Managerial imperatives for the improvement of school reporting to parents

Highlights the importance of school reporting to parents and the need for its effective management, as fundamental practices underpinning the central purpose of schools. Argues that, in spite of the centrality of reporting to the core activities of teaching and learning, current efforts to secure accountability appear to focus more on increasing school accountability to central offices and school councils than on addressing much needed and long overdue improvements in parent reporting. Identifies, through a review of literature on school reporting to parents, aspects of reporting on individual student achievement and progress which need to be rethought in order to align with developments in education policy and parental expectations in the latter half of the 1990s. Uses the aspects of reporting in need of improvement, as elicited from the literature review, to generate a set of roles and responsibilities for school leaders and administrators to adopt in improving the reporting process, which, it is argued, needs to be well managed and organized if it is to meet the expectations of all stakeholders.