School leadership

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School leadership, or educational leadership, is the process of enlisting the talents and energies of teachers, pupils, and parents toward achieving common educational aims. This term supplanted educational administration in the United States and educational management in the United Kingdom.

[edit] The Term

The term school leadership came into currency in the late 20th century for several reasons. Demands were made on schools for higher levels of pupil achievement, and schools were expected to improve and reform. These expectations were accompanied by calls for accountability at the school level. Maintenance of the status quo was no longer considered acceptable. Administration and management are terms that connote stability through the exercise of control and supervision. The concept of leadership was favored because it conveys dynamism and proactivity. The principal or school head is commonly thought to be the school leader; however, school leadership may include other persons, such as members of a formal leadership team and other persons who contribute toward the aims of the school.

While school leadership or educational leadership have become popular as replacements for educational administration in recent years, leadership arguably presents only a partial picture of the work of school, division/district, and ministerial personnel, not to mention the areas of research explored by university faculty in departments concerned with the operations of schools and educational institutions. For this reason, there may be grounds to question the merits of its employment as a catch-all term for the field. Rather, the etiology of its use may be found in more generally and contemporarily experienced neo-liberal social and economic governance models, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom. On this view, the term is understood as having been borrowed from business.

[edit] Literature, Research and Policy

Educational leadership draws upon interdisciplinary literature, generally, but ideally distinguishes itself through its focus on pedagogy, epistemology and human development. In contemporary practice it borrows from political science and business. Debate within the field relates to this tension.

A number of publications and foundations are devoted to studying the particular requirements of leadership in these settings, and educational leadership is taught as an academic discipline at a number of universities.

Several countries now have explicit policies on school leadership, including policies and budgets for the training and development of school leaders.