The Principal-Teacher’s Power Relationship Revisited: A National Study Based on the 2011-12 SASS Data

Xia, Jiangang; Shen, Jianping

doi:10.1080/15700763.2019.1586962

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Shen and his colleague (J. Shen & Xia, 2012;Xia & Shen, 2019) used the nationally representative data from the NECS Schools and Staff Survey to study the power relationship between the principal and teachers in seven decision making areas: 'set performance standards,' 'establish curriculum,' 'determine content of professional development,' 'evaluate teachers,' 'hire new fulltime teachers,' 'set discipline policy,' and 'decide how to spend school budget'. Their multiple level modeling indicated that the power relationship between the principal and their teachers was characterized by win-win theory in all decision-making areas, except for the area of 'evaluating teachers'.…”

Section: Integrated Leadership As a Zero-sum Game Or A Win-win Situatmentioning

confidence: 99%

The theory of bifurcated educational system and its implications for school improvement

Shen

2020

International Journal of Leadership in Education

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Educational reforms fail again and again. One reason for the failure is that educational reform stops just outside the classroom door. During the last 25 years, the dominant educational reform initiatives in the US have operated under the misguided conventional wisdom that the educational system is loosely coupled. With this model in mind, decades of educational reform efforts have focused on tightening the system. Based on empirical results we argue that the educational system is neither loosely or tightly coupled, but bifurcated in that (to borrow a metaphor from geoscience) it is comprised of two tectonic plates. The first plate consists of the state, district and school levels, and the second is the classroom, with a fault line between them. The theory of bifurcated system not only explains why past educational changes have stopped at the classroom door, but also raises the key question of how to bridge the fault line. We propose two principles for school improvement in the bifurcated context. The first principle is to integrate principal and teacher leadership, effectively bridging the fault line in both directions. The second principle is the school renewal process, helping transform the classroom practice by emphasizing implementation integrity rather than fidelity.

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Section: Integrated Leadership As a Zero-sum Game Or A Win-win Situatmentioning

confidence: 99%

The theory of bifurcated educational system and its implications for school improvement

Shen

2020

International Journal of Leadership in Education

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“…By extension, increasing involvement of the central government in school governance could simultaneously empower both principals and teachers, assuming that the central government is able and willing to share power. Yet although Shen and Xia (2012) and Xia (2014) have found evidence of within-school power sharing between principals and teachers in the United States, there is little cross-national evidence regarding how power relationships vary across different local or national contexts, and how teachers and school leaders in different contexts mobilize power to raise student achievement. It is possible however, that the impact of centralization or decentralization on the ability of school leaders and teachers to improve outcomes for students depends on whether power-sharing occurs through a zero-sum or variable-sum arrangement within schools.…”

Section: Conceptual Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

School Governance and Student Achievement: Cross-National Evidence From the 2015 PISA

Luschei

Jeong

2020

Educational Administration Quarterly

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Although cross-national evidence suggests that decentralization of educational governance is positively related to student achievement, related research often fails to recognize the separate roles and influences of governments, school boards, principals, and teachers. We use data from the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment to examine school leaders’ perceptions of governance arrangements across 68 countries and to assess whether differences in perceived governance patterns are significantly related to differences in student achievement. We find that although school governance arrangements vary substantially across countries, increases in teacher decision-making responsibilities are consistently and positively related to student achievement in math, reading, and science, all else equal. Furthermore, controlling for school principals’ leadership style does not fundamentally change the positive and significant relationships between teacher decision making and student achievement, suggesting that the impact of teachers may be independent of school principals’ attitudes and actions.

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“…After a decade of school accountability movement, the power relationships might have evolved. Therefore Xia and Shen (2019) revisited the topic using a more recent large-scale U.S. national principal and teacher data. We found that (a) the power relationships were still more likely to be win-win and (b) more decision domains presented win-win power relationships at both elementary and secondary schools.…”

Section: Empirical Studies On Power Relationships and Decision Domainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tight, Loose, or Decoupling? A National Study of the Decision-Making Power Relationship Between District Central Offices and School Principals

Xia

Shen

Sun

2019

Educational Administration Quarterly

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Do school district central offices and school principals have the same level of influence on school decisions? What does the district–principal power relationship look like? These two questions are discussed but are rarely examined in the literature. Based on a nationally representative sample from the 2007-2008 Schools and Staffing Survey data, we explored these two questions. Specifically, we applied the paired samples t test to compare the district central offices’ and school principals’ influences and applied the multilevel modeling method to estimate the power relationship. We found that (a) on average, districts and principals had the same level of influence on establishing curriculum, whereas school principals had higher influence on the other six decision areas examined (performance standards, teachers’ professional development programs, evaluating teachers, hiring teachers, discipline policies, and school budget), and (b) a tight coupling power relationship between district central offices and school principals was identified for the three areas related to the technical core of schools (performance standards, establishing curriculum, and teachers’ professional development programs), a loose coupling power relationship was revealed for the personnel (hiring and evaluating teachers) and budget areas, while a decoupling power relationship was found for discipline policy decisions. Discussions and implications for school leadership and policy were included in this study.

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The Principal-Teacher’s Power Relationship Revisited: A National Study Based on the 2011-12 SASS Data

Cited by 8 publications

References 25 publications

The theory of bifurcated educational system and its implications for school improvement

The theory of bifurcated educational system and its implications for school improvement

School Governance and Student Achievement: Cross-National Evidence From the 2015 PISA

Tight, Loose, or Decoupling? A National Study of the Decision-Making Power Relationship Between District Central Offices and School Principals

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