the work of others by
defining objectives, evaluating performance, providing
organizational resources, building a supportive
psychological climate, running interference with parents,
planning, scheduling, bookkeeping, resolving teacher
conflicts, handling student problems, placating the central
office, and otherwise helping to make things go.
Many experts would consider these administrative,
rather than leadership, activities.
MR. VATH VARY 10
11. ADMINISTRATION DEFINED
Zaleznick (1977), for example, describes leaders as
follows:
They are active instead of reactive, shaping ideas instead of
responding to them.
ď§ Leaders adopt a personal and active attitude toward goals.
ď§ The influence a leader exerts in altering moods, evoking images and
expectations, and in establishing specific desires and objectives
determines the direction a business takes.
ď§ The net result of this influence is to change the way people think about
what is desirable, possible, and necessary, (p. 1)
MR. VATH VARY 11
12. ADMINISTRATION DEFINED
MR. VATH VARY 12
⢠In business and other settings, the terms
management and management behavior
are used to refer to administration and
sometimes to both administration and
leadership.
⢠Educational administration is a first
cousin to public administration and
carries with it some of the same
traditions. In that field, the term
administration is preferred over
management because of the
acknowledged intermingling of
administration with policy.
13. MR. VATH VARY 13
Critical Responsibilities
of Administrators
Norms
(maintaining
cultural patterns)
Goals (goal
attainment)
Change
(external
adaptation)
Morale/coordi
nation (internal
integration)
⢠To survive, all schools must be concerned with achieving their goals,
maintaining themselves internally, being adaptive, and responding to their
culture.
14. MR. VATH VARY 14
Maintaining
Cultural
Patterns
⢠Maintaining the school's cultural pattern is concerned with
protecting and nurturing school and community traditions
and cultural norms.
⢠School administrators and school board members must be
sensitive to the salient motivational and cultural patterns that
exist in the community over time.
⢠Graduation ceremonies, football games, holiday programs,
newsletters, and public relations programs are some of the
more visible ways of fabricating and maintaining cultural
pattern images, as are student conduct codes, policy
handbooks, and other public attempts to control the behavior
of students.
⢠Cultural patterns are expressed in the formal written and unwritten rules
or codes that provide teachers, students, administrators, and others with
expectations, norms, assumptions, and beliefs. They define the
acceptable way of school and community life and give meaning to this
life.
Maintaining Cultural Patterns
15. MR. VATH VARY 15
⢠Goal attainment
suggests administrative
and school board
responsibilities that are
direct and well
understoodâdefining
objectives and
mobilizing resources to
attain them.
⢠Because of its visibility, goal
attainment becomes the public
agenda for recruiting and
evaluating administrators and
board members,
⢠though in reality, judgments of
ineffectiveness result most
frequently from deficiencies in
other responsibility areas, such
as maintaining the school's
cultural pattern.
Attaining Goals
16. MR. VATH VARY 16
School administrators
SHOULD reflect the need
for schools and
communities to adapt to
their external
environments.
⢠Coping with environmental demands
for change as a result of large increases or
declines in enrollment:
⢠requires substantial changes in finance
formulas, personnel policies,
organizational structures, facility usages,
district boundary lines, teacher association
board contracts, and educational program
designs.
⢠The challenge for school administrators and
boards is to adapt externally in a fashion that
preserves some sense of internal identity,
continuity, and balance.
Adapting To External Environment
17. MR. VATH VARY 17
Maintaining internal
integration requires the
coordination and unification
of units, departments, and
schools into a coherent entity.
⢠Psychologically, internal
maintenance refers to the
building of a sense of identity
and loyalty to the school
among teachers and students
and providing them with a
sense of satisfaction and well-
being in return.
Maintaining Internal Integration
18. Balancing Core Areas: The survival pattern
MR. VATH VARY 18
Adaptation
⢠When
something
(techniques/re
sources)
becomes
obsolete or
ineffective,
find newer
ones
Goal attainment
⢠when
members
become
confused or
frustrated or
distracted, it
must be able
to reorient
them and
remobilize
their resources
Integration
⢠When one part of the
group threatens to destroy
other parts, the group
must be able to check,
protect, and coordinate
them; it must bridge
differences between the
strong and the weak, the
competent and the inept,
the active and the passive,
and so on; it must create
concepts or symbols of
itself as a collective unit
that unites its subparts.
Pattern
maintenance
⢠In the face of
contrary
pressures, the
group must be
able to sustain its
standard
procedures,
reinforce
members' feelings
and affective
relations, enforce
its rules, confirm
its beliefs and
affirm its values.
19. Balancing Core Areas: the growth pattern
MR. VATH VARY 19
Adaptation
a) "An increase in opennessâthat is, an
increase in the range, diversity, and
effectiveness of [a group's] channels of
intake of information from the outÂŹ side
world" (Deutsch, 1963, p. 140)
b) Capacity to extend the scope of the
group's contacts and obligations beÂŹ
yond current boundaries
c) Capacity to alter the group's customs,
rules, techniques, and so on, to
accommodate new information and new
contacts
Goal attainment
a) Capacity to hold goal-
seeking effort in
abeyance while
alternative goals are
being considered
b) Capacity to shift, to
add, new goals
20. Balancing Core Areas: the growth pattern
MR. VATH VARY 20
Integration
a) Capacity to differentiate into
subparts while maintaining
collective unity
b) Capacity to export resources
without becoming
impoverished and to send
emissaries without losing
their loyalty
Pattern maintenance
and extension
a) Capacity to receive new
members and to transmit to
them the group's culture and
capabilities
b) Capacity to formulate in
permanent form the group's
experience and learning and
to convey them to other
groups and to posterity
(Mills, 1967, p. 21)
21. EVALUATING ADMINISTRATORS
MR. VATH VARY 21
The four critical responsibility
areas provide the basis for
evaluating school
administrators.
Superintendents are evaluated by their school
boards and communities based on perceptions of
their performance in all four areas, though goal
attainment is likely to be the public standard and
other areas more implicitly considered.
Superintendents evaluate principals
similarly (Peterson, 1984).
Principals, in turn, use the same general
pattern to evaluate teachers (Cusick, 1983).
The full array of evaluation criteria as
perceived by principals is shown in Table
3.1.
24. What Does Research Reveal about School Effects?
MR. VATH VARY 24
⢠How do we add student-level effects to this
pattern? How high a priority, for example, do we
give to student interests as we develop
curriculum, set standards, and teach?
⢠Are we taking into account students' prior
knowledge as we make decisions regarding the
subject matter that will be taught and the
standards that will be applied, or is a one-size-
fits-all strategy used?
⢠At the moment, what we teach and how we
teach is driven almost exclusively by manÂŹ
dated uniform standards and assessments.
⢠Will we be able to maximize student
achievement by neglecting student-level effects
that account for 80 percent of the variance in
student achievement?
Most of the attention in school
improvement focuses on the
school and teachers.
25. What Does Research Reveal about School Effects?
MR. VATH VARY 25
After an exhaustive
study of hundreds
of school
effectiveness
studies from both
the United States
and abroad, Robert
J. Marzano (2000)
has reached the
following
conclusions:
⢠School-level variables: include opportunities to
learn, the amount of time spent learning, monitoring
student learning, providing reasonable pressure to
achieve, parent involvement, school climate,
leadership, and cooperation, account for about 7%
of the effects on student achievement.
⢠Classroom-level variables: includes the kind and
quality of teaching, curriculum design, and
classroom management, account for about 13% of
the effects on student achievement.
⢠Student-level variables: includes home
atmosphere, the prior knowledge that students bring
to their learning, aptitude, and student interest in
what is being taught, account for about 80% of the
effects on student achievement. (p. 85)
26. DIMENSIONS AND MEASURES OF SCHOOL
EFFECTIVENESS
MR. VATH VARY 26
Most experts
agree that school
effectiveness is
multidimensional.
Table 3.2
illustrates some
of the criteria and
measurements
that are often
used in
determining
school
effectiveness.
Note that only
seven of the
twenty-four
measures are
classified as
goal attainment
(GA).
32. MR. VATH VARY 32
Critical Administrative
Processes
Administration as
Functions
Planning,
Organizing,
Leading,
Controlling
Administration as
Skills
Technical,
Human,
Conceptual
33. Critical Administrative Processes
MR. VATH VARY 33
Administration has been broadly defined as the process of
working with and through others to accomplish
organizational goals and to successfully assume the other
three critical responsibilities (maintaining cultural patterns,
internal integration, and external adaptation) effectively
and efficiently.
Administration can also be defined as a process of
functions, including Planning, Organizing,
Leading, and Controlling.
Administration can also be defined by
identifying competencies and skill areas
(Technical, Human, Conceptual) necessary for
carrying out administrative processes
34. MR. VATH VARY 34
Administrati
on as
Functions
⢠Planning involves
setting goals and
objectives for the
school and
developing blueprints
and strategies for
their
implementation.
⢠Organizing involves
bringing together
human, financial, and
physical resources in
the most effective
way to accomplish
goals.
⢠Controlling refers to the
administrator's evaluation
functions and includes
reviewing, regulating, and
controlling performance,
providing feedback, and
otherwise tending to standards of
goal attainment and internal
maintenance responsibilities of
administration, with some
attention to external adaptation.
⢠Leading has to do with
guiding and supervising
subordinates.
⢠Plans of organizations are
implemented by people,
and people need to be
motivated, expectations
need to be defined, and
communication channels
need to be maintained
35. Administration as Skills
MR. VATH VARY 35
Technical
skill
⢠assumes an understanding of and proficiency in the methods, processes,
procedures, and techniques of teaching and learning, curriculum, and assessment.
⢠Non-instructional technical skills include knowledge in finance, ac counting, scheduling,
purchasing, construction, and maintenance.
Human Skill
⢠refers to the school administrator's ability to work effectively and efficiently with others on a
one-to-one basis and in group settings.
⢠This skill requires considerable self-understanding and acceptance as well as appreciation,
empathy, and consideration for others.
⢠Its knowledge base includes an understanding of and facility for leadership, adult motivation,
attitudinal development, group dynamics, human needs, morale, conflict management, and the
development of human resources.
Conceptual
Skill
⢠includes the school administrator's ability to view the school, the district, and the educational
program as a whole.
⢠This skill includes the effective mapping of interdependence for each of the components of
the school as an organization, the educational program as an instructional system, and the
functioning of the human organization.
⢠Its development relies heavily on a balanced emphasis of administrative theory, knowledge of
organizational and human behavior, educational philosophy, and knowledge about teaching
and learning.
36. THE PRIMACY OF THE EDUCATIONAL
LEADERSHIP ROLE
MR. VATH VARY 36
Another way to
consider
Educational
Administration is to
examine the three
roles that
administrators play:
Manager
Politician
Educational leader
37. THE PRIMACY OF THE EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP ROLE
MR. VATH VARY 37
Educational
Administrators
as managers
ď§ Suggest a utilitarian quality and is concerned with
such questions as, âWhat should be
accomplished? How are best results achieved?
And What are the best means to achieve given
ends?â
ď§ At the national level,
⢠Policymakers define economic purposes for
schoolsâgraduating productive workers or
increasing U.S. global competitiveness.
ď§ At the local level,
⢠School boards and community publics look to business
models of effective administration.
⢠They demand sound fiscal management and expect the
school to be run in a businesslike fashion. Indeed, such
topics as cost-effectiveness, accountability, fiscal integrity,
efficiency, wage administration, and personnel policy
capture increasingly larger shares of the headlines in
education.
38. THE PRIMACY OF THE EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP ROLE
MR. VATH VARY 38
Educational
Administrators as
manager is concerned
with instrumental and
process matters
articulated in accordance
with the values of
bureaucracy:
a) Students and teachers should be treated uniformly;
b) policies and rules are applied uniformly for all
specific instances;
c) because of scarce resources, the school must get the
most for every dollar by concentrating on
efficiency;
d) the school-wide results are what counts (improving
test scores, lowering overall truancy and vandalism,
achieving overall budgetary balance);
e) in order to assess overall results, there is a need for
maintaining extensive records and information
banks and reports;
f) loyalty to the school, rather than to individuals or
groups is important;
g) one's sense of authority derives from the wider
governing body, and is based on the organization's
charter and by-laws. (p. 47)
39. THE PRIMACY OF THE EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP ROLE
MR. VATH VARY 39
Educational
Administrators
as Politician
⢠On the local scene, for example, communities
are more diverse, expectations and demands for
resources are more ambiguous and vocal,
power and authority are more diffuse, and
public participation in the affairs of the schools
is more intense.
⢠At a broader level, the strengthened role of
state education departmentsâthrough
mandated legislation, the federal government,
and the courtsâand the shifts in school funding
patterns that place greater responsibility at
federal and state levels are further reinforcers
of the politician image for educational
administrators.
40. THE PRIMACY OF THE EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP ROLE
MR. VATH VARY 40
Educational
Administrators as
Educational
Leader
ď§ Suggests a normative quality and is
concerned with a question, âHow
adequate are the ends themselves?â
ď§ Is concerned with matters of purpose
and substance, with struggling to
identify the right thing to do, and with
creating the designs and pathways that
help schools work to improve student
learning and to accomplish other
learning goals
41. MR. VATH VARY 41
Having established
that educational
leadership requires
good management
but that good
management is not
sufficient:
Starratt (1977), for example, suggests that, in
addition to management skill, the leader brings to her
or his work extra qualities of vision, intensity, and
creativity.
⢠Leaders are concerned with a vision of what is
possible and desirable for them and others to
achieve and a vision of the significance of what they
are presently doing.
⢠The leader engages in organizational activities with
great energy and brings to the job an intensity of
desire, commitment, and enthusiasm that sets him or
her apart from others.
⢠The leader brings to the organization and its work a
certain freshness of thought, a commitment to new
ideas, and a belief in creative change.
QUALITATIVE ASPECTS OF LEADERSHIP
42. QUALITATIVE ASPECTS OF LEADERSHIP
MR. VATH VARY 42
Bennis (1984) finds that compelling vision is the key ingredient of
leadership among heads of highly successful organizations he studied.
⢠Vision refers to the
capacity to create and
communicate a view
of the desired state of
affairs that induces
commitment among
those working in the
organization.
⢠Vision becomes the
substance of what is
communicated as
symbolic aspects of
leadership are
emphasized.
⢠Lieberman and Miller
(1984) refer to this as the
power of "moral
authority."
43. INDIRECT VERSUS DIRECT INSTRUCTIONAL
LEADERSHIP
MR. VATH VARY 43
In recent years more
and more emphasis
has been given to
principals behaving
as instructional
leaders
ďźWhat roles do teachers
play?
ďźWould we be better off
investing in building the
capacity of teachers to be
strong instructional leaders
and viewing principals as
leaders of leaders?
44. MR. VATH VARY 44
One way to think about this question is
to distinguish instructional leadership
as either indirect or direct.
Indirect
leadership
describes work the principal does to
support teaching and learning by
creating a healthy climate, creating
learning communities, providing
resources, and other such activities
Direct
leadership
describes the principal's work
with teachers and students to
improve teaching and
learning.
45. INDIRECT VERSUS DIRECT INSTRUCTIONAL
LEADERSHIP
MR. VATH VARY 45
Instructional leadership:
The extent to which
principals focus directly on
teaching and learning, the
importance of increasing
student achievement,
curriculum and assessment,
and the development of
improved instructional
programs
For example, examine Table 3.1 again. Consider only the first nine criteria
that principals perceive to be important when central office evaluates them.
Sort each of the criteria into one of three categories:
Instructional leadership:
The extent to which
principals focus directly on
teaching and learning, the
importance of increasing
student achievement,
curriculum and assessment,
and the development of
improved instructional
programs
Manager: The extent to
which principals
emphasize the
establishment and
following of procedures,
directions, and rules to
avoid problems or
otherwise upset the
stability and smooth
running of the school
47. INDIRECT VERSUS DIRECT INSTRUCTIONAL
LEADERSHIP
MR. VATH VARY 47
Being an instructional leader requires the purposeful and intentional action of principals spending
significant time doing those things that are important, but often not urgent: planning, team building,
teacher development, and relationship building. For principals to decrease their time as managers and
increase their time in instructional leadership, the following must be available: relevant preparation and
pre-service and in-service professional development; organizational structures and personnel to assist with
school management tasks; and resources to support staff professional development. Leadership will vary
from school to school, depending upon the experience, the skills, and the will of the principal as well as the
support available in the community. But the focus of the leader of every high school must be student
learning and instruction. (NASSP, 2001, p. 31)
Perhaps what is more important than the direct versus indirect question is the content and focus of
principal leadership. A 2001 survey of high school principals and how they spend their time found
that although the rhetoric is right, gaps exist between what principals want to do and ought to do and
what they wind up doing. In the report the NASSP combines indirect and direct leadership by
defining instructional leadership as follows:
48. Things that
principals who are
instructional leaders
might do regularly:
MR. VATH VARY 48
Lead faculty in analyzing classroom-by-classroom test data,
disaggregated by socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity and
language group.
Lead a grade-level group of teachers in analyzing examples of
student work from their classes with reference to benchmark work
that meets state or district standards.
Lead a faculty committee in aligning textbook or other teaching
materials to standards.
Visit classrooms daily to observe teachingâafter developing with
teachers descriptions of criteria of good teaching.
Build professional development plans with individual teachers,
based on classroom observations, student data, and characteristics
of the adopted instructional program.
Plan details of professional development activities with content
coaches and mentors who are available to work with teachers in
the school. (Resnick, 2001/2002, p. 2)
INDIRECT VERSUS DIRECT INSTRUCTIONAL
LEADERSHIP
49. CONCLUSION
MR. VATH VARY 49
⢠Some qualities of leadership are universal to all
types of organizations. Hospital, business, military,
governmental, and educational administrative
leaders, for example, bring to their respective
organizations common qualities of vision, intensity,
and creativity.
⢠Effective principals were certainly concerned with
good management and politics, but clearly,
educational leadership was their paramount concern.