Beyond the Policy Memo: Designing to Strengthen the Practice of District Central Office Leadership for Instructional Improvement at Scale

Autor/in	Honig, Meredith I.
Titel	Beyond the Policy Memo: Designing to Strengthen the Practice of District Central Office Leadership for Instructional Improvement at Scale
Quelle	In: Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, 112 (2013) 2, S.256-273 (18 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0077-5762
Schlagwörter	Educational Improvement; Leadership Responsibility; Instructional Leadership; Design; Educational Research; School Districts; Educational Administration; Leadership Qualities; Teacher Administrator Relationship; Partnerships in Education; Action Research; Central Office Administrators; Competence; Principals; Teacher Competencies; Instructional Effectiveness; Superintendents; Research Design + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Teaching improvement; Unterrichtsentwicklung; Instruction; Leadership; Bildung; Erziehung; Führung; Bildungsforschung; Pädagogische Forschung; School district; Schulbezirk; Bildungsverwaltung; Schuladministration; Schulverwaltung; Führungseigenschaft; Hochschulpartnerschaft; Projektforschung; Kompetenz; Principal; Schulleiter; Lehrkunst; Unterrichtserfolg; Schulrat; Forschungsdesign
Abstract	In school districts across the country, central office staff members are working to improve how they lead district-wide instructional improvement, but are finding few guides or supports for that work, what design researchers might call limited "designs" for their leadership. Superintendents frequently elevate school-based staff to district-level leadership positions on the basis of their successes in schools, but those staff often find those positions only generally defined and minimally supported. This chapter argues for the importance of design-based leadership research (DBLR) for advancing the research and practice of educational leadership, with a focus on school district central offices. DBLR, like other design-based research, calls on researchers to develop designs for practice. Unlike other such research in education that calls for designs for classrooms, DBLR focuses on designs for leaders. Researchers working in this mode develop designs for leadership practice that reflect the latest knowledge about how leaders matter for improved student results; they work alongside leaders to use that knowledge to design and engage in new forms of their own practice consistent with the knowledge and appropriate to their settings. Participants study the process to feed new knowledge into the partnership sites and the field. This chapter elaborates how such research differs from traditional scholarship on district central offices and forms of action research. Challenges to conducting DBLR include focusing practitioners on central offices (especially in tough budget times), capturing central office practice in DBLR knowledge-building activities, and growing and sustaining the work. Early experience illuminates how to address those challenges and advance DBLR partnerships that promise to significantly strengthen leadership practice in support of improved results for all students. (ERIC).
Anmerkungen	Teachers College, Columbia University. 525 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027. Tel: 212-678-3774; Fax: 212-678-6619; e-mail: tcr@tc.edu; Web site: http://nsse-chicago.org
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10