How Much Do Schools and Districts Matter? A Production Function Approach to School Accountability

Phelps, James L.; Addonizio, Michael F.

doi:10.4148/0146-9282.1227

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Education researchers studying the early efforts of school leaders to adjust their schools’ practices to align to external expectations have found resistance (Mintrop, 2004b), confusion (Carnoy et al , 2003), and denial (Ingram et al , 2004). In these early years of standards and assessment expectations (beginning in 1989 with an education summit of state governors – see Goertz et al , 2001; Phelps and Addonizio, 2006), leaders had few tools to use for internalizing these expectations.…”

Section: The Challenge For School Leadership At the Intersection Of External And Internal Accountabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing the intersection of internal and external accountability

Knapp

Feldman²

2012

Journal of Educational Administration

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Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to direct attention to the intersection of external and internal accountability systems within urban schools, and the role of school leadership, especially that of the principal, in managing this intersection. In particular, the paper explores how school leaders are able to strengthen and sustain the school's internal accountability system, in pursuit of school-defined learning improvement agenda, and at the same time respond productively to external accountability demands. The paper also seeks to identify consequences of these leaders' efforts to navigate an often problematic set of converging demands. Design/methodology/approach-This paper draws on findings from a larger multi-case study of learning-focused leadership in 15 schools in four urban school districts in the USA. Schools were chosen to represent those that were "making progress" (by local measures). Data were collected over 18 months, spanning two school years, from Spring 2007 to Fall 2008. Data collection included multiple site visits, semi-structured interviews and observations of leadership activity across school and district settings, and a variety of documentary evidence. Findings-Though working in substantially different contexts, these leaders found remarkably similar ways of crafting tools and creating occasions, from the array of external accountability demands and resources, to serve internal accountability purposes. They did so by internalizing external expectations and developing accountable practice within the school, leading through data, and modelling what it meant to learn to lead in a fully accountable way. As they did so, they reshaped the scope of instruction and the instructional improvement conversation, and also made teaching and leadership practice more public. Originality/value-This paper extends discussions of school-level accountability in two ways. First, it updates scholarship on accountability by examining school-level responses at a time five years into the new accountability context in the USA defined by strict system-wide expectations and mechanisms. Second, the paper demonstrates ways in which the often onerous demands of external accountability systems can be treated as a resource by school leaders and used in ways that bolster the school's capacity for accountable professional practice.

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Section: The Challenge For School Leadership At the Intersection Of External And Internal Accountabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing the intersection of internal and external accountability

Knapp

Feldman²

2012

Journal of Educational Administration

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“…Thus, and particularly in the United States, school districts are part of the organizational processes that support the schools, playing a significant role through leadership and managerial actions. The literature reveals that the role of school districts is crucial in delivering and supporting change strategies in processes such as educational reforms (Phelps & Addonizio, 2006;Spillane, 1996). Research outcomes indicate that district leaders who engage on setting pertinent goals are likely to successfully manage change and have longer tenures, thus being able to witness higher rates of high-performing students (Pascopella, 2011), following specific leadership frameworks (Elliff, 2012).…”

Section: Management and Administration: Their Influence On Education mentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing School Climate Issues at the School District Level: A Comprehensive Review of the Literature

2019

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Several research have studied how school management impacts cognitive and non-cognitive components of students’ lives. However, less is known about what district level administrators do when dealing with issues concerning school climate. This study aims a comprehensive review of the literature on school district level involvement in school climate, with focus on the underlying school climate construct, methods, and associated outcomes. The results show four dominant dimensions: community, safety, risk, and academic performance. District level administrators are concerned not only of students’ but also of teachers’ wellbeing, with special focus placed on teacher stress and burnout. Despite the positive impact of informed decision making on school performance, accountability pressures involved in meeting evaluation criteria may offset the benefits. Our review confirms the need to support district leadership to set the goals and measure the progress of successful strategies to manage school climate issues.

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“…Researchers have often relied on teacher attributes as proxies for quality (see, for example, Phelps & Addonizio, 2006). The use of proxy indicators is relatively common in education production function literature since teacher quality is somewhat difficult to measure directly.…”

Section: Defining Teacher Qualitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Teacher Quality in Michigan

Gawlik

Kearney

Addonizio³

et al. 2010

Education and Urban Society

Self Cite

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Most of the low-performing schools and students are in urban districts where poverty is high, where large proportions of students have limited English proficiency, and where students perform poorly on achievement tests. Moreover, urban districts face numerous challenges, including attracting teachers to their schools and optimizing their hiring, transfer, and retention policies so that they bring the best available teachers to the classroom setting. What's now needed is an understanding of how schools differ on the qualifications of their teachers and the mechanisms driving these differences. In this article, the authors use the Detroit metropolitan region as a case study in order to (a) determine whether there is teacher sorting across schools and districts, and (2) identify which schools and districts have the least qualified teachers.

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How Much Do Schools and Districts Matter? A Production Function Approach to School Accountability

Cited by 8 publications

References 5 publications

Managing the intersection of internal and external accountability

Managing the intersection of internal and external accountability

Managing School Climate Issues at the School District Level: A Comprehensive Review of the Literature

Teacher Quality in Michigan

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