Tricia Browne-Ferrigno

Leadership Mentoring in Clinical Practice: Role Socialization, Professional Development, and Capacity Building.

Research on multiple cohorts of aspiring and practicing principals engaged in professional development provides perspectives on the benefits of mentoring through clinical practice by clarifying issues related to role socialization, professional development, and leadership capacity building. Based on data from participants in several cohorts and reviews of research on clinical practice, leadership preparation, and mentoring, the authors make recommendations for improving university-based preparation programs through models and programs in which aspiring principals can gain authentic administrative work experience guided by mentors. The authors close with a reflection about the critical importance of practice and administrative mentoring in the initial and continuing preparation of principals.

Leadership Mentoring and Situated Learning: Catalysts for Principalship Readiness and Lifelong Mentoring.

Leadership mentoring and situated learning are important components in the effective preparation of candidates for school principalships. This study examined this assertion through responses to reflective writing prompts and to interview questions by students enrolled in three different closed cohorts in the same university‐based preparation program. Readiness to assume a principalship appears to be linked to an individual’s (a) encouragement and support from leadership mentors; (b) opportunities to engage in authentic leadership activities; and (c) perceptions of personal competence to assume school‐leadership responsibilities. To develop these elements, especially as pools of principals shrink, preparers should carefully select leadership mentors for aspiring administrators and organize authentic problems of practice in schools, which expand opportunities for aspirants to apply knowledge in practice. In this vein, three models of leadership mentoring during full‐time authentic school‐leadership practice are described.

The Kentucky Principalship: Model of School Leadership Reconfigured by ISLLC Standards and Reform Policy Implementation

This article provides perspectives about influences on the principalship following a states 1998 adoption—without modification—of the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium Standards for School Leaders. Using literature about reconceptualizing school leadership as the framework, the paper summarizes changes in state-regulated administrator certification, state-approved preservice preparation, state-mandated first-year induction of new principals, and district-designed administrator performance evaluation that have occurred since adoption of the Standards. Perspectives about policy and contextual issues that challenge and enhance opportunities for Kentucky to achieve its goal of reshaping administrative practice are shared. Recommendations for future research about the implementation of the Standards include (a) studies about the practice of contemporary school leadership, (b) longitudinal and cross-case inquiries about implementation, and (c) explorations of the influences of school leadership on student performance through backward mapping to principal preparation.

Mandated Preparation Program Redesign Kentucky Case

This case study presents a chronicle of events spanning a decade in Kentucky that led to state policy changes for principal preparation and details the response to those mandated changes by professors at the University of Kentucky. Professors’ collaborative efforts resulted in a new teacher leadership program and redesigned principal certification program that reflect characteristics of effective preparation programs described in literature. The article closes with lessons learned including a reflection by the author who was an active participant throughout the statewide and university redesign efforts.

Assistant Principals: Their Readiness as Instructional Leaders

ABSTRACT This article reports findings from a study investigating the capacity of assistant principals to be instructional leaders. Analyses of survey responses yielded four interesting findings: (a) years of experience as a teacher and age had no significance on assistant principals’ perceived readiness as an instructional leader; (b) those completing redesigned programs focused on instructional leadership reported feeling less prepared that those completing programs before the mandated redesign (c) although instructional leadership was a work responsibility, 63% did not know what portion of their performance evaluation assessed that performance; and (d) mentoring for instructional leadership most often occurred through informal meetings with their principal.

Introduction: International Perspectives on Educational Reform and Superintendent Leadership

During the last three decades, the rise of the global economy has launched a wide array of social, economic, and political changes in nations throughout the world and heightened concern about the quality of schools. As nations linked student academic performance to their long-term economic survival, the scope and intensity of educational reform around the globe expanded exponentially (Björk, 2001; Björk, Kowalski, & Young, 2005). Consequently, an international conversation about education reform commenced that centered on the nature and direction of policy initiatives intended to ensure that the next generation of students is literate, numerate, and capable of collaboratively solving increasingly complex problems (Björk & Browne-Ferrigno, 2012). However, efforts to improve learning at the classroom level also set the stage for examining fundamental assumptions about the role of central governments as well as how the devolution of authority to local municipalities may alter the structure, governance, and characteristics of school district leadership (Björk & Gurley, 2005). Recent nationwide studies conducted in the Nordic countries as well as in the United States affirm that educational reforms have influenced changes in the way school districts are organized, governed, and lead that may have profound effects on local control of schools, the nature of accountability, and reconfiguring the role of superintendents. This special issue of Leadership and Policy in Schools is devoted to the work of international scholars who have conducted recent national studies of educational reform and the superintendency in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, and the United States. The articles not only capture a collective sense of national commitment to education as a means for advancing social,

The Superintendent and Educational Reform in the United States of America

During the last two decades the intensity and complexity of educational reform in the United States of America have heightened interest among policymakers, practitioners, and professors in large-scale, systemic change. As a consequence, superintendents are being viewed as pivotal actors in the complex algorithm for managing districts and leading policy implementation efforts. The challenges—both perceived and real—have provided grist for national debates on superintendent roles, expectations, and effectiveness as school system leaders. This article presents an analysis of discursive stages in the evolution of the American superintendency in response to external and internal change forces within school systems.

Longitudinal Reform and Renewal Efforts to Improve Public Schools: Kentucky's Standards and Indicators for School Improvement

Educational reform initiated by policymakers to improve public schools often fails to achieve desired results for diverse reasons. This article describes how Kentucky aligned externally mandated school reform with internally determined school renewal through implementation of its Standards and Indicators for School Improvement. Results of biennial studies by the state department of education using the model indicate eleven common variance points between successful and underperforming schools.

Formation of Teachers as Leaders Response to the Articles in This Special Issue

This article contains a response to three manuscripts that are part of the JRLE special issue entitled Developing and Empowering Teacher Leaders for Collective Leadership. Discussion of the articles, lessons learned, and implications for teacher leadership development are discussed.

Developing and Empowering Leaders for Collective School Leadership Introduction to Special Issue

Leadership has long been recognized as a critical component of effective P-12 schools (Hallinger & Heck, 1996; Neumerski, 2013; Spillane, Halverson, & Diamond, 2004). Because leading contemporary schools requires careful attention to myriad and often complex tasks (Blase & Blase, 2006; Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2009; Mangin & Stoelinga, 2010), a principal must be a “leader of instructional leaders” (Glickman, 1989, p. 6) who actively engages with teachers to supervise curriculum development and instruction, assess student-learning progress, implement school-improvement initiatives, and monitor impact of those efforts (Knapp et al., 2003; Marks & Nance, 2007; Marks & Printy, 2003; Marzano, Waters, & McNulty, 2005). This learningcentered leadership enacted collaboratively by administrators and teachers “relies on complex, organic interrelationships” (Murphy, Elliott, Goldring, & Porter, 2006, p. 1) as well as shared responsibility for outcomes (Demarest, 2010; McCombs & Miller, 2007). The “extent of influence that organizational members and stakeholders exert on decisions” (Leithwood & Louis, 2012, p. 11) within a school community is known as collective leadership. Collective instructional-leadership practices, defined as setting directions, developing people, redesigning the organization, and improving the instructional program (Leithwood & Louis, 2012), require coordinated and engaged efforts by administrators and teachers working and learning together (Collinson & Cook, 2007; Muijs & Harris, 2003; Murphy, 2005).