While there are a variety of books on educational administration and leadership, this book focuses particularly on the challenges that confront school leaders.
Contemporary Challenges Confronting School Leaders is one of ten in a series of research and theory books devoted to the advancement of our understanding of schools through the theoretical analysis of empirical studies, a project initiated by Wayne K. Hoy and Cecil G. Miskel (Research and Theory in Educational Administration Series. Editors: Michael DiPaola, The College of William and Mary. Patrick B. Forsyth, The University of Oklahoma).
The book is organized around significant conceptual issues with which school principals must cope, including student achievement and the factors that influence that achievement. The book begins with studies of different school variables such as student engagement, staff development, and academic optimism and their influence on student achievement. It then presents the works of researchers who have traced other variables that ensure effectiveness in teachers’ and the school's work and consequently assist student achievement.
The first chapter written by Curt Adams identifies factors that enhance a school's ability to develop and improve, such as information sharing, knowledge creation, and the adoption of new operational methods. He investigates the correlation between student achievements and received instructions in 80 schools and reports that the students’ collective trust in their teachers is an intervening variable in the implementation of quality instructions. In the second chapter Tony Frontier examines the relationship between student engagement and academic achievement. Engagement is defined in cognitive, behavioral, and emotional terms. Frontier describes a study among 500 junior high students investigating the way in which they perceive their school experiences. He explains the relationship between student engagement and other demographic variables including the “no child left behind” policy. He discusses the implementation of the “no child left behind” policy and its effect on student achievement.
The third chapter investigates the correlation between teachers’ perceptions of academic excellence and the ways in which these perceptions are transmitted to their students. Specifically, the author investigates how the transmission of these perceptions in fourth grade mathematics and language lessons influences student achievement.
The fourth chapter identifies district leadership practices associated with school success. Reporting on the results of district assessments, the author suggests that many districts do not initially have a solid understanding of how they can actively support their schools’ improvement efforts. The chapter discusses the relationship between the support of regional offices and actions taken by schools to introduce deep educational change, including actions taken by the educational leadership in the school to improve student success. The study described in this chapter demonstrated that when regional authorities stipulated predetermined measures to the school, with clearly defined goals, and provided support to school leadership in their attainment of these goals, successful changes ensued.
Julie Gray and John Tarter contribute to our understanding of school effectiveness and academic optimism through an exploratory study of elementary schools in Alabama. They describe factors that should be considered in order to produce academic optimism and organizational effectiveness in the school; both of which positively influence the social status of the students and consequently help to close academic gaps. A culture of trust in the school, including the principal's trust in the teachers, and teachers’ trust in the students can have immense influence on the school's effectiveness. Thus too, the construction of a collective sense of efficacy for the school staff positively influences the organization's effectiveness.
In Chapter 6 Michael DiPaola examines the concept of principal support and reports on efforts to validate an operational measure of the construction of the teachers’ role. He assumes that principal support is an important aspect of a principal's behavior that has been neglected by researchers, despite the fact that teachers often cite support of their principal as an important contributor to their job satisfaction and effectiveness. DiPaola examines 40 statements relating to principal support and discerns five types of support: social, instrumental, emotional and teaching, and informative support. He indicates that teachers’ perceptions of principal support relate to two dimensions: expressive support is the degree to which teachers feel that they receive emotional and professional support, and instrumental support is the extent to which teachers perceive their principal as providing support in terms of time, resources, and constructive feedback.
In Chapter 7, Roxanne Mitchell discusses the constructs of collective efficacy, trust, and academic emphasis, exploring theoretical and empirical efforts to foster students’ identification with their schools. She suggests a more comprehensive definition of identification with one's school that includes cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions.
In Chapter 8, Van Houtte, Van Maele, and Agirdag highlight the importance of students’ sense of futility in the primary schools of the city of Flanders, reaffirming the strong correlation between poverty and the individual pupil's sense of futility. Feelings of futility regarding school are particularly prevalent among pupils from lower social classes. Pupils’ sense of futility with respect to school is an important predictor of lower achievement, lower study involvement, and school misconduct. The authors suggest that it is important to enhance student awareness of likely social determinations of academic achievement, possibly lessening the otherwise inevitable influence of such determinations.
Chapter 9 applies ten important psychological and economic concepts and principles for improved school decision making. Each of the principles is used to analyze a realistic school problem, showing how the decision-making principles affect educational processes.
In Chapter 10, Valija Rose examines various definitions and conceptions of giftedness, illustrating the lack of a coherent conceptual framework for gifted children in the field of education. She discusses the identification of gifted black and white students in the eighth grade using differential cut-off scores showing that they had similar academic degree attainment 12 years later. Findings from this study support a shift in focus from early indicators of the achievement gap to an emphasis on long-term educational and life outcomes.
The final chapter addresses the role of parental social networks in the formation of parent responsibility. Two types of parent networks are examined: the parent social network consisting of other school parents and the adult social network that does not include other school parents. In the low-income sample of elementary schools in an urban district, the in-school social networks were very limited in size. However, the analysis of parent social networks as mediators between poverty and parent responsibility is significant. Low-income parents who had more contact with other school parents were also found to have higher levels of responsibility.
Overall, this book provides a deeper understanding of schools both by explaining some of the challenges faced by school leaders through a multi-faceted theoretical and empirical lens and by focusing on “why” questions concerning student achievement. It details new theory and research which make an important contribution to the field of educational administration.
The book is highly recommended for scholars of educational administration and leadership, teachers who aspire to lead, and school leaders who seek to construct high-quality schools that promote equity and social justice. It provides useful knowledge that can inform leadership preparation programs and should generate new thinking about leadership that can move the field forward to an understanding of collective leadership grounded in diversity.
