I admit it, one day I would like to lead a school. In preparation for that event I try and read / watch / learn about school leadership where I can. The ASCL website and Leader magazine is very good, the NCSL webiste site has significant repositories, but one of the best places to read / watch / learn about school leadership is through school leaders blogs. I have a collection of school leader bloggers and their experiences, research and interests throws up all sorts of interesting musings, reflections and content.
Take this summary / paraphrase taken from ‘Principal Time-Use and School Effectiveness‘ in Larry Cubans post ‘Yet Again: Principals as Instructional Leaders’
The authors find that time spent on Organization Management activities is associated with positive school outcomes, such as student test score gains and positive teacher and parent assessments of the instructional climate, whereas Day-to-Day Instruction activities are marginally or not at all related to improvements in student performance and often have a negative relationship with teacher and parent assessments. This paper suggests that a single-minded focus on principals as instructional leaders operationalized through direct contact with teachers may be detrimental if it forsakes the important role of principals as organizational leaders (p. iv)
Certainly, it leads me to consider where and how impact on student progress and achievement is accrued; seeing the number of pingbacks to this post, it would appear quite a few educationalists are thinking over that same question. That, or they liked the Bassett hound image.
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