As the COVID-19 pandemic upended the 2019–2020 school year, education systems scrambled to meet the needs of students and families with little available data on how school closures may impact ...learning. In this study, we produced a series of projections of COVID-19-related learning loss based on (a) estimates from absenteeism literature and (b) analyses of summer learning patterns of 5 million students. Under our projections, returning students are expected to start fall 2020 with approximately 63 to 68% of the learning gains in reading and 37 to 50% of the learning gains in mathematics relative to a typical school year. However, we project that losing ground during the school closures was not universal, with the top third of students potentially making gains in reading.
In The New Work of Educational Leaders, Peter Gronn provides a new framework for understanding leadership practice. The work of leaders will increasingly be shaped by three over-riding but ...contradictory themes: design, distribution and disengagement. These are the ′architecture′ of school and educational leadership. Designer-leadership is the use of mandatory standards of assessment and accreditation for school leaders, such as the NPQH (National Qualification for Headship) in the United Kingdon and the ISLLC (Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium) standards in the United States. Distributed patterns of leadership have developed in response to the intensification of school leaders′ work under policy regimes of site-based and school self-management. Disengagement describes a culture of abstention, in which school systems anticipate leadership succession problems, such as projected shortages and recurring recruitment difficulties.
Creating successful and unique schools Gurr, David; Longmuir, Fiona; Reed, Christopher
Journal of educational administration,
02/2021, Volume:
59, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
PurposeThrough discussion of research about the leadership of two schools, this paper explores the complexity of school leadership and how various contextual elements interact with the work of ...principals in schools that are attempting to create inclusive, rich, worthwhile and unique schools. A systems thinking leadership and context model is developed to frame the exploration of the two cases, which, in turn, helps inform the veracity and development of the model.Design/methodology/approachThe research reported is broadly based on multiple-perspective case studies that have included individual and/or group interviews with school leaders, teachers, students, parents and/or school council members, observation and document analysis. The focus for this paper is on evidence from the cases that elucidate the model.FindingsA leadership and context view of schools helps to understand how school leaders work with, within and influence various contextual factors to develop schools that are both successful and unique. The cases demonstrated how individual leadership factors including career histories, personalities and values coalesced with school and broader community factors in reciprocal ways that resulted in school-specific improvements.Research limitations/implicationsThe research is limited by the nature of bounded, small number, qualitative case research. Nevertheless, the authors suggest that the school leadership and context systems model the authors presented captures much of the complexity of the successful leadership of these schools. The authors further suggest that this model provides a conceptual contribution to the study of successful school leadership that moves beyond more linear leadership views. Implications of this research and the conceptual contributions that the authors advance are that leadership and context should be considered in reciprocal and nuanced ways across a complex variety of contextual levels.Practical implicationsThese cases explore the growth and development of new school communities and capture the dynamic interactions between leadership and context within the complex arrangements of policy, system, history and community. The cases demonstrated how individual leadership factors, including career histories, personalities and values, coalesced with school and broader community factors in reciprocal ways that resulted in school-specific improvements. These findings and the system thinking leadership model help school leaders to consider their own work in developing successful and unique schools.Social implicationsSchool leadership is important for school success, and schools that meet student and community needs are important for society. The authors’ system thinking leadership model helps school leaders improve their practice in creating more interesting and successful schools that meet student and community needs.Originality/valueAt a time when international sharing of information and international testing of schools is pushing towards a uniformity of thinking about what good schools should be, the reality of leading schools is far different. This paper contributes to the knowledge about how school leaders navigate contextual complexities to create successful and unique schools that meet local needs.
The realization of inclusion in schools makes a significant contribution to the development towards an inclusive society (cf. Lütje-Klose et al. 2018a, p. 9), as social practices are not only ...reproduced in schools, but also newly produced. These practices are carried on in extra- and postschool fields of action (cf. Sturm 2018b, p. 251; Powell 2016, p. 681; Budde 2012, p. 530ff.). Although the introduction of inclusion confronts the entire multi-level system of schools with the task of critically questioning existing structures, concepts, and practices and working on them in an inclusion-oriented manner (cf. Lindmeier & Lütje-Klose 2019, p. 590), the requirements in the field of action of teachers are becoming more complex. Teachers are not only responsible on the meso and micro level of the school system, but also interactively involved in the (re)production of social practices in the school practice (cf. Sturm 2018, p. 254ff.). It is up to teacher education to prepare student teachers to accept the challenge of school inclusion and to adapt traditional educational structures and contents in an inclusion-oriented way. The dissertation aims at reconstructing the knowledge that students of different teacher training programs have about inclusion-related subjunctive experiences during their studies. For this purpose, group discussions with students of special education and secondary school teaching are analyzed using the documentary method. The reconstructions provide information about how the participating student teachers anticipate and cope with inclusion as a challenge of school practice. Based on the findings, implications for the (re)orientation of educational structures and contents of teacher education are finally presented for discussion.
Die Realisierung schulischer Inklusion leistet einen wesentlichen Beitrag für die Entwicklung zu einer inklusiven Gesellschaft (vgl. Lütje-Klose et al. 2018a, S. 9), da in Schule nicht nur soziale Praktiken reproduziert, sondern auch neu hervorgebracht werden. Diese Praktiken werden in außer- und nachschulischen Handlungsfeldern weitergetragen (vgl. Sturm 2018, S. 251; Powell 2016, S. 681; Budde 2012, S. 530ff.). Zwar wird durch die Einführung von Inklusion das gesamte Mehrebenensystem Schule damit konfrontiert, bestehende Strukturen, Konzepte sowie Praktiken kritisch zu hinterfragen und inklusionsorientiert zu bearbeiten (vgl. Lindmeier & Lütje-Klose 2019, S. 590), doch findet sich eine Komplexitätsverdichtung der Anforderungen in dem Handlungsfeld von Lehrkräften. Sie sind nicht nur zugleich Verantwortungsträger*innen auf der Meso- und auf der Mikroebene des Systems Schule, sondern auch interaktiv an der (Re-)produktion sozialer Praktiken in der schulischen Handlungspraxis beteiligt (vgl. Sturm 2018, S. 254ff.). Der Lehrer*innenbildung obliegt es, Lehramtsstudierende auf die Annahme der Herausforderung schulischer Inklusion vorzubereiten und tradierte Ausbildungsstrukturen sowie -inhalte inklusionsorientiert zu adaptieren. In der Dissertation wird hier angesetzt und rekonstruiert, über welches inklusionsbezogene konjunktive Erfahrungswissen Studierende verschiedener Lehramtsstudiengänge im Verlauf des Studiums verfügen. Dazu werden Gruppendiskussionen mit Studierenden des Lehramts für Sonderpädagogik und des Lehramts an Gymnasien unter Anwendung der dokumentarischen Methode ausgewertet. Die erstellten Rekonstruktionen geben Aufschluss darüber, wie die teilnehmenden Lehramtsstudierenden Inklusion als Herausforderung der schulischen Handlungspraxis antizipieren sowie bewältigen. Auf den gewonnenen Erkenntnissen aufbauend werden abschließend Implikationen für die (Neu-)Ausrichtung von Ausbildungsstrukturen und -inhalten der Lehrer*innenbildung zur Diskussion gestellt.
Successful School Leadership Petros Pashiardis, Olof Johansson / Petros Pashiardis, Olof Johansson
2016, 2016-02-25
eBook, Book
Successful School Leadership identifies the characteristics, behaviours and practices of successful and effective school leaders through the adoption of a systemic view of the quality of school ...organizations. Edited by Petros Pashiardis and Olof Johansson, chapters explore the similarities and differences between successful and effective school leaders and across various socioeconomic contexts. Capitalizing on the experiences of the international contributor team, this book will inform the preparation and further development provided to school leaders in an era where ministries of education, universities and multinational organisations (such as the OECD) are increasingly interested in the leadership of our schools. Systematic analyses of multi-perspective data provided from around the world and offers the readers a comprehensive picture of the key behaviours and practices central to successful and effective school leadership. An original contribution to the theoretical perspectives on the subject is derived through insights from empirical research, case studies, and bibliographical literature from the field.
School vouchers are the most contentious form of parental school choice. Vouchers provide government funds that parents can use to send their children to private schools of their choice. Here we ...examine the empirical question of whether or not a school voucher program in Washington, DC, affected achievement or the rate of high school graduation for participating students. The District of Columbia Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) has operated in the nations capital since 2004, funded by a federal government appropriation. Because the program was oversubscribed in its early years of operation, and vouchers were awarded by lottery, we were able to use the "gold standard" evaluation method of a randomized experiment to determine what impacts the OSP had on student outcomes. Our analysis revealed compelling evidence that the DC voucher program had a positive impact on high school graduation rates, suggestive evidence that the program increased reading achievement, and no evidence that it affected math achievement. We discuss the implications of these findings in light of recent policy developments including the reauthorization of the OSP and the enactment or expansion of more than a dozen school voucher or voucher-type programs throughout the United States in 2011 and 2012.
This study uses open source information to examine school shootings in the United States for the 1990-2016 period. We innovatively created a national-level database to address the gaps in existing ...research and identified 652 school shootings. These shootings included 473 intentional shootings (encompassing 354 with known offenders and 119 with unknown perpetrators), 102 suicide only shootings, 73 accidental discharges and 4 legally justified shootings. Most school shootings were committed outside of the school building (e.g., school yard), by non-students, during non-school hours and were sometimes motivated by non-school issues such as gang disputes. Almost 56% of the intentional shootings resulted in no deaths and mass homicide shootings were outliers. No clear time trend emerged. Importantly, proportionally more of the non-juvenile offenders committed fatal shootings. While the vast majority of attacks targeted high schools, those against elementary schools were more deadly. We outline how these findings could aid policymakers, and highlight issues that future research could address with these data. We also describe our open source collection procedures, the amount and type of information uncovered, and how we assessed their quality. We aim to set a standard for more transparent open source data collection processes and enhance the data's rigor to provide important context to the larger policy discussions about school shootings.
Although existing research mostly supports the association between school climate and academic achievement, the processes and factors that underlie this correlation are less explored. We rely on ...social-cognitive theory and the concept of academic self-efficacy to test a model in which academic self-efficacy mediates the association between school climate and academic achievement in a sample of 1,641 middle and high school students in Israel. The participants filled out measures of academic self-efficacy as well as a school climate questionnaire yielding 3 sub-scales describing interpersonal relations, violence, and sense of belonging. We also collected students' grades in mathematics and English as well as self-report assessment of academic achievement. The results supported the model, with 2 of the 3 climate sub-scales (interpersonal relations and belonging) positively associating with self-efficacy, which in turn associated positively with all 3 measures of achievement. The results may add to our understanding of the underlying dynamics accounting for the association between organisational-level characteristics and individual performance in schools.
This study examines how locational (region and locale), community-level (school district poverty and adult educational attainment), and school district-level (district size and ratios of students to ...key school personnel) variables are related to indicators of hostile school climate for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth. Indicators of hostile climate included frequency of homophobic remarks and victimization regarding sexual orientation and gender expression. We used data from a national survey of LGBT secondary school students (N = 5,420; 57.6% female; 65.5% White; mean age = 15.9). Results from regression analyses demonstrated that LGBT youth in rural communities and communities with lower adult educational attainment may face particularly hostile school climates. School district characteristics contributed little to the variation in LGBT youth's experiences. Findings highlight the importance of considering the multiple contexts that LGBT youth inhabit, particularly as they pertain to educational experiences.
Using panel data from a census of public school students in the state of Florida, the authors examine the associations between students' high school course-taking in various subjects and their ...10th-grade test scores, high school graduation, entry into postsecondary institutions, and postsecondary performance. The authors use propensity score matching (based on 8thgrade test scores, other student characteristics, and school effects) within groups of students matched on the composition of the students' course-taking in other subjects to estimate the differences in outcomes for students who take rigorous courses in a variety of subjects. The authors find substantial significant differences in outcomes for those who take rigorous courses, and these estimated effects are often larger for disadvantaged youth and students attending disadvantaged schools.
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