Month: June 2013

Harvard Professor of Educational Leadership at the Grad School of Education, Richard Elmore believes that the only significant school reform will occur when educational leadership changes direction. Until then it will not be possible to meet the goal of highly educating all students. The biggest change required will be to focus attention primarily upon instruction.

An underlying factor that is detrimental to student success is the enormous range of expertise among their teachers. In the current system, there is inadequate accountability for student success as it takes the backseat to autonomous schools and teachers. School leaders stand as protective buffers between the professionals delivering instruction and the outsiders who question their results. Elmore presents a solution of changing the workings of the entire system, and creating distributed leadership policies that emphasize excellent curriculum delivery.

The days of the benevolent dictator as school administrator have outlived their effectiveness. Educational leaders now need stay current on instructional methods and philosophies of learning through their own ongoing education. They need to be as accountable for student achievement as the demand their teachers be. Most importantly, educational leadership today must demonstrate the ability to model these expectations for their teachers who deliver direct instruction.

In order for sustained growth to occur, teachers must be wiling to allow their teaching methods to be examined by their colleagues. They need to consistently demonstrate high quality and effective methods of instruction. In order to support such demands, teachers should be involved in continuous growth of their teaching practices and the scope and depth of their core content. Being competent in one, but not the other, negatively impacts the outcome of high achievement for every student.

It probably seems counterintuitive to shift focus from leadership politics and turf defense to improved instruction, but that is what it will take to fix the system. It is the only logical path to gaining political support in the end. When every student comes away from school with an excellent education, due to the efforts of schools engaged in consistent and superior instruction, there will be nothing left to defend.

The demonstrated expertise of school professionals should dictate their leadership roles within the organization. Leadership should not embrace the arbitrary assignment of responsibilities based on personality, longevity, willingness, or other illogical factors, as is often the case. When leaders emerge from the ability to share their particular expertise, it empowers everyone. Apathetic or mediocre leadership does nothing to reach the desired goals of excellent instruction, and the outstanding student achievement that results from it.

The role of policymakers within this vision of school reform is to first get in touch with the whole point of education, which is the excellent delivery of high quality content for the consistent progress and success of every student. The method for reaching the goal is to identify the circumstances necessary to achieve it, and then ensuring that resources are primarily and significantly directed toward realizing it.

Professor Richard Elmore insists that doing just a few things very well will make all the difference to creating high performance schools. He suggests schools have a continuous climate of learning for all levels, create instructors and leaders that spring from targeted development, and focus on accountability at all levels and superior quality instruction.

You can visit the website instructionalrounds.com for more helpful information about Harvard Professor Richard Elmore Designs A Plan For High Performance Schools