Setting an Agenda for the Development of the Next Generation of School Leaders: A Commitment to Soci

1
Setting an Agenda for the Development of the Next
Generation of School Leaders A Commitment to
Social Justice or Simply Making up the Numbers?

• Professor Mark Brundrett

2
Genesis of the article and a brief note on methods

• The genesis of this article springs out of
• a decade of commentary and research in the area
  of leadership development in England (see, for
  instance, Brundrett. 2000, 2001, 2006, 2007) that
  included questionnaires to 2000 school leaders
  and interviews with 300 teachers and lecturers
• and, more recently, trans-nationally (see, for
  instance, Brundett, 2001 Brundrett et al, 2006,
  Brundrett, Fitzgerald and Sommefeldt, 2006,
  Brundrett and Crawford, 2008)
• a survey of the literature on leadership
  development in England as part of the Review of
  Primary Education based at the University of
  Cambridge and funded by the Esmee Fairbairn
  Foundation.

3
Purposes

• Purposes are to
• outline the reasons for the rise of school
  leadership development programmes in the UK
• articulate the nature of the work of the NCSL
• present the critique of national programmes
• offer international comparisons
• suggest the nature of social justice in relations
  to leadership development
• offer suggestions for changes to leadership
  development in England to meet the needs of
  schools and society.

4
Context

• The profile, status and funding of leadership
  development has risen dramatically both in the UK
  and internationally over the last decade.
• Until very recently leadership development
  programmes contained only an implicit, rather
  than an overt, commitment to the enhancement of
  social justice.
• Recent government legislation in Education has
  set in train fundamental adjustments to the
  education system, through the medium of such
  initiatives as the Every Child Matters agenda.
• This will require a much more explicit
  articulation of the role of school leaders in
  promoting social justice during their training.
• The increasing challenge of finding sufficient
  candidates to take up leadership roles in schools
  will subvert attempts at societal reconstruction
  unless the systemic enhancement of leadership
  capacity itself becomes a key focus for
  leadership development.

5
The leadership crisis

• The extent of a potential leadership crisis in
  schools, characterised by falling applications
  for leadership posts and accompanying leadership
  shortages, is becoming clear in the UK (Howson,
  2005 Rhodes and Brundrett, 2006).
• Demography suggests a high percentage of
  headteachers are likely to retire with a peak of
  3,500 in 2009 (TES, 2007 12).

6
The rise of leadership programmes in the UK

• The shift to school-based systems of management,
  along with the increased regulatory and
  accountability requirement embodied in the 1988
  Education Act, created the need for enhanced
  leadership training for schools.
• From the mid-1990s, the focus shifted to the
  increasingly influential national programmes
  which changed significantly the power
  relationship between the governmental and
  regulatory authorities and the providers of
  in-service training (Brundrett, 2001 237).
• The remit for the development and management of
  these programmes originally fell to the Teacher
  Training Agency (TTA), was held briefly under the
  direct control of the Department for Education
  and Skills, and subsequently transferred to the
  National College for School Leadership (NCSL) in
  2000 before moving to purpose-built premises on
  the same site in 2002.

7
The creation of the NCSL

• The NCSL has subsequently played a pivotal role
  in the co-ordination of national programmes of
  school leadership development and now oversees
  the development and delivery of courses and
  qualifications in England. It aims to combine the
  intellectual, professional and practical
  development of school leaders, drawing on best
  practice, while supporting an ongoing discourse
  about school leadership that will inform its work
  (Earley et al, 2002). NCSLs corporate plan for
  2002/06 put in place the largest educational
  leadership development programme in the world by
  2004 (NCSL, 2001b).

8
Functions of the NCSL

• Preparation, induction and development of
  headship initiatives but also include a wide
  number of other programmes.
• Leading from the Middle (in 2003) in the NCSL
  portfolio is a highly significant development
  since it targets middle leaders in schools and is
  thus emblematic of a commitment to the
  development of leadership capacity at all levels
  in the teaching profession.
• Online learning and network information including
  Talking Heads and Virtual Heads research and
  development projects and the Networked Learning
  Communities scheme (Bolam, 2004 260).
• Affiliated regional centres which no longer
  exist but the Leadership Network which now
  takes responsibility for developing the Colleges
  regional links involves over 2000 schools
  organised in nine regions.
• At the time of writing, the NCSL website listed
  29 programme or major initiatives (NCSL, 2007b,
  online).

9
The Leadership Development Framework (2001)

• emergent leaders for people who are beginning
  to take on formal leadership roles
• established leaders experienced deputy and
  assistant headteachers who have decided not to
  pursue headship
• entry to headship for those aspiring to or
  embarking on their first headship
• advanced leaders - headteachers with four or more
  years experience able to attend the Leadership
  Programme for Serving Headteachers (LPSH) and
• consultant leaders experienced headteachers and
  other leaders who wish to take on the
  responsibility for the future development of
  school leadership (NCSL, 2001c).

10
Critique of leadership development programmes

• Dangers of a bureaucratisation of leadership
  development centred around the National College
  for School Leadership.
• The leadership development framework has been
  underpinned the National Standards for
  Headteachers (TTA, 2000) emphasising
  standards-based approaches (Brundrett et al.
  2006) - concerns exist that such a structure is
  too detailed, prescriptive and bureaucratic
  (Glatter, 1997 Gronn, 2003 Thrupp, 2005).
  Questions remain as to the extent that programmes
  such as the NPQH capture the principal skills
  required for headship (Fidler and Atton, 2004
  139).
• The decline of university sector-accredited
  provision (Brundrett, 1999a) raises questions as
  to whether school leadership development may be
  impoverished by inadequate attention to explicit
  theoretical and conceptual groundings (Brundrett,
  1999 2000 2001 Ribbins, 1999 Thrupp, 2005).
• The sustainability of the leadership college
  model may be sensitive to political change
  (Bolam, 2004 260).

11
International comparisons

• In the United States leadership standards are
  embedded in University programmes (Brundrett,
  2001).
• New Zealand has begun to set up leadership
  programmes similar to those in the UK but based
  in leading HE institutions.
• Australia has created its own leadership college
  but with closer links to curriculum.
• Scotland has developed the SQH which clear links
  to Masters level work.
• European nations have created leadership
  programmes that reflect national identity.

12
School leadership and democratisation in Eastern
Europe

• National programmes of school leadership
  development can be seen as one element of an
  increasingly centralising dictum within Western
  liberal society that has been operant since the
  1980s a dictum which, ironically, is
  counterbalanced by a commitment to marketisation
  and local management of schooling (Daun, 2004).
• The commitments to leadership development flow
  from an attempt to democratise social processes
  against a background of many years of communist
  ideology within which the new goal of education
  is, above all, to create self-confident,
  participating citizens (Havel, 1993 118).
• The privatisation of education is seen as a
  method of encouraging innovative practice that
  lends legitimacy to the states aspiration for
  democratic change (Svecova et al, 1994, 2000
  Cerych et al 1996).
• Higher education institutions have retained a
  leading role in the development of leadership
  programmes (Sayer, 1995).

13
Ofsted findings (Ofsted 2002)

• Much of the training was of good quality
  however, there remained concerns about
• the selection of appropriate candidates and the
  capacity of the training to respond to a wide
  range of needs
• the programme did not always meet the needs of
  headteachers from a variety of contexts
• there is no clear progression in the content of
  the three national training programmes for
  headteachers
• the various training programmes did not meet
  sufficiently the particular needs of
  participating headteachers.

14
Leadership and social justice

• Literature is emerging on social justice and
  education which identifies schools that have
  demonstrated success in integrating and
  empowering students from varied racial,
  socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds
  (Theoharis, 2007 221). Some of the most
  persuasive work on this area is that offered by
  Gewirtz (1998) and Goldfarb and Grinberg (2002)
  who argue that leadership for social justice is
  characterized by an ultimate concern for
  ameliorating marginalization. Theoharis (2007
  223) notes that leaders who attempt to focus on
  issues of social justice will face a
  three-pronged framework of resistance including
• The resistance principals enact against historic
  marginalization of certain students
• The resistance principals face as a result of
  their social justice agenda, and,
• The resistance principals develop to sustain
  their social justice agenda in the face of
  resistance.

15
Developing reflective consciousness

• In response to such challenges Theoharis suggests
  that leaders need to develop a reflective
  consciousness centred on social justice
  containing four components including learning to
  believe the dream is possible models of equity
  and justice in practice deepening
  administrators knowledge of self, and
  rebellious oppositional imaginations (Theoharis,
  2007 250).
• In order to develop such a consciousness leaders
  require a knowledge of issues and skill sets not
  normally associated with leadership preparation
  programmes such as special education,
  differentiation, race, poverty, working with
  diverse families and global perspectives
  (Marshall, 2004 Theoharis, 2007).

16
Recommended changes to leadership development - 1

• ensuring that the key needs are given further
  prominence, in particular financial management,
  extended services and the associated implications
  for team working and people management
• modernising the delivery vehicle to include, for
  example, e-learning solutions
• a greater element of modularisation and tailoring
  to individual need cross-sectoral inputs and
  participation and less emphasis on what often
  comes across as a formulaic tick box approach

17
Recommended changes to leadership development - 2

• ensuring that programmes fully joined up with
  the outputs from secondments, exchanges and other
  CPD initiatives.
• Stronger relationships with HE programmes such as
  Masters degrees and EdDs
• ensuring that leadership training for support
  staff and senior support staff leaders is
  accepted across the sector as being as important
  as leadership training for teachers and,
• promoting ongoing mentoring and support
  programmes in order to increase the successful
  number who take up headship or other leadership
  positions in schools.
• (Pricewaterhouse Coopers, 2007)

18
Changes related to the social justice agenda

• Programmes should
• develop leaders skills sets and knowledge in
  areas such as diversity and social cohesion
• enhance leaders knowledge of how to establish a
  comprehensive professional development system
  that focuses on student learning needs
• ensure a period of continued support in schools
  post programme.
• (McKenzie et al, 2008).

19
Conclusions

• We must address the long overlooked and complex
  relationship with Higher Education Institutions
• We need to integrate, still further, a new
  andragogy that integrates traditional face to
  face approaches of adult learning with new
  technologies
• Processes must be developed to integrate
  programmes with in-school leadership training,
  mentoring and coaching
• All leaders must be encouraged to see leadership
  development itself as a critical task in schools
  and
• We must re-examine of the curriculum content of
  leadership preparation programmes to ensure that
  key topics are included that assist school
  leaders in developing the reflective
  consciousness, knowledge and skill sets required
  to lead on issues of social justice.