Abstract: Is significant school reform possible? The answer is clearly yes, Mr. McAdams says, but successful reform requires an understanding of the interplay of five factors and the ability to integrate this knowledge into a systemic reform effort. Is large-scale school reform possible? The accumulated evidence of the past 40 years of reform efforts is not encouraging. While hundreds of individual schools and a few school districts have created and sustained successful reforms, the vast majority of America's school districts have remained impervious to substantive reform. Why is this so and what can be done about it? Repeated failed attempts at reform suggest that our standard approach to reform is fundamentally flawed. Substantive reform in a complex social system such as a school district requires a level of intellectual sophistication and unity of purpose that is seldom attainable under our prevailing model of school governance. Moreover, leading educational researchers and theorists typically focus on narrow slices of the reality of school and ignore the relationships between phenomena in school and other relevant phenomena in school system operations. Below I summarize the findings of leading scholars in the fields of leadership theory, local politics and governance, state and national school politics, organizational theory, and change theory. For the purpose of my summary, I will consider each of these areas as an independent phenomenon, though it is the interactions of these factors within a school system that are seldom analyzed and often doom our efforts at reform. I conclude by discussing what can be done in light of these interrelationships and by outlining the characteristics of a school system that would be more amenable to reform. Leadership Theory How do leaders put themselves in a position to make significant changes in an organization? Peter Senge develops the concepts of personal mastery, shared vision, mental models, and team learning as necessary precursors for mastering what he calls the fifth discipline or systems thinking.(1) A careful reading of Senge's work portrays a leader of an organization involved in systemic change as both a reflective and highly moral individual. He describes such a leader as having been in a position of leadership for a sufficient time to inspire trust and respect from the staff and to build a culture of teamwork. Stephen Covey's views parallel Senge's insights concerning the need for a leader to reflect on his or her own personal core beliefs and to develop the trust and skills necessary to work for change collaboratively. Covey's notion of a character ethic rather than a personality ethic is akin to Senge's notion of personal mastery.(2) Howard Gardner distinguishes between indirect and direct leadership. Indirect leadership is exercised by a person within his or her sphere of specialized knowledge. Gardner is referring mainly to academics and other recognized experts. Direct leadership, on the other hand, is exercised in a general political sense and is not restricted to a given area of knowledge. By virtue of position, a school superintendent must be able to exercise indirect (specialized) leadership as the instructional leader of the district. But a superintendent must also exercise direct, more generalized leadership with the school board and community. The ability to do both effectively is an uncommon gift that is nonetheless critical in leading a significant reform effort in a school district. Local Politics and Governance The politics of local school districts and the tendency toward micromanagement by many boards can seriously inhibit a board's policy-making function and weaken a superintendent's ability to sustain reform. Indeed, American school boards spend 24% of their time dealing with the problems of their own children or the problems of the children of relatives and close friends. …
Publication Year: 1997
Publication Date: 1997-10-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 39
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