Putting the Pieces Together

Abstract

This article presents a collaborative inquiry analysis of the school improvement experiences of four persistently low-performing schools. It draws on the experiences of three members of the Laboratory for the Design and Redesign of Schools (LDRS) consortium who helped during their planning for restructuring or restructuring phases and one regional official who oversaw their grant support and school improvement interventions. The authors explore the role of organizational change to improved teaching and learning in the schools. The schools' mixed leadership and organizational capacity and belief in their teaching efficacy limited the benefits of state, district, and regional supports and resources, which school leaders were ill-equipped to coordinate. Combining leadership and organizational development with curricular and instructional reform models would be more promising.

A systematic review of principals’ leadership identity from 1993 to 2019

“…This is supported by the McKinsey report on educational systems (Barber and Mourshed, 2007), which established an association between school leadership and school performance. Despite the growing number of studies published on school leadership in recent years, authors consistently claim that there is a need for studies that clearly identify successful leadership practices (Orr et al, 2008). Further research, changes in educational policy reforms and new laws forcing structural changes are all needed to improve school performance.…”