Understanding Communities of School Leadership: Changing Dynamics of Organizations 3031237587, 9783031237584

Table of contents :
Contents
Part I An Emerging Perspective of Schooling
1 Unpacking the Concept of Communities of School Leadership
References
2 Rationale
References
3 Change Forces
References
Part II Remolding Schools
4 The Changing Nature of School Organizations and Change Forces Sense of Failure
4.1 Changing Environment 1890–1920
4.2 Convergence (1920–1990)
4.2.1 Core Values/Purpose
4.2.2 Learning and Teaching
4.2.3 Organizational Architecture and Governance
4.3 Convergence (1990–2030)
4.3.1 Organizations
References
5 Organizational Blueprints
5.1 Leadership Work
5.1.1 Creating Structures and Time
5.1.2 Supporting Learning
5.2 Professional Organizational Culture
References
Part III Difficulties in Reaching Stabilization
6 Barriers
6.1 Norms
References
7 Dangers
References

Citation preview

SpringerBriefs in Education Joseph F. Murphy

Understanding Communities of School Leadership Changing Dynamics of Organizations

SpringerBriefs in Education

We are delighted to announce SpringerBriefs in Education, an innovative product type that combines elements of both journals and books. Briefs present concise summaries of cutting-edge research and practical applications in education. Featuring compact volumes of 50 to 125 pages, the SpringerBriefs in Education allow authors to present their ideas and readers to absorb them with a minimal time investment. Briefs are published as part of Springer’s eBook Collection. In addition, Briefs are available for individual print and electronic purchase. SpringerBriefs in Education cover a broad range of educational fields such as: Science Education, Higher Education, Educational Psychology, Assessment & Evaluation, Language Education, Mathematics Education, Educational Technology, Medical Education and Educational Policy. SpringerBriefs typically offer an outlet for: • An introduction to a (sub)field in education summarizing and giving an overview of theories, issues, core concepts and/or key literature in a particular field • A timely report of state-of-the art analytical techniques and instruments in the field of educational research • A presentation of core educational concepts • An overview of a testing and evaluation method • A snapshot of a hot or emerging topic or policy change • An in-depth case study • A literature review • A report/review study of a survey • An elaborated thesis Both solicited and unsolicited manuscripts are considered for publication in the SpringerBriefs in Education series. Potential authors are warmly invited to complete and submit the Briefs Author Proposal form. All projects will be submitted to editorial review by editorial advisors. SpringerBriefs are characterized by expedited production schedules with the aim for publication 8 to 12 weeks after acceptance and fast, global electronic dissemination through our online platform SpringerLink. The standard concise author contracts guarantee that: • an individual ISBN is assigned to each manuscript • each manuscript is copyrighted in the name of the author • the author retains the right to post the pre-publication version on his/her website or that of his/her institution

Joseph F. Murphy

Understanding Communities of School Leadership Changing Dynamics of Organizations

Joseph F. Murphy Peabody College Vanderbilt University Nashville, TN, USA

ISSN 2211-1921 ISSN 2211-193X (electronic) SpringerBriefs in Education ISBN 978-3-031-23758-4 ISBN 978-3-031-23759-1 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23759-1 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

Part I

An Emerging Perspective of Schooling

1 Unpacking the Concept of Communities of School Leadership . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3 11

2 Rationale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

17 21

3 Change Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

27 34

Part II

Remolding Schools

4 The Changing Nature of School Organizations and Change Forces Sense of Failure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Changing Environment 1890–1920 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 Convergence (1920–1990) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.1 Core Values/Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.2 Learning and Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.3 Organizational Architecture and Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Convergence (1990–2030) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.1 Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

41 41 42 42 43 44 47 47 48

5 Organizational Blueprints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Leadership Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.1 Creating Structures and Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1.2 Supporting Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Professional Organizational Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

53 57 65 67 75 77

v

vi

Contents

Part III Difficulties in Reaching Stabilization 6 Barriers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 6.1 Norms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 7 Dangers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Part I

An Emerging Perspective of Schooling

Chapter 1

Unpacking the Concept of Communities of School Leadership

We start with the knowledge that throughout most of the last century, with its focus on hierarchical forms and institutional dynamics, “leadership … tended to be constructed as associated with ascribed authority and position” (Crowther & Olsen, 1997, p. 6): “leadership traditionally has been perceived to reside with school administrators where power flowed downward to teachers” (Yarger & Lee, 1994, p. 226). On the schooling scene, this has meant that (1) educational leadership has been defined in “hierarchical and positional conceptions” (Darling-Hammond et al., 1995, p. 103), in terms of roles and the “positional authority” (Crowther, 1997, p. 5) of principals and superintendents; (2) “the system has not been organized to treat teachers as leaders” (Institute for Educational Leadership, 2001, p. 3); and (3) the leadership literature, in turn, “has focused almost entirely on those in formal school leadership positions” (Spillane et al., n.d., p. 7). These understandings gave rise to views of leadership that were tightly connected to domains of responsibility, with the assignment of “school-wide leadership to principals and classroom leadership roles to teachers” (Clift et al., 1992, p. 878; Crowther et al., 2002). The significant point here is not that teachers were unconnected to leadership but that such leadership was rarely acknowledged outside the realm of the classroom, teachers’ role-based field of authority and influence as traditionally defined (Barth, 1988a). Because the work of teachers in terms of role and authority “has been seen as being composed of interactions with students in classes” (Griffin, 1995, p. 30), the expectation has been hardwired into the structure and culture of schools “that the only job of teachers is to teach students and to consider the classroom, at best, as the legitimate extent of their influence” (Urbanski & Nickolaou, 1997, p. 244). “The formal authority of teachers in schools remains carefully circumscribed. Traditionally, they have exerted extensive control over teaching in their classrooms and departments, but their formal influence rarely extends beyond that” (Johnson, 1989, p. 105). This preoccupation with the hierarchical organizational systems with its tenets of separation of management (leadership from labor, chain of command, and positional authority) has led to the crystallization of (1) forms of schooling in which © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. F. Murphy, Understanding Communities of School Leadership, SpringerBriefs in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23759-1_1

3

4

1 Unpacking the Concept of Communities of School Leadership

“teachers are routed into traditional roles” (Kowalski, 1995, p. 247) and “teacher leadership is clearly not a common contemporary condition” (Barth, 1988b, p. 134)— models in which “few people have viewed these educators as a group in the same way as other leaders, i.e., principals” (Hatfield et al., 1986, p. 20); and (2) a profession in which “teachers, even those who are already leaders, do not see themselves as leaders” (Hart & Baptist, 1996, p. 87). As a consequence, historically “there were almost no mechanisms by which teachers [could] emerge as leaders for the purposes of leading work on teaching, even when they [had] been acknowledged as exemplary classroom teachers” (Little, 1987, p. 510). Thus, teachers have been forced into “dependent roles” (Creighton, 1997, p. 5). Not surprisingly, teachers have generally not been featured in school reform initiatives, except in the “cog-in-the-wheel role” (Griffin, 1995, p. 30) of implementing policy from above. They have been afforded very limited “opportunit[ies] to effect policy or restructure schools” (Manthei, 1992, p. 15; Lynch & Strodl, 1991) or to “participate in decision making about school improvement” (Wasley, 1991, p. 3)— “to effect meaningful change outside their classrooms or departments” (Johnson, 1989, p. 104). While the need for leadership has been a central ingredient in the school change and school improvement literature, consistent with the analysis above, historically that leadership has been associated with those in roles with positional authority over teachers (Heller & Firestone, 1995; Smylie et al., 2011). Indeed, it is proposed that much of the reform activity has actually solidified the traditional roles of administrators as leaders and teachers as followers (Suleiman & Moore, 1997). We commence also from the proposition that “teacher leadership is essential to change and improvement in a school” (Killion, 1996; Whitaker, 1995, p. 76), that “genuine, long-lasting school change initiatives must derive from and involve teachers” (Kelley, 1994, p. 300), and that without teachers’ “full participation and leadership, any move to reform education—no matter how well-intentioned or ambitious—is doomed to failure” (Lieberman & Miller, 1999, p. xi). In short, we argue for the necessity of challenging the underlying assumptions about existing roles for teachers and school administrators (Barth, 2001; Sergiovanni, 1991a, 1991b). The scaffolding on which we construct our understanding of leadership is forged from “multiple sources and persons” (Crowther, 1997, p. 7). It arises in part from the stockpile of material on leadership roles but is inclusive of more than traditional administrative roles (Miller, 1992). That is, we advance beyond the view of “educational leadership as the domain of either a particular stratum of the educational system or the individuals within that stratum” (Crowther, 1997, p. 6). Our scaffolding is erected from our best understandings of leadership as (1) an organizational property, (2) a function or process, (3) an outgrowth of expertise, (4) an activity of a group, and (5) a dynamic of community, understandings that move us away from what O’Hair and Reitzug (1997) label “conventional leadership” (p. 65) and that permit the concept of teacher leadership to be positioned on center stage in the school leadership play—insights that promote “a new type of leadership” (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001, p. 82) or “a new paradigm of leadership—one that recognizes the central place of teachers” (Crowther et al., 2002, p. 27).

1 Unpacking the Concept of Communities of School Leadership

5

We also know that the pillars that support traditional and collective leadership are quite different. The base of “traditional leadership” is organizational. It is about positions. The base of “collective leadership” on the other hand is about interactions among workers as they engage in decision making processes. “It implies a fundamental difference in the way ‘formal leaders’ understand their leadership role” (Harris, 2013, p. 4). It “departs from the bureaucratic or traditional model to an interconnected and dynamic approach to innovation and change” (p. 5). Communities of school leadership holds that formal leaders are only part of the leadership practice in any school as there are inevitably many other sources of influence and direction: i.e., “there are multiple sources of leadership” (Tian et al., 2016, p. 150). Communities of school leadership helps teachers absorb increased tasks. It is a way for teachers to carry more freight in school improvement efforts. As Ho and Ng (2017, p. 224) report, “it is a shift from focusing on the leadership actions of an individual as the sole agent to analyzing the ‘concertive’ or ‘co-joint’ actions of multiple individuals interacting and leading.” It defines leadership as “collective leadership practice” (Liu et al., 2016, p. 2). For the school, it means multiple sources of guidance and direction following the contours of expertise. Scholars define shared leadership as an “emergent property” (Liu et al., 2016, p. 2; Margolis & Doring, 2012) that “pursues a bottom up strategy” (Unterrainer et al., 2017, p. 75) that honors the abilities of varied workers to lead. It has less to do with “telling” but a good deal to do with “helping.” It is constructivist and socially constituted (Zhang, 2018). It is a concept laced with empowerment (Bouwmans et al., 2017, p. 4). Communities of school leadership adds practice to our understanding of leadership. Or as Tian et al. (2016) explain, distributed leadership is a practicecentered model that adds staff and situation (including context) and non-formally positioned organizational activity as key components of leadership. It underscores disbursed activity. Or to borrow from the work of one of the major analysts in this area, Spillane has provided a leadership design that has “fundamentally changed the unit of analysis from a [sole focus] on people to practice” (Tian et al., 2016, p. 150). Or in the words of Harris and Spillane (2008, p. 33 [cited in Sloan, 2013, p. 34]), “it focuses attention on the complex interactions and nuances of leadership in action.” It places considerable emphasis on “employee autonomy” as a central element in organizational decision making (Unterrainer et al., 2017, p. 59; Zhang, 2018). It also depends much more on interdependent and interconnected workers than is normally found in schools (Halim & Ahmad, 2017). In recognizing the considerable variation in social context, it is impossible to develop a “blueprint” for actions (Bush & Glover, 2012). The concept of communities of school leadership is defined by a number of elements. “It equates leadership with agency, focusing on the relationship among people and crossing organizational barriers” (Harris & Muijs, 2005, p. 16). It is about leading beyond the classroom—“the belief that teachers should be leading their colleagues toward building more powerful schools” (Wasley, 1992, p. 22). “It is about the division of labor in organizations, the actions of each individual in the collective activity of inter-dependent participants” (Hatcher, 2005, p. 256). “It is intentional in the sense that different persons have more power than

6

1 Unpacking the Concept of Communities of School Leadership

others” (Gunter et al., 2013). “It encompasses both formal and informal approaches to leadership as well as vertical and lateral dimensions of leadership” (Bush & Glover, 2012, p. 22). Communities of school leadership has “both structural and agential dimensions that often interact” (Tian et al., 2016, p. 148). It encompasses the idea that leadership is emergent and “that influence is not a fixed sum” (Louis et al., 2010, p. 2). Communities of school leadership “is a construed concept where leadership is primarily about learning together and constructing meaning and knowledge collectively and collaboratively” (Harris & Muijs, 2005, p. 13). It is “not about the relationship between leaders and followers, but the relationship between co leaders and their work” (Halverson & Kelley, 2017, p. 14). “The work of leading … in schools involves multiple individuals and differs by the type of activity or function” (Hulpia et al., 2009, p. 1030). Communities of school leadership entails a considerably greater commitment to democracy (Hatcher, 2005). The authority traditionally associated with the head teacher or principal is shared among a number of people (Hatcher, 2005). “It is about high involvement organizations in which the competitive functions of power between principals and teachers are considerably reduced” (Mohrman et al., 1992, p. 357). Communities of school leadership is considered as a social phenomenon, with context integral to understanding. “It is about creating a non-hierarchical network of collaborative learning alongside and separate from the hierarchical structure of power” (Hatcher, 2005, p. 255). Communities of school leadership is “an organization-wide phenomenon” (Leithwood et al., 2009, p. 270). Communities of school leadership “is a group-level phenomenon” (Hulpia & Devos, 2010, p. 565) among members of the organization. “Leadership resides in the human potential available to be released within an organization” (Harris, 2004, p. 12). Communities of school leadership “is much more a living process rather than a static body of information” (Wenger et al., 2002, p. 9). It “is located in context as well as a moment in time” (Gunter et al., 2013, p. 568). It is about “multiple sources of guidance and direction” (Harris, 2004, p. 14). It is not a choice between the principal and the power of the teacher. “Rather it involves a shift in roles in which the managerial task is to create the conditions and context for self leadership” (Mohrman et al., 1992, p. 356). Later, we address concerns, barriers, and dangers in the area of communities of school leadership. Before we get there, however, we need to surface a few critiques. We begin by noting that the work is not without controversy (Hairon & Goh, 2015; Heikka et al., 2013). Indeed, “Few models of leadership, it seems, have provoked as much attention, debate, and controversy within the school leadership field” (Harris, 2013, p. 3). Researchers find that the concept is not especially well defined and not well understood. It is marked by a lack of conceptual clarity. Again, we begin with the concept as it appears in various models of shared leadership. Communities of school leadership surfaces in different ways, in various studies. Concepts seen in one model may not be visible in a second model. The core elements of the concept in some places may not be identified as such. Researchers are often left to decide which of the

1 Unpacking the Concept of Communities of School Leadership

7

many sub-elements are important, or required, for communities of school leadership to work well. In addition, the weights that different perspectives carry are often impossible to determine. And as Timperley (2009, p. 200) notes, “we have almost no systematic evidence of organizational goals if different pattens of communities of school leadership are employed.” We know little about the varied patterns of steps that will be most effective to follow. Particularly harmful for communities of school leadership is the assumption of implementation. Or more specifically, the belief that once the identification work is undertaken core ideas will go to seed, grow, and be sustained in almost all schools. There is a copious body of work across the area of school reform that this assumption is routinely inaccurate. Another difficulty here is the understanding that influence from formal school leaders to teacher leaders by itself will routinely not be productive. The “handing off” foundation for excellence is not especially wise. It also can foster harm to a school rather than assumed benefits. The strategy runs completely counter to the DNA of communities of school leadership, i.e., a school wide sharing of evidence and activity throughout the school. In particular, it has the potential to foster “resistance among players” (Harris, 2005, p. 207) on each side of the teacher-leader divide—to reinforce the artificial separation of principals and teachers, to reinforce the artificial separation of both necessary roles for teacher and student growth (Harris & Muijs, 2005). In these situations where understanding and commitment are essential, they are often just pushed to the side and ignored by one of the two clusters of educators. When it is the principal who is pushed aside, failure of communities of school leadership is nearly guaranteed. That is, when we stop and remind ourselves that in the reality of schooling in which educators live, that the principal is often a key to success we would see just how harmful disempowering efforts would be and how little improvement would unfold. There is no “widely adopted terminology as a broadly acceptable definition” (Harris, 2012; Zhang, 2018, p. 4). Heikka et al. (2013, p. 31) focus on the absence of clarity and consistency in defining leadership through a distributed “lens.” Klar et al. (2016, p. 113) express concern over the variety of labels used to talk about teacher leadership: “varying notions of the term … currently exist in the literature base.” “The conceptual confusion or ambiguity in defining distributed leadership often leads to concepts being used uncritically” (Heikka et al., 2013, p. 31). For example, it is at times inappropriately used as “the opposite of formal leadership” (Harris, 2013, p. 6). “Consensus on what distributed leadership is has not yet been reached” (Tian et al., 2016, p. 152). The term “is used in different ways and to varying extents, reflecting the diverse complexity of school organization” (Bush & Glover, 2012, p. 34). It is at times described as an “elusive concept” (Bouwmans et al., 2017, p. 3) and at other times as a “catchall” term et al., 2016, p. 848). Other scholars worry that communities of school leadership has turned into a “fad” (Tahir et al., 2016, p. 848) or morphed into the idea of “bounded empowerment.” It “does not demand a change in prevailing leadership structures” (Heikka et al., 2013, p. 35), which given our knowledge about organizational structure and culture could dampen direction setting and subsequent work.

8

1 Unpacking the Concept of Communities of School Leadership

We have learned that moving the idea of community leadership into practice is likely to surface some skepticism among teachers (Mayrowetz et al., 2007). In particular, we know that communities of school leadership may feature techniques that they believe are attempting to “manipulate” them to accept the desires of principals (Mayrowetz et al., 2007, p. 74). Teachers may discern this evolution as a strategy for principals to unload additional work onto them. Wright (2008, p. 25) also reports that as principals attempt distributed forms of leadership by relinquishing decision making authority to others in the schools, they face a serious tension with the all-pervasive culture of accountability in which principals operate vis-à-vis their senior-level district administrators. Part of that tension rests on the concern that “principals are not always confident that pooling the expertise of school members [is] more effective and efficient than relying on more directive leadership approaches.” Even though many researchers acknowledge the absence of consensus around the term and the need to understand communities of school leadership well before developing prescriptions, this caution seems to have been simply filed away by many researchers, practitioners, and policy makers (Gunter et al., 2013). We also know that findings in this domain may be aggregated too quickly, without sufficient attention to “the patterns of distributions and how to understand which configurations are most likely to have a positive impact on the school” (Harris, 2012, p. 10). It is also suggested that more caution is in order before we even begin to take a normative position or speculate upon the potential benefits and limitations of this form of leadership (Harris, 2013). Concern also attends to the failure of researchers to dig deeply into findings before taking a seat at the table of assistance. Troubling also is the often untested or minimally explored connections between some concepts (e.g., the norm of evaluation and higher job performance). And most deeply, there is a penchant to employ concepts of shared leadership even though they “do not guarantee better performance; communities of school leadership is not a panacea for success, it does not possess any innate good or bad qualities. It is not friend or foe” (Harris, 2013, p. 12). The entire process of exploring the two non-content pieces of school improvement—the context and the change process—(Murphy & Bleiberg, 2019) are routinely passed over, leaving less than vibrant results (Harris, 2013). Another caveat, as Harris (2012, pp. 9–10) clearly points out, “is that just distributing leadership is not enough, it is how the leadership is distributed that matters.” She also reminds us that “the issue is not one of [just] increasing the numbers of leaders but rather one of increasing quality and capability” (Harris, 2013, p. 11). And Ho and Ng (2017, p. 228), Silva et al., 2000) explain that the tension between structures and human agency within communities of school leadership sometimes turns into power struggles. Ho and Ng (2017) also note that it is not unheard of for different actors to pursue different goals. Scholars also help us see lessons that are more visible to practitioner colleagues. They find that agents are often locked into the influence they enjoy (Silva et al., 2000). And they are not especially interested in giving that power to others and in “micro politics” (Timperley, 2005, p. 418). And even when they may be, absent trust at the base of this collective work, principals are often unwilling to pass on influence. Teachers then often simply defer to formal school leaders. On the other

1 Unpacking the Concept of Communities of School Leadership

9

hand, the teaching staff is concerned about becoming a dumping ground for work that principals would prefer not to do—“issues that they used to happily leave to the concern of administration” (Corbett et al., 1987; Weiss et al., 1992, p. 350). Equally troubling is the possibility that as teachers already not prepared for this type of work (Sherill, 1999) accept the roles of school management, they will be seen by other teachers as having crossed to the dark side of school improvement and be “perceived as outsiders” (Stone et al., 1997, p. 59). And more troubling still is the fact almost all earlier work in the domain of sharing influence and power has shown that teacher leaders often “simply back away from conflict” and “honor historical decision legitimacy” (Gordon, 2010, p. 265). They have learned not to welcome invitations to engage in communities of school leadership work and if forced to do so not to undertake the work in a meaningful way. Difficulties here include resistance to “swim against the tide of life and career and complexity”—the introduction of very “sophisticated innovation that demand far more participants than their advocates acknowledge” (Evans, 1996, p. 232; Mayrowetz et al., 2009). They are routinely “expected to assume leadership roles with little or no preparation” (Sherill, 1999, p. 56). The bottom line is that “whatever its rightness, shared governance draws skepticism and opposition from teachers” (Evans, 1996, p. 232). We should also report that communities of school leadership is laid out differently in various venues. It is often described in articles in terms of formality and informality. More rarely, but at times, it is bifurcated into planful and ad hoc activities. Finally, even rarer, analysts examine the concept of depth in communities of school leadership. The negative part of the communities of school leadership narrative [e.g., constructs that hamper SI (Wasley, 1991)] grows from clusters of ideas and findings. One is that “only a handful of studies … inquired about effects on students and these data were generally not supportive” (Leithwood & Mascall, 2008, p. 533). Because of this, researchers in the area of communities of school leadership worry that “the groundswell of support for distributed leadership may be a kind of meta rhetoric with little reality on the ground” (p. 550). The most powerful aspect of this negativity about the impact of communities of school leadership focuses on “evidence.” In particular, there is evidence that community projects “initiated by teacher leaders are not very successful over time” (Stone et al., 1997, p. 61), that they fail to bring extolled benefits to life—that a pathway from shared adult leadership to student learning may not exist (Mohrman et al., 1992). On the topic of learning gains, for example, Anderson et al. 2009, p. 130) “did not detect any clear connection between the patterns of leadership distribution revealed in the qualitative data and student test results evidence.” And Harris and Muijs (2005, p. 4) review a Peterson et al. study that found no relationship between shared decision making in schools and enhanced teacher effectiveness. Leithwood and Mascall (2008, p. 554) found that “few changes have occurred in schools that are detectable by teachers.” Timperley (2009, p. 200) tells us that “with the exception of leadership established through formally established committees and teams, we have

10

1 Unpacking the Concept of Communities of School Leadership

almost no systematic evidence about the relative contribution to the achievement of organizational goals of different patterns and distributed leadership.” One suspicion on the negative side of the communities of school leadership → outcome narrative is that communities of school leadership is actually undermining the authority of teachers (Weiss et al., 1992) and as a result it acts as a brake on employing widespread decision making in the service of school improvement. Worse, teachers at times see communities of school leadership as neutering the influence they currently enjoy in schools. They “begin to suspect that their authority is being undermined” (Weiss et al., 1992, p. 364). Negative results can also materialize because needed support such as new skills and task-relevant information and strategies are often not provided. Communities of school leadership also surfaces new understandings of “time” for teachers themselves as well as for teacher leaders and formal leaders. These understandings are rarely acknowledged and even more rarely infused into schools. The same “absence of support” theme is often visible in the area of learning and knowledge for teachers (e.g., knowledge of group facilitation and interaction skills, the meaning and use of interdisciplinary work) in professionally anchored schools (Pil & Leana, 2009). In institutionalizing communities of school leadership all the actors need an understanding of what principals do, and why. They need to have their voices heard, which we learn is not the norm in schools. Relatedly, the reality is that even when teachers are listened to, they are often not heard by school leaders. The existing knowledge base, understanding, and wisdom to structure communities of school leadership in schools is generally too limited to assist in planning, doing, and assessing. “Although some of these [needs] may be taken for granted in other industries, it is important to stress that they are still the exception rather than the rule in public schools” (Pil & Leana, 2009, p. 1117). Given the robust focus in the last 20 years on influence and power from school administrators, it is again surprising that their appearance in the collective leadership narrative requires a massive amount of detective work. While this is understandable given the school embedded linkages between parents and schools for over a century, such exclusion has been harmful to school reform efforts. If communities of school leadership continues to be nested and grow, we would all benefit from an analysis of the theoretical and conceptual energy that powers these schools. And, if we could achieve understanding here, we would be even more advantaged as we explored how communities of school leadership works in schools and why. To trace the history of communities of school leadership, we turn to all terms that move leadership away from a single person (e.g., co-leadership, shared leadership, leadership density, networks), almost uniformly the principal (Pellicer & Anderson, 1995; Thorpe et al., 2011). The overwhelming bulk of the history comes from analyses of distributed leadership and teacher leadership. Smylie and Denny (1990) trace teacher leadership back to at least 1921. They remind us that “teacher leadership is not something new” (p. 237)—“it has not emerged from nowhere” (Gronn, 2008, p. 144). Using their historical lenses, Smylie and Denny (1990) help us see that “teachers have historically assumed certain formal leadership roles in schools” and

References

11

school districts (p. 237). Harris and Muijs (2005), Holloway et al. (2017), and Leithwood et al. (2009) concur, suggesting that study of distributed sources might range back to the mid-1920s. Wasley (1991) confirms that teacher “leadership roles have been in place for the last century” (Livingston, 1992, p. 22), although like most colleagues she reports on expansion of teacher leadership starting to occur in the 1980s (Halverson & Kelley, 2017). Many scholars trace the organization of communities of school leadership back to Biggs in 1943 and Gibbs in 1954 (Gronn, 2009; Serrat, 2017), although they also conclude that neither was “a lone voice as is often suggested” (Gronn, 2008, p. 145; Bolden, 2011). Dinham et al. (2008) find that “DL can be traced back to social psychology in the 1950s” (p. 3). Researchers also find “that the heritage of thinking which provides the foundation for this idea is considerably more extensive than was initially believed” (Gronn, 2008, p. 145). The general sense in the research literature is that the notion of multi-shared leadership “lay dormant” (Serrat, 2017, p. 11) appearing in a “smattering of articles in the 1980s and 1990s” (Bolden, 2011, p. 253; Dinham & Scott, 2000) and has shown rapid growth interest since 2000 (Thorpe et al., 2011). Indeed, Hartley (2009, p. 141) refers to distributed leadership “as the new orthodoxy.”

References Anderson, S., Moore, S., & Sun, J. (2009). Positioning the principals in patterns of school leadership distribution. In K. Leithwood, B. Mascall, & T. Strauss (Eds.), Distributed leadership according to the evidence (pp. 111–136). Routledge. Barth, R. S. (1988a). Principals, teachers, and school leadership. Phi Delta Kappan, 69(9), 639–642. Barth, R. S. (1988b). School: A community of leaders place to have a career. In A. Lieberman (Ed.), Building a professional culture in schools (pp. 129–147). Teachers College Press. Barth, R. S. (2001). Teacher leader. Phi Delta Kappan, 82(6), 443–449. Bolden, R. (2011). Distributed leadership in organizations: A review of theory and research. International Journal of Management Reviews, 13(3), 251–269. Bouwmans, M., Runhaar, P., Wesselink, R., & Mulder, M. (2017). Towards distributed leadership in vocational education and training schools: The interplay between formal leaders and team members. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 1–17. Bush, T., & Glover, D. (2012). Distributed leadership in action: Leading high-performing leadership teams in English schools. School Leadership & Management, 32(1), 21–36. Clift, R., Johnson, M., Holland, P., & Veal, M. L. (1992). Developing the potential for collaborative school leadership. American Educational Research Journal, 29(4), 877–908. Corbett, H. D., Firestone, W. A., & Rossman, G. B. (1987). Resistance to planned change and the sacred in school cultures. Educational Administration Quarterly, 23(4), 36–59. Creighton, T. B. (1997, March). Teachers as leaders: Is the principal really needed? Paper presented at the Annual Conference on Creating Quality Schools. Oklahoma City, OK. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED411117). Crowther, F. (1997). The William Walker oration, 1996: Unsung heroes: The leaders in our classrooms. Journal of Educational Administration, 35(1), 5–17. Crowther, F., & Olsen, P. (1997). Teachers as leaders—An exploratory framework. International Journal of Educational Management, 11(1), 6–13.

12

1 Unpacking the Concept of Communities of School Leadership

Crowther, F., Kaagan, S., Ferguson, M., & Hann, L. (2002). Developing teacher leaders: How teacher leadership enhances school success. Corwin Press. Darling-Hammond, L., Bullmaster, M. L., & Cobb, V. L. (1995). Rethinking teacher leadership through professional development schools. The Elementary School Journal, 96(1), 87–106. Dinham, S., & Scott, C. (2000). Moving into the third, outer domain of teacher satisfaction. Journal of Educational Administration, 38(4), 379–396. Dinham, S., Aubusson, P. J., & Brady, L. I. (2008). Distributed leadership as a factor in and outcome of teacher action learning. International Electronic Journal for Leadership in Learning, 12(4), 1–12. Evans, R. (1996). The human side of school change: Reform, resistance, and the real-life problems of innovation. Jossey-Bass Inc. Gordon, R. D. (2010). Dispersed leadership: Exploring the impact of antecedent forms of power using a communicative framework. Management Communication Quarterly, 24(2), 260–287. Griffin, G. A. (1995). Influences of shared decision making on school and classroom activity: Conversations with five teachers. The Elementary School Journal, 96(1), 29–45. Gronn, P. (2008). The future of distributed leadership. Journal of Educational Administration, 46(2), 141–158. Gronn, P. (2009). Hybrid leadership. In K. Leithwood, B. Mascall, & T. Strauss (Eds.), Distributed leadership according to the evidence (pp. 17–39). Routledge. Gunter, H., Hall, D., & Bragg, J. (2013). Distributed leadership: A study in knowledge production. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 41(5), 555–580. Hairon, S., & Goh, J. W. (2015). Pursuing the elusive construct of distributed leadership: Is the search over? Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 43(5), 693–718. Halim, R. A., & Ahmad, H. H. (2017). Distributed leadership, contextual factor and teachers’ selfefficacy in Malaysia. MOJEM: Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Management, 3(3), 1–12. Halverson, R. R., & Kelley, C. E. (2017). Mapping leadership: The tasks that matter in school improvement. Jossey-Bass. Harris, A. (2004). Distributed leadership and school improvement: Leading or misleading? Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 32(1), 11–24. Harris, A. (2005). Teacher leadership: More than just a feel-good factor? Leadership and Policy in Schools, 4(3), 201–219. Harris, A. (2012). Distributed leadership: Implications for the role of the principal. Journal of Management Development, 31(1), 7–17. Harris, A. (2013). Distributed school leadership: Developing tomorrow’s leaders. Routledge. Harris, A., & Muijs, D. (2005). Improving schools through teacher leadership. McGraw-Hill Education. Harris, A., & Spillane, J. (2008). Distributed leadership through the looking glass. Administration Society (BELMAS), 22(1), 31–34. Hart, R., & Baptist, B. (1996). Developing teacher leaders: A state initiative. In G. Moller & M. Katzenmeyer (Eds.), Every teacher as a leader: Realizing the potential of teacher leadership (pp. 85–100). Jossey-Bass. Hartley, D. (2009). Education policy, distributed leadership and socio-cultural theory. Educational Review, 61(2), 139–150. Hatcher, R. (2005). The distribution of leadership and power in schools. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 26(2), 253–267. Hatfield, R. C., Blackman, C. A., & Claypool, C. (1986). Exploring leadership roles performed by teaching faculty in K-12 schools. Paper presented at the annual conference of the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, Chicago, IL. Heikka, J., Waniganayake, M., & Hujala, E. (2013). Contextualizing distributed leadership within early childhood education: Current understandings, research evidence and future challenges. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 41(1), 30–44.

References

13

Heller, M. F., & Firestone, W. A. (1995). Who’s in charge here? Sources of leadership for change in eight schools. The Elementary School Journal, 96(1), 65–86. Ho, J., & Ng, D. (2017). Tensions in distributed leadership. Educational Administration Quarterly, 53(2), 223–254. Holloway, J., Nielsen, A., & Saltmarsh, S. (2017). Prescribed distributed leadership in the era of accountability: The experiences of mentor teachers. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 46(4), 538–555. Hulpia, H., & Devos, G. (2010). How distributed leadership can make a difference in teachers’ organizational commitment: A qualitative study. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26(3), 565– 575. Hulpia, H., Devos, G., & Rosseel, Y. (2009). Development and validation of scores on the distributed leadership inventory. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 69(6), 1013–1034. Institute for Educational Leadership. (2001, April). Leadership for student learning: Redefining the teacher as leader. Author. Johnson, S. M. (1989). Schoolwork and its reform. In J. Hannaway & R. Crowson (Eds.), The politics of reforming school administration. 1989 yearbook of the Politics of Education Association (pp. 95–112). Falmer Press. Katzenmeyer, M., & Moller, G. (2001). Awakening the sleeping giant: Helping teachers develop as leaders. Corwin. Kelley, J. A. (1994). The national board for professional teaching standards: Toward a community of teacher leaders. In D. R. Walling (Ed.), Teachers as leaders: Perspectives on the professional development of teachers (pp. 299–313). Phi Delta Kappa. Killion, J. P. (1996). Moving beyond the school: Teacher leaders in the district office. In G. Moller & M. Katzenmeyer (Eds.), Every teacher as a leader: Realizing the potential of teacher leadership (pp. 63–84). Jossey-Bass. Klar, H. W., Huggins, K. S., Hammonds, H. L., & Buskey, F. C. (2016). Fostering the capacity for distributed leadership: A post-heroic approach to leading school improvement. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 19(2), 111–137. Kowalski, T. J. (1995). Preparing teachers to be leaders: Barriers in the work-place. In M. J. O’Hair & S. J. Odell (Eds.), Educating teachers for leadership and change (pp. 243–256). Corwin Press. Leithwood, K., & Mascall, B. (2008). Collective leadership effects on student achievement. Educational Administration Quarterly, 44(4), 529–561. Leithwood, K. A., Mascall, B., & Straus, T. (2009). What we have learned and where we go from here. In K. Leithwood, B. Mascall, & T. Strauss (Eds.), Distributed leadership according to the evidence (pp. 269–281). Routledge. Lieberman, A., & Miller, L. (1999). Teachers—Transforming their world and their work. Teachers College Press. Little, J. W. (1987). Teachers as colleagues. In V. Richardson-Koehler (Ed.), Educators’ handbook: A research perspective (pp. 491–518). Longman. Liu, Y., Bellibas, M. S., & Printy, S. (2016). How school context and educator characteristics predict distributed leadership: A hierarchical structural equation model with 2013 TALIS data. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 46(3), 401–423. Livingston, C. (1992). Teachers as leaders: Evolving roles. National Education Association. Louis, K., Leithwood, K., Wahlstrom, K., & Anderson, S. (2010). Investigating the links to improved student learning: Final report of research findings. Walton Foundation. Lynch, C. A., & Strodl, P. (1991). Teacher leadership: Preliminary development of a questionnaire. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Eastern Educational Research Association, Boston, MA. Manthei, J. (1992). The mentor teacher as leader: The motives, characteristics and needs of seventy-three experienced teachers who seek a new leadership role. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED346042).

14

1 Unpacking the Concept of Communities of School Leadership

Margolis, J., & Doring, A. (2012). The fundamental dilemma of teacher leader-facilitated professional development: Do as I (kind of) say, not as I (sort of) do. Educational Administration Quarterly, 48(5), 859–882. Mayrowetz, D., Murphy, J., Louis, K. S., & Smylie, M. (2009). Conceptualizing distributed leadership as a school reform. In K. Leithwood, B. Mascall, & T. Strauss (Eds.), Distributed leadership according to the evidence (pp. 167–195). Routledge. Mayrowetz, D., Murphy, J., Seashore Louis, K., & Smylie, M. A. (2007). Distributed leadership as work redesign: Retrofitting the job characteristics model. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 6(1), 69–101. Miller, L. (1992). Teacher leadership in a renewing school. In C. Livingston (Ed.), Teachers as leaders: Evolving roles (pp. 115–130). National Education Association. Mohrman, S. A., Lawler, E. E., III., & Mohrman, A. M., Jr. (1992). Applying employee involvement in schools. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 14(4), 347–360. Murphy, J., & Bleiberg, J. (2019). School turnaround policies and practices: Learning from failed school reform. Springer. O’Hair, M. J., & Reitzug, W. C. (1997). Teacher leadership: In what ways? For what purpose? Action in Teacher Education, 19(3), 65–76. Pellicer, L. O., & Anderson, L. W. (1995). A Handbook for Teacher Leaders. Corwin Press. Pil, F. K., & Leana, C. (2009). Applying organizational research to public school reform: The effects of teacher human and social capital on student performance. Academy of Management Journal, 52(6), 1101–1124. Sergiovanni, T. J. (1991a). The dark side of professionalism in educational administration. Phi Delta Kappan, 72(7), 521–526. Sergiovanni, T. J. (1991b). The principalship: A reflective practice perspective (2nd ed.). Allyn & Bacon. Serrat, O. (2017). Knowledge solutions: Tools, methods, and approaches to drive organizational performance. Springer. Sherrill, J. A. (1999). Preparing teachers for leadership roles in the 21st Century. Theory into Practice, 38(1), 56–61. Silva, D. Y., Gimbert, B., & Nolan, J. (2000). Sliding the doors: Locking and unlocking possibilities for teacher leadership. Teachers College Record, 102(4), 779–804. Sloan, T. (2013). Distributed leadership and organizational change: Implementation of a teaching performance measure. The New Educator, 9(1), 29–53. Smylie, M. A., & Denny, J. W. (1990). Teacher leadership: Tensions and ambiguities in organizational perspective. Educational Administration Quarterly, 26(3), 235–259. Smylie, M. A., Conley, S., & Marks, H. M. (2011). Exploring new approaches to teacher leadership for school improvement. In E. M. Hilty (Ed.), Teacher leadership: The ‘new’ foundations of teacher education: A reader (pp. 265–282). Peter Lang. Spillane, J. P., Halverson, R., & Diamond, J. B. (n.d.) Toward a theory of leadership practice: A distributed perspective. Northwestern University Institute for Policy Research. Stone, M., Horejs, J., & Lomas, A. (1997). Commonalities and differences in teacher leadership at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Action in Teacher Education, 19(3), 49–64. Suleiman, M., & Moore, R. (1997). Teachers roles revisited: Beyond classroom management. Paper presented at the ATE summer workshop, Tarpon Springs, FL. Tahir, L. M., Lee, S. L., Musah, M. B., Jaffri, H., Said, M. N. H. M., & Yasin, M. H. M. (2016). Challenges in distributed leadership: Evidence from the perspective of head teachers. International Journal of Educational Management, 30(6), 848–863. Thorpe, R., Gold, J., & Lawler, J. (2011). Locating distributed leadership. International Journal of Management Reviews, 13(3), 239–250. Tian, M., Risku, M., & Collin, K. (2016). A meta-analysis of distributed leadership from 2002 to 2013. Theory development, empirical evidence and future research focus. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 44(1), 146–164.

References

15

Timperley, H. (2005). Distributed leadership: Developing theory from practice. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 37(4), 395–420. Timperley, H. (2009). Distributing leadership to improve outcomes for students. In K. Leithwood, B. Mascall, & T. Strauss (Eds.), Distributed leadership according to the evidence (pp. 197–222). Routledge. Unterrainer, C., Jeppesen, H. J., & Jønsson, T. F. (2017). Distributed Leadership Agency and its relationship to individual autonomy and occupational self-efficacy: A two wave-mediation study in Denmark. Humanistic Management Journal, 2(1), 57–81. Urbanski, A., & Nickolaou, M. B. (1997). Reflections on Teacher Leadership. Educational Policy, 11(2), 243–254. Wasley, P. (1991). Teachers who lead: The rhetoric of reform and the realities of practice. Teachers College Press. Wasley, P. (1992). Working together: Teacher leadership and collaboration. In C. Livingston (Ed.), Teachers leaders: Evolving roles (pp. 21–55). National Education Association. Weiss, C. H., Cambone, J., & Wyeth, A. (1992). Trouble in paradise: Teacher conflicts in shared decision making. Educational Administration Quarterly, 28(3), 350–367. Wenger, E., McDermott, R. A., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge. Harvard Business Press. Whitaker, T. (1995, January). Informed teacher leadership—The key to successful change in the middle level school. NASSP Bulletin, 79(567), 76–81. Wright, L. L. (2008). Merits and limitations of distributed leadership: Experiences and understandings of school principals. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, 69, 1–33. Yarger, S. J., & Lee, O. (1994). The development and sustenance of instructional leadership. In D. R. Walling (Ed.), Teachers as leaders: Perspectives on the professional development of teachers (pp. 223–237). Phi Delta Kappa. Zhang, L. (2018, February). Distributed leadership in drainage basin management: A critical analysis of ‘River Chief Policy’ from a distributed leadership perspective. In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science (Vol. 113, No. 1, pp. 1–23).

Chapter 2

Rationale

The question we confront now is why has the concept of “shared and distributed leadership” (Fitzsimons et al., 2011, p. 313) appeared and continues to try to go to seed and bloom in the world of K-12 public education? Why is strategy “now moving towards distributed sources of influence and agency” (Tian et al., 2016, p. 157). Why is it viewed as “an idea whose time has come” (Gronn in Bolden, 2011, p. 254)? Why do “the old perspectives not fit the landscape as they used to?” (Watson & Scribner, 2007, p. 447) “How can the emergence of distributed agency be explained?” (Buchanan et al., 2007, p. 1081). “Societal, business, product, and work force changes … argue strongly for a change in management style that fits current realities, rather than simply doing the old better, i.e., some form of participative management makes the most sense because it fits with the major changes in the work force, technologies, and societal conditions better than any other alternative” (Lawler, 1986, pp. 19– 20; Watson & Scribner, 2007). “Analysis reveals a broadening of leadership theory away from” “unitary command” (Unterrainer et al., 2017, p. 58; Wright, 2008) and the traditional view that leadership equates with individual role or responsibility (Gunter et al., 2013; Kondakci et al., 2016) “toward the idea of leadership as a social influence process” (Harris, 2005, p. 202; Tahir et al., 2016) and away from a direct process from leadership to outcome (Halverson & Kelley, 2017). Leadership theory here takes us away from “the bifurcated and mutually exclusive categories of leader and followers” (Gronn, 2008, p. 146; Ho & Ng, 2017), from leadership to the acts of leading (Smylie et al., 2020) from the “ontological conceptualization of leadership as individual centric” (Cope et al., 2011, p. 274)—to leadership as grounded in activities rather than in position or role” (Unterrainer et al., 2017, p. 60)—and to a “web of leaders” (Tahir et al., 2016, p. 849). Community school leadership is “largely a critical response to the heroism and new leadership of the 1980s” (Gronn, 2008, p. 142; Halverson & Kelley, 2017). It argues that leadership is not simply a role-specific phenomenon but a “group quality” (Watson & Scribner, 2007, p. 448) or an organization-wide phenomenon (Heikka et al., 2013; Thorpe et al., 2011) “in which leadership can come from group or organizational members other than the

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. F. Murphy, Understanding Communities of School Leadership, SpringerBriefs in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23759-1_2

17

18

2 Rationale

designated leader” (Fitzsimons et al., 2011, p. 315; Harris, 2004). “The model that principals alone lead schools is outdated and increasingly irrelevant” (Halverson & Kelley, 2017, p. 14). “School improvement will depend on expanded thinking about teacher leadership” (Haney, 2005, p. 30). “In this sense, leadership is located between and among individuals within an organization” (Harris & Muijs, 2005, p. 14; Thorpe et al., 2011). “Joint performance and interdependence are highlighted” (Buchanan et al., 2007; Zhang & Faerman, 2007, p. 491)—a movement from roles to practice and tasks (Tian et al., 2016; Zhang, 2018). Communities of school leadership have been powered by negative and positive forces. These forces have materialized in the external environment which surrounds education and in the internal actions in the schools themselves. “Organizational influence and decision making is governed by interaction of individuals rather than individual direction” (Harris, 2009, p. 174). No sooner had the ink dried on early reform measures than they came under attack. A wide variety of scholars and practitioners found the entire fabric of the reform agenda to be wanting (see, for example, Boyd, 1987; Chubb, 1988; Cuban, 1984; Sedlack et al., 1986; Sizer, 1984). Finding the earlier suggestions inadequate at best and wrongheaded at worst, reformers clamored for fundamental revisions in the ways analysts approached school improvement. The muted voice of teachers (Creighton, 1997)—“too long silent and isolated in classrooms” (Wasley, 1991, p. 5)—and the overreliance on those in formal leadership roles to carry the reform freight (Chenoweth & Everhart, 2002; Pellicer & Anderson, 1995) were seen as especially problematic (Smylie et al., 2020). There was an expanding recognition that these elements of the early reforms “undermined teacher professionalism” (Frost & Durrant, 2003, p. 175) and “inhibit[ed] sustained school reform” (Crowther et al., 2002, p. 29). Concerns were increasingly voiced that these centralized reforms not only lacked the energy to power improvement but may have actually been an obstacle in the path toward enhanced student performance. New ways to formulate school improvement began to surface, new forms that grew from a different philosophical seedbed than the one that nourished the early round of change efforts. Teachers were now “perceived as part of the solution to school revitalization” (Keedy, 1999, p. 785; Snell & Swanson, 2000). Reformers began to assert that educational improvement was (and is) contingent on empowering teachers to work more effectively with students (Carnegie Forum on Education & the Economy, 1986; Holmes Group, 1986). More and more people began to discern “the tremendous potential of teacher leaders” (Smyser, 1995, p. 131) and to hold “teacher leadership qualities as necessary elements for redesigning schools for success” (Wynne, 2001, p. 1). Recent calls for reconsidering this relatively tightly controlled view of teacher work have caused many school and university practitioners to think about what teachers can contribute to school improvement and effectiveness (Griffin, 1995, p. 30)

The major policy mechanism employed in these new reforms is “power distribution”—a perspective that

2 Rationale

19

assume[s] that schools can be improved by distributing political power among the various groups who have legitimate interests in the nature and quality of educational services. Reforms that seek to reallocate power and authority among various stakeholders are based on the belief that when power is in the right hands, schools will improve. (Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development, 1986, p. 13)

Unlike the strategy employed in the agricultural era of reform, this change model is designed to capitalize on the energy and creativity of teachers at the school site level. Underlying the ideology of these more recent reform initiatives is the assumption that the problems in education can be ascribed to the structure of school—“that the highest impediment to progress is the nature of the system itself” (Carnegie Forum on Education & the Economy, 1986, p. 40). It is not surprising, therefore, that the focus of improvement shifted to the professionals who populated schools and the conditions they needed to work effectively, including basic changes to the organizational arrangements of schooling—a shift from mechanistic, structure-enhancing strategies to a professional approach to reform and from “regulation and compliance monitoring to mobilization of institutional capacity” (Timar & Kirp, 1988, p. 75). Nor is it surprising that reformers who considered the basic structure of schools as the root of education’s problem should propose more far-reaching and radical solutions than their predecessors, who believed that the existing system could be repaired (Boyd, 1987; Perry, 1988). More directly to the topic at hand, we note that later reform dynamics outlined above “created a window of opportunity for teacher leaders” (Wilson, 1993, p. 24). That is, “new leadership roles for teachers occurred, in large part, in reaction to the regulatory bureaucratically oriented educational reforms of the late 1970s and early 1980s” (Smylie, 1996, p. 522) and that the concept itself was “born out of a ‘second wave’ of reform” (Berry & Ginsberg, 1990, p. 617; Odell, 1997) developed in response to earlier initiatives (Murphy, 1990; Smylie & Denny, 1989). “Creating change through enhancing teachers’ roles as leaders” (Conley & Muncey, 1999, p. 46) was thus both a reaction to the failed framework of centralized control as well as a central plank in alternative reform strategies (Boles & Troen, 1996). While collective school leadership sometimes held center stage by itself, more often than not, it was “connected with several interrelated educational reform themes” (Forster, 1997, p. 84). It has been both a spur to the acceptance of these reform strategies (e.g., school-based management) (Murphy & Beck, 1995) as well as a “key element” (Smylie, 1996, p. 521) and a “central component of the latest educational reform efforts” (Fay, 1992; Hart, 1995; Snell & Swanson, 2000, p. 2). Or, as Teitel (1996) affirms, “the current reform movements ask classroom teachers to take on significant new leadership roles” (p. 150) and “require a new type of leadership from professional educators” (Conley, 1997, p. 330). The broadest and most powerful reform stream that has carried communities of school leadership to prominence is the “professionalization of teaching” (Forster, 1997, p. 84) and “an emphasis on moving on to more professional models of school organization and management” (Conley & Muncey, 1999, p. 46; Wise, 1989). The first of two tributaries of rationale here spotlights the macro, occupational level

20

2 Rationale

(Berry & Ginsberg, 1990; Wasley, 1991) and underscores the importance of community leadership “as a means of reforming the teaching profession” (Lieberman, 1987, p. 400). Community school leadership is viewed as a conduit for the emergence of (1) “a new paradigm of the teaching profession” (Crowther et al., 2002, p. 3)—a “true profession” (Lieberman & Miller, 1999; Pellicer & Anderson, 1995, p. 12) and (2) “a professional model of teaching” (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001, p. 40)—conditions, it is held, that are essential for “the preservation of the public school tradition” (Maeroff, 1988; Wise, 1989, p. 309) writ large. The logic here is that “teachers must assume leadership if teaching is ever to become accepted as a profession” (Hinchey, 1997, p. 233). Or, as Katzenmeyer and Moller (2001) assert, “a professional model of teaching points to the need for teacher leadership” (p. 43) and “teacher leadership has become synonymous with the drive toward greater professionalism for teachers” (McCay et al., 2001, p. 137). The essence of the change here is a shift in the attempt to address issues of quality control “by substituting quality control over personnel for quality control over service delivery” (Wise, 1989, p. 304)—a “shift from hierarchical to peer control of teaching” (Firestone, 1996, p. 401) and the “transformation of teaching from an occupation to a profession” (Berry & Ginsberg, 1990, p. 617). The change features “a variety of roles for teachers, which provide teachers with greater opportunities to influence both practice and change in schools” (Stone et al., 1997, p. 49). A second parallel but somewhat distinct tributary of rationale was introduced earlier—the micro level and more instrumental argument “that unless teachers are … supported as professionals, schools will not be able to sustain change through school reform efforts” (Wynne, 2001, p. 1). That is, unless we create a teaching profession, our ability to restructure schools and “improve schools on behalf of student learning” (Wasley, 1991, p. 18) will be crippled (Pellicer & Anderson, 1995; Stone et al., 1997), that “teacher leadership is a critical component” (Stone et al., 1997, p. 50) or “crucial element of school improvement” (Smylie et al., 2020, p. 162). Thus, professionalism is “held out with the promise that [it] will produce more successful solutions to problems of students learning and student socialization” (Hallinger & Richardson, 1988; Little, 1988, p. 82). Communities of school leadership is also buttressed by a set of values or “reform imperatives” (Fay, 1992, p. 57) that are at the heart of post-bureaucratic reforms in general and professional community specifically. The most visible of these is “empowerment” (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001, p. 23) or “professional autonomy” (Wasley, 1991, p. 20); the focus on “empower[ing] school staff by providing authority” (David, 1989b, p. 52)—on overcoming “the high degree of powerlessness among professional staff” (Hallinger & Richardson, 1988, p. 242) through the “shift of a major portion of responsibility for leadership from principals to teachers” (Pellicer & Anderson, 1995, p. 14). The assumption is that formal alterations in decision-making structures will lead to real changes in the involvement, voice, and autonomy of local stakeholders (Dellar, 1992; Sackney & Dibski, 1992). Or, more specifically, that “decentralized schools alter the educational power structure” (Wohlstetter & McCurdy, 1991, p. 391).

References

21

A second premise is that this augmented autonomy and authority provide the requisite context for change, “that school autonomy is a prerequisite for a school to be effective” (Chubb, 1988; Robertson & Buffett, 1991, p. 3). “With adequate authority at the school level, many important decisions affecting personnel, curriculum and the use of resources can be made by the people who are in the best position to make them (those who are most aware of problems and needs)” (Clune & White, 1988, p. 3). More specifically, “there is a significant relationship between providing authority to employees at the work site and achieving the organization’s ultimate goal” (Duttweiler & Mutchler, 1990, p. 30). That is, by relying on “a matrix of authority bested in many people rather than a strict hierarchy of authority and power vested in the principal” (Hart, 1995, p. 11; Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001) and by “extending teachers’ decision-making power into schoolwide leadership activities” (Boles & Troen, 1994, p. 6) and “schoolwide decision making and policy development” (Griffin, 1995, p. 30; Hatfield et al., 1986), students will learn more effectively (Brown, 1992; Wagstaff & Reyes, 1993). Other values also nourish reforms and restructuring and feature communities of school leadership. While “professionalism empowers teachers” (Rallis, 1990, p. 192), the development and use of a “specialized knowledge base” (Wasley, 1991, p. 16) that is widely shared by teachers (Elmore, 1996)—an emphasis on “knowledgebased work” (Clemson-Ingram & Fessler, 1997, p. 99)—brings professionalism to life (Conley, 1997). Emerging understandings of reform as processes that privilege community (Rogus, 1988), “collaboration and collegiality” (Wasley, 1991, p. 18), and a “collaborative culture” (Lieberman, 1992, p. 164) and “social context in which knowledge can be created, transferred and transposed” (Frost & Durrant, 2003, p. 175) are also significant. So too are commitments to democratization in the workplace (Furman & Starratt, 2002) and to the principle of building schooling on “the consent of the governed” (Clark, 1987, p. 40)—an affirmation of “schools as communities in which all members have voice and are allowed the space to fulfill their human potential and exercise leadership” (Frost & Durrant, 2003, p. 176).

References Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. (1986, September). School reform policy: A call for reason. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Berry, B., & Ginsberg, R. (1990). Creating lead teachers: From policy to implementation. Phi Delta Kappan, 71(8), 616–621. Bolden, R. (2011). Distributed leadership in organizations: A review of theory and research. International Journal of Management Reviews, 13(3), 251–269. Boles, K., & Troen, V. (1994). Teacher leadership in a professional development school. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA. Boles, K., & Troen, V. (1996). Teacher leaders and power: Achieving school reform from the classroom. In G. Moller & M. Katzenmeyer (Eds.), Every teacher as a leader: Realizing the potential of teacher leadership (pp. 41–62). Jossey-Bass.

22

2 Rationale

Boyd, W. L. (1987, Summer). Public education’s last hurrah? Schizophrenia, amnesia, and ignorance in school politics. Educational Evolution and Policy Analysis, 9(2), 85–100. Brown, D. (1992, September). The recentralization of school districts. Educational Policy, 6(3), 289–297. Buchanan, D. A., Addicott, R., Fitzgerald, L., Ferlie, E., & Baeza, J. I. (2007). Nobody in charge: Distributed change agency in healthcare. Human Relations, 60(7), 1065–1090. Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy. (1986, May). A nation prepared: Teachers for the 21st century. Carnegie Forum on Education. Chenoweth, T. G., & Everhart, R. B. (2002). Navigating comprehensive school change: A guide for the perplexed. Eye on Education. Chubb, J. E. (1988, Winter). Why the current wave of school reform will fail. The Public Interest, (90), 28–49. Clark, D. L. (1987, August). Thinking about leaders and followers: Restructuring the roles of principals and teachers. Paper presented at the conference on Restructuring Schooling for Quality Education, Trinity University, San Antonio, TX. Clemson-Ingram, R., & Fessler, R. (1997, Fall). Innovative programs for teacher leadership. Action in Teacher Education, 19(3), 95–106. Clune, W. H., & White, P. A. (1988, September). School-based management: Institutional variation, implementation, and issues for further research. Rutgers University, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Center for Policy Research in Education. Conley, D. T. (1997). Roadmap to restructuring: Charting the course of change in American education. ERIC Clearinghouse on Educational Management. Conley, S., & Muncey, D. E. (1999). Teachers talk about teaming and leadership in their work. Theory into Practice, 38(1), 46–55. Cope, J., Kempster, S., & Parry, K. (2011). Exploring distributed leadership in the small business context. International Journal of Management Reviews, 13(3), 270–285. Creighton, T. B. (1997, March). Teachers as leaders: Is the principal really needed? Paper presented at the Annual Conference on Creating Quality Schools. Oklahoma City, OK. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED411117). Crowther, F., Kaagan, S., Ferguson, M., & Hann, L. (2002). Developing teacher leaders: How teacher leadership enhances school success. Corwin Press. Cuban, L. (1984). How teachers taught: Consistency and change in America’s classrooms. Longman. David, J. L. (1989b, May). Synthesis of research on school-based management. Educational Leadership, 46(8), 45–53. Dellar, G. B. (1992, April). Connections between macro and micro implementation of educational policy: A study of school restructuring in Western Australia. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA. Duttweiler, P. C., & Mulcher, S. E. (1990). Organizing the educational system for excellence: Harnessing the energy of people. Southwest Educational Development Laboratory. Elmore, R. F. (1996, March). Staff development and instructional improvement: Community District 2, New York City. Draft paper presented to the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. Fay, C. (1992). Empowerment through leadership: In the teachers’ voice. In C. Livingston (Ed.), Teachers as leaders: Evolving roles (pp. 57–90). National Education Association. Firestone, W. A. (1996). Leadership roles or functions. In K. Leithwood, J. Chapman, D. Corson, P. Hallinger, & A. Hart (Eds.), International handbook of educational administration (pp. 395–418). Kluwer Academic. Fitzsimons, D., James, K. T., & Denyer, D. (2011). Alternative approaches for studying shared and distributed leadership. International Journal of Management Reviews, 13(3), 313–328. Forster, E. M. (1997). Teacher leadership: Professional right and responsibility. Action in Teacher Education, 19(3), 82–94.

References

23

Frost, D., & Durrant, J. (2003, May). Teacher leadership: Rationale, strategy, and impact. School Leadership & Management, 23(2), 173–186. Furman, G. C., & Starratt, R. J. (2002). Leadership for democratic community in schools. In J. Murphy (Ed.), The educational leadership challenge: Redefining leadership for the 21st century (pp. 105–133). University of Chicago Press. Griffin, G. A. (1995). Influences of shared decision making on school and classroom activity: Conversations with five teachers. The Elementary School Journal, 96(1), 29–45. Gronn, P. (2008). The future of distributed leadership. Journal of Educational Administration, 46(2), 141–158. Gunter, H., Hall, D., & Bragg, J. (2013). Distributed leadership: A study in knowledge production. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 41(5), 555–580. Hallinger, P., & Richardson, D. (1988, Winter). Models of shared leadership: Evolving structures and relationships. The Urban Review, 20(4), 229–245. Halverson, R. R., & Kelley, C. E. (2017). Mapping leadership: The tasks that matter in school improvement. Jossey-Bass. Harris, A. (2004). Distributed leadership and school improvement: Leading or misleading? Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 32(1), 11–24. Haney, L. M. (2005). Teachers on Assignment: An investigation into their roles and contributions to school improvement. Dissertation. Immaculata University. Harris, A. (2005). Teacher leadership: More than just a feel-good factor? Leadership and Policy in Schools, 4(3), 201–219. Harris, A., & Muijs, D. (2005). Improving schools through teacher leadership. McGraw-Hill Education. Harris, A. (2009). Distributed leadership: What we know. Springer Science & Business Media. Hart, A. W. (1995). Reconceiving school leadership: Emergent views. The Elementary School Journal, 96(1), 9–28. Hatfield, R. C., Blackman, C. A., & Claypool, C. (1986). Exploring leadership roles performed by teaching faculty in K-12 schools. Paper presented at the annual conference of the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, Chicago, IL. Heikka, J., Waniganayake, M., & Hujala, E. (2013). Contextualizing distributed leadership within early childhood education: Current understandings, research evidence and future challenges. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 41(1), 30–44. Hinchey, P. H. (1997, May/June). Teacher leadership: Introduction: The Clearing House, 70(5), 233–236. Ho, J., & Ng, D. (2017). Tensions in distributed leadership. Educational Administration Quarterly, 53(2), 223–254. Holmes Group (1986, April). Tomorrow’s teachers. East Lansing, Author. Katzenmeyer, M., & Moller, G. (2001). Awakening the sleeping giant: Helping teachers develop as leaders. Corwin. Keedy, J. L. (1999). Examining teacher instructional leadership within the small group dynamics of collegial groups. Teaching and Teacher Education, 15(7), 785–799. Kondakci, Y., Zayim, M., Beycioglu, K., Sincar, M., & Ugurlu, C. T. (2016). The mediating roles of internal context variables in the relationship between distributed leadership perceptions and continuous change behaviours of public school teachers. Educational Studies, 42(4), 410–426. Lawler, E. E. (1986). High-Involvement management. Participative strategies for improving organizational performance. Jossey-Bass Inc. Lieberman, A. (1987, Spring). Teacher leadership. Teachers College Record, 88(3), 400-405. Lieberman, A. (1992). Teacher leadership: What are we learning? In C. Livingston (Ed.), Teachers as leaders: Evolving roles (pp. 159–165). National Education Association. Lieberman, A., & Miller, L. (1999). Teachers—Transforming their world and their work. Teachers College Press. Little, J. W. (1988). School as a place to have a career. In A. Lieberman (Ed.), Assessing the prospects for teacher leadership (pp. 78–108). Teachers College Press.

24

2 Rationale

Maeroff, G. I. (1988). A blueprint for empowering teachers. Phi Delta Kappan, 69(7), 472–477. McCay, L., Flora, J., Hamilton, A., & Riley, J. F. (2001, Spring). Reforming schools through teacher leadership: A program for classroom teachers as agents of change. Educational Horizons, 79(3), 135–142. Murphy, J. (1990). Principal instructional leadership. In L. S. Lotto & P. W. Thurston (Eds.), Advances in educational administration: Changing perspectives on the school. (Vol. l, Part B.). JAI Press. Murphy, J., & Beck, L. G. (1995). School-based management as school reform: Taking stock. Corwin. Odell, S. J. (1997, Fall). Preparing teachers for teacher leadership. Action Teacher Education, 19(3), 120–124. Pellicer, L. O., & Anderson, L. W. (1995). A handbook for teacher leaders. Corwin Press. Perry, N. J. (1988, July). The education crisis: What business can do. Fortune, 118(1), 70–81. Rallis, S. F. (1990). Professional teachers and restructured schools: Leadership challenges. In B. Mitchell & L. L. Cunningham (Eds.), Educational leadership in changing contexts of families, communities, and schools: Eighty-ninth yearbook of the national society for the study of education (pp. 184–209). National Society for the Study of Education. Robertson, P. J., & Buffett, T. M. (1991, April). The move to decentralize: Predictors of early success. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL. Rogus, J. F. (1988, January/February). Teacher leader programming: Theoretical underpinnings. Journal of Teacher Education, 39(1), 46–52. Sackney, L. E., & Dibski, D. J. (1992, August). School-based management: A critical perspective. Paper presented at the Seventh Regional Conference of the Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration. Hong Kong. Sedlack, M. W., Wheeler, C. W., Pullin, D. C., & Cusick, P. A. (1986). Selling students short: Classroom bargains and academic reform in the American high school. Teachers College Press. Sizer, T. R. (1984). Horace’s compromise: The dilemma of the American high school. Houghton Mifflin. Smylie, M. A. (1996). Research on teacher leadership: Assessing the state of the art. In B. J. Biddle, T. L. Good, & I. F. Goodson (Eds.), International handbook of teachers and teaching (pp. 521–592). Kluwer Academic. Smylie, M. A., & Denny, J. W. (1989, March). Teacher leadership: Tensions and ambiguities in organizational perspective. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. San Francisco, CA. Smylie, M., Murphy, J., & Seashore Louis, K. S. (2020). Caring school leadership. Corwin Press. Smyser, S. O. (1995, Autumn). Developing the teacher leader. Teacher Education, 32(2), 130–137. Snell, J., & Swanson, J. (2000, April). The essential knowledge and skills of teacher leaders: A search for a conceptual framework. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. New Orleans, LA. Stone, M., Horejs, J., & Lomas, A. (1997). Commonalities and differences in teacher leadership at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Action in Teacher Education, 19(3), 49–64. Tahir, L. M., Lee, S. L., Musah, M. B., Jaffri, H., Said, M. N. H. M., & Yasin, M. H. M. (2016). Challenges in distributed leadership: Evidence from the perspective of head teachers. International Journal of Educational Management, 30(6), 848–863. Teitel, L. (1996). Finding common ground: Teacher leaders and principals. In G. Moller & M. Katzenmeyer (Eds.), Every teacher as a leader: Realizing the potential of teacher leadership (pp. 139–154). Jossey-Bass. Thorpe, R., Gold, J., & Lawler, J. (2011). Locating distributed leadership. International Journal of Management Reviews, 13(3), 239–250. Tian, M., Risku, M., & Collin, K. (2016). A meta-analysis of distributed leadership from 2002 to 2013. Theory development, empirical evidence and future research focus. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 44(1), 146–164.

References

25

Timar, R. V., & Kirp, D. L. (1988, Summer). State efforts to reform schools: Treading between a regulatory swamp and an English garden. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 10(2), 75–88. Unterrainer, C., Jeppesen, H. J., & Jønsson, T. F. (2017). Distributed Leadership Agency and its relationship to individual autonomy and occupational self-efficacy: A two wave-mediation study in Denmark. Humanistic Management Journal, 2(1), 57–81. Wagstaff, L. H., & Reyes, P. (1993, August). School site-based management (Report presented to the Educational Economic Policy Center). University of Texas, College of Education. Wasley, P. (1991). Teachers who lead: The rhetoric of reform and the realities of practice. Teachers College Press. Watson, S. T., & Scribner, J. P. (2007). Beyond distributed leadership: Collaboration, interaction, and emergent reciprocal influence. Journal of School Leadership, 17(4), 443–468. Wilson, M. (1993). The search for teacher leaders. Educational Leadership, 50(6), 24–27. Wise, A. E. (1989). Professional teaching: A new paradigm for the management of education. In T. J. Sergiovanni & J. H. Moore (Eds.), Schooling for tomorrow: Directing reforms to issues that count. Allyn & Bacon. Wohlstetter, P., & McCurdy, K. (1991, January). The link between school decentralization and school politics. Urban Education, 25(4), 391–414. Wright, L. L. (2008). Merits and limitations of distributed leadership: Experiences and understandings of school principals. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, 69, 1–33. Wynne, J. (2001, November). Teachers as leaders in education reform. ERIC Clearinghouse on Teaching and Teacher Education. (EDO-SP-2001–5). Zhang, J., & Faerman, S. R. (2007). Distributed leadership in the development of a knowledge sharing system. European Journal of Information Systems, 16(4), 479–493. Zhang, L. (2018, February). Distributed leadership in drainage basin management: A critical analysis of ‘River Chief Policy’ from a distributed leadership perspective. In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science. (Vo1. 13, No. 1, pp. 1–23).

Chapter 3

Change Forces

Our growing understanding of teaching and teachers has helped foster a commitment to communal as opposed to solitary notions of leadership (Gunter et al., 2013; Pirson & Lawrence, 2010). Long-exerted efforts by the political and administrative sectors of education to control rather than involve teachers in the life of the school have proven not to be especially efficacious in enhancing school culture, professionalism, school improvement, and student learning (Silva et al., 2000; Stone et al., 1997). Particularly troublesome are the findings that efforts to create better schools by changing structures and consolidating leadership have rarely been helpful (Hatcher, 2005). Related work to “teacher proof” the teaching and learning processes has also produced disappointing results. This, in turn, has produced strategies and plans to meaningfully involve teachers in school reform efforts (Mangin, 2005; Ogawa & Bossert, 1995). As has uniformly been the case in education, the policy and development sections of the profession of school administration looked to the corporate world to uncover reasons to move from individualistic to collective understandings of organizational improvement (Haney, 2005; Hartley, 2009) “and a framework for thinking about leadership” (Liljenberg, 2015, p. 31). It allows schools “to become more intentional and systematic about managing knowledge” (Wenger et al., 2002, p. 6). It is a concept that “has undoubtedly been fueled by associations with certain organizational benefits” (Harris, 2009, p. 12). Communities of school leadership is perhaps most fully acknowledged because a good number of influential educators have come to believe that it is a roadway to school improvement and enhanced academic learning. It is presented as a strategy to solve specific education problems and to increase school capacity to promote democracy in education. It is also argued that communities of school leadership are needed to provide those closest to the students, i.e., teachers, with much needed professional development and to enhance teacher motivation and involvement. Thus, we see that the idea of communities of school leadership has been heavily supported by beliefs “that hierarchical and structure-based models are less effective

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. F. Murphy, Understanding Communities of School Leadership, SpringerBriefs in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23759-1_3

27

28

3 Change Forces

in securing outcomes than consensus-based models” (Bush & Glover, 2012, p. 22; Hulpia et al., 2012) and in a rising tide of failure in education. Schooling is frequently described and assessed as an industry that that has been unable to adapt to the larger world in which it is ensconced (Haney, 2005). While recovery remains at least a possibility in other industries, that does not seem to be the case in education. Failure leads to a flurry of work which has routinely failed to revitalize schooling and consequently produces very few real shifts in the industry and in the concomitant measures of success (Murphy & Bleiberg, 2019; Murphy & Meyers, 2008). At the same time, other forces are pushing schooling away from a (1) factory (machine) metaphor (Livingston, 1992, p. 12); (2) a “hierarchical, bureaucratic, top down” (Stone et al., 1997, p. 53) understanding of schools (Harris & Muijs, 2005); (3) “adversarial relations of administration as management and teachers as labor” (Lieberman et al., 1988; Stone et al., 1997, p. 54); (4) government dominance of actions in education; (5) a mechanistic system and an emphasis on vertical interactions; (6) the “deprofessionalization of teaching” (Pellicer & Anderson, 1995, p. 25); (7) rule-based systems of work (Conley & Muncey, 1999); (8) a context of declining resources; (9) “a system of schooling that relies on externally developed policies and mandates to assure public accountability” (Darling-Hammond, 1988, p. 60); (10) “an environment that is more competitive” (Harris, 2009, p. 6); (11) “a model where responsibility for ensuring quality education rests at the top of the organization” (Wahlstrom & Louis, 2008, p. 462); (12) an environment in which rules trump relationships (Harris & Muijs, 2005); (13) “negative pressures that push teachers out of classrooms and schools” (Harris & Muijs, 2005, p. 17); and (14) “the many impediments facing teachers and principals that block teachers leading” (Barth, 1988b, p. 131). Today we are witnessing a powerful “reappraisal of ways of thinking across the social sciences” (Gronn, 2008, p. 144). These shifts toward “multiple sources of guidance and direction” (Serrat, 2017, p. 7), interactions (Liu et al., 2016), and “communities of practice” (Wenger et al., 2002, p. 3), or “collective professionalization” (Marks & Louis, 1997, p. 265), e.g., “a movement involving numerous individuals rather than the isolated minds of individuals” (Uhl-Bien et al., 2007, p. 303), support change more than they reinforce existing understandings of schooling (Pirson & Lawrence, 2010). Thus, there is a widespread belief that communities of school leadership is the major way to create conditions (e.g., commitment, responsibility, efficacy) that in turn are linked to student learning (Leithwood & Mascall, 2008) and school improvement and to help solve the “the leadership crisis” of insufficient numbers (Hallinger & Heck, 2009; Liljenberg, 2015, p. 84). Indeed, it is sometimes asserted that communities of school leadership has been growing because it supports the core ideas that all teachers can teach and all youngsters can learn (Hulpia et al., 2011). On a larger sense, communities of school leadership has grown from new conceptions of the type of organizations (Bolden, 2011; Hartley, 2010) and leadership (Gunter et al., 2013) that scholars and practitioners contend are needed for a postindustrial, information-anchored world (Lumby, 2016), i.e., in the new “knowledge economy” (Hartley, 2010, p. 352; Wallace, 2001). Also included here is the growing

3 Change Forces

29

understanding that structural change is a much less powerful method for school improvement than has been held for over a century (Gronn, 2008; Murphy, 2020). While often necessary, structural change does not predict performance. Nor does it usually address critical improvement concepts such as “the social organization and culture of schools” (Smylie et al., 2011, p. 268) and the “teacher as researcher” (p. 269). Here, it is argued, communities of school leadership both breaks down the dysfunctions of organizational bureaucracies, addresses the “crises in leadership in our schools and school systems” (Harris, 2009, p. 14), and is a better fit for the increasingly interdependent and “information rich” (Gronn, 2003, p. 37) world of schools (Neck & Manz, 1994; Ritchie & Woods, 2007). It surfaced to some extent because scholars were trying to create “leadership and management strategies that [are] more congruent with contemporary management strategies and probably owing to the appetite for accounts of ‘new leadership’ by senior executives that dominated scholarly and practitioner literature during this period” (Bolden, 2011, p. 253; Haney, 2005). Bolden (2011) also recorded different names for “teacher leadership, such as emergent, collective, collaborative, and co-leadership, that enjoyed some attention in the 1990s” (p. 254). “It has become increasingly clear that principals cannot provide all of the leadership needed to reform schools” (Pellicer & Anderson, 1995, p. 13). “Heads and principals can no longer be responsible for all the areas requiring leadership in schools” (Harris, 2009, p. 14)—to improve schooling “by ‘professionalizing’ the occupation of teaching” (Darling-Hammond, 1988, p. 58). As Ross and colleagues (2005, p. 132) tell us, “command and control notions of a single agent leadership [are] obsolete.” “The complexity and size of school systems today are such that one leader cannot meet the demands of daily tasks and problems” (Angelle, 2010, p. 1). Communities of school leadership underscores an “expertise-based notion of career” (McLaughlin & Yee, 1988, p. 26). Communities of school leadership also allows for the use of experiential or “expertise” evidence. That is, it breaks down the university monopoly on empirical evidence (Gronn, 2009). As we discuss later, it is also suggested that its coming to the fore “may simply be a programmatic response to the work overload of head teachers” (Hartley, 2010, p. 360; Holloway et al., 2017), or a shortage of teachers rather than large changes afoot inside and outside schooling. Or, as Haney (2005, p. 11) tells us, “the leadership challenge is larger than one individual can enact for the school improvement process to be successful.” Rational, bureaucratic “control is being deligitimated” (Hartley, 2009, p. 147). Concomitantly, we are witnessing a powerful “reappraisal of a way of thinking across the social sciences” (Gronn, 2008, p. 144). These changes support change more than theory refuels existing understandings of schooling (Silva et al., 2000). New theory in the social sciences is “pushing thinking away from fixed invariant forms” (Gronn, 2008, p. 144) that defined school organizations for nearly a century and toward foundational pillars that support key elements of communities of school leadership (Bush & Glover, 2012; Hallinger & Heck, 2009). Thus, there is a widespread belief that community of leadership is the major way to create conditions that nourish professional trust and positive relationships (Harris, 2009), that in turn are linked to student learning and school improvement.

30

3 Change Forces

Communities of school leadership has appeared with increasing regularity as education is moving from a “labor model” to a “professional model” of teaching (Barth, 1988b; Haney, 2005). As such, communities of school leadership is underscored because the “convergence of the field around a near monolith of individualism” has begun to erode (Gronn, 2008, p. 142). A new conception of organizations has emerged that includes a need for “more creative and improvisational [pillars] than traditional hierarchical leadership structures” (Scribner et al., 2007, p. 71). At the same time, in the modern era the acceptance of the reality “that teaching inherently involves leading” has become recognized (Pellicer & Anderson, 1995, p. 6). So too has the negative assessment of “the highly bureaucratic top down structure of schools” (p. 10) that promoted teacher isolation and an almost complete absence of teacher voice (Murphy & Bleiberg, 2019) and workplace democracy. In reality, teacher autonomy resulted inappropriately in working completely alone (Gronn, 2008), a fact that many teachers found disheartening, especially in the battle against the overwhelming forces of school failure. The surfacing and additional attention paid to communities of school leadership is linked to: (1) the growth of interest and theory in communities of school leadership at the university level; (2) the growing interdependency of classroom teachers in schools; (3) an increasing sense that the silencing of teachers is inappropriate and that teachers need to step up in the quest for overall school improvement (Silva et al., 2000); (4) the growing perception that workers need to see the entire organization, not just their own silo, and how their efforts affect the functioning of the entire school; (5) a growing belief “that it would be virtually impossible for schools to promote democratic society if they were not democratic communities themselves” (Smylie et al., 2011, p. 266), and (6) knowledge that “extraordinary personnel resources lay unacknowledged, untapped, and undeveloped” (Barth, 1988b, p. 146). We also see a growth in communities of school leadership because “it is thought to (a) more accurately reflect the division of labor that is experienced in organizations from day to day and (b) reduce the chance for error rising from decisions based on limited information available to a single leader” (Leithwood & Mascall, 2008, p. 530). Deeply embedded in support for communities of school leadership is the belief that “today’s complex problem solving requires multiple perspectives” (Grant, 2011; Wenger et al., 2002, p. 10). Communities of school leadership also rests on the planks of a social process of learning and leading (Livingston, 1992), not simply attention to role-based figures, and to the actions they take and methods and ways of doing work that they require (Halverson & Kelly, 2017; Holloway et al., 2017). That is, in addition to leadership as a role, communities of school leadership see leadership as “social construction” (Zhang, 2018, p. 8) and “concerted action”—“as a social influence process” (Smylie et al., 2020, p. 169). Interdependence is visible and reciprocal in such communities (Ho & Ng, 2017; Miškolci, 2017). An understanding of school leadership as work to ensure that teachers cannot make “inappropriate” decisions and perform in “inappropriate” ways—e.g., work to “teacher-proof” the school and its classrooms, is much less prevalent when meaningful communities of school leadership play out in the school (Livingston, 1992). An acknowledgment of the complex mix of structural,

3 Change Forces

31

cultural, social, and individualistic dimensions of teaching is visible. There is less effort to improvement only within the existing culture of first-order change. More specifically, there is “an attempt to change the organizational culture of schools from one that fosters privatism and adversarial relationships between and among teachers and principals to one that encourages collegiality and commitment” (Lieberman et al., 1988, p. 148). To a significant degree, communities of school leadership is a product of change from a mechanistic organizational system to an organic system, one that holds “that shared power strengthens an organization” (Livingston, 1992, p. 11; Spillane, 2006). There is “an emergence from the twentieth century firm to the emerging enterprise,” away from “free market neo liberalism” (Hartley, 2010, p. 360). Indeed, it is difficult to believe that communities of school leadership can flourish in a mechanistic anchored organization. It is also patently evolved from the idea and implementation of teachers as researchers, or the broader idea of teachers as “practitioner-scientists”—from the individual improvement, role-based models of teacher leadership (Smylie et al., 2011, p. 266) to a group quality (Watson & Scribner, 2007, p. 448)—to “a more collective task-oriented and organizational enterprise” (Smylie et al., 2011, p. 266). Perhaps more important is a “realization of the potential for community leadership to truly professionalize teaching and revolutionize schooling in America” (Pellicer & Anderson, 1995, p. 20; see also Wasley, 1991)—changes that have been pursued for the last 100 years. There is also support here for the belief that practicebased evidence should have a more significant place in school improvement—that it can “challenge the hegemony of university-generated knowledge based in teaching” (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999, p. 18). Other forces also help explain the implantation and growth of communities of school leadership in the current era of schooling. One is the fact that the idea of communities of school leadership is embedded in “asset-based thinking” (Murphy, 2016, p. 28) and the concept of positivism, rather than in the soil of negativity, problems, and deficiencies (Murphy & Louis, 2018). It fits how school organizations need to evolve and develop to be effective for all teachers and youngsters (Hatcher, 2005). We also know that communities of school leadership is growing because it privileges not only distal outcomes, but variables reached in the voyage to the most distal outcomes—“the growing evidence that such concentration in practice is giving way to distribution” (Ross et al., 2005, p. 131). School improvement work itself has also pushed communities of school leadership forward (Harris, 2009; Smylie et al., 2011). “There is increasing recognition everywhere that there is a need for more leadership from more people” (Wahlstrom & Louis, 2008, p. 462). If schools are to become better, “teachers must assume a variety of important instructional leadership responsibilities” (Pellicer & Anderson, 1995, p. 20), a “new form of the division of labor at the heart of organizational work” (Heikka et al., 2013, p. 37). The movement here is heavily focused on the belief that those closest to the classroom need to be in the decision process (Harris & Muijs, 2005). “Leading a school should not be restricted to those at the top of the organization” (Hulpia et al., 2011, p. 729). So too, as noted above, has the emergence of the limitations of the traditional single role-based perspective in schools that are

32

3 Change Forces

“outmoded and increasingly irrelevant” (Halverson & Kelley, 2017, p. 14; Heck & Hallinger, 2009) “and a growing appreciation of the importance of ‘informal’ leadership” (Bolden, 2011, p. 251). Although it is almost never mentioned directly, the idea of moving toward communities of school leadership as a “moral imperative” (Smylie et al., 2011, p. 265) for teachers rests in the backgrounds of other explanations. That is, “everyone can exercise democratic agency by right rather than as a licensed delegation of power within an unchanged positional hierarchy” (Hatcher, 2005, p. 258). Communities of school leadership is “largely a critical response to the Trojan horse of heroism” and the “new leadership of the 1980s” (Gronn, 2008, p. 142). The changing relationship between traditional school leaders and teachers is also in play here (Barth, 1988b; Murphy, 2005). It argues that leadership is not simply a rolespecific phenomenon but system-wide phenomenon (Livingston, 1992; Pellicer & Anderson, 1995) “in which leadership can come from group/organizational members other than the designated leader” (Fitzsimons et al., 2011, p. 315) as well as evidence and a growing sense that improvement is often not possible through traditional management approaches and or the traditional organization of schools or the work therein; i.e., “the limitation of a singular leadership approach” (Harris, 2004, p. 16; Kondakei et al., 2016). That is, “post heroic leadership” (Klar et al., 2016, p. 111) is not possible without a major shift in responsibilities (Spillane, 2006) and “a model of effective leadership that is suited to the post-modern context” (Harris & Muijs, 2005, p. 6). As school systems become more complex, diffuse, and networked, the talents of the many rather than the few will be required to respond to quickly shifting and changing contexts. (Harris, 2013, p. 10) It has become increasingly apparent that for schools to develop and improve in rapidly changing times, issues of leadership and management can no longer simply be seen as the exclusive preserve of senior staff. Successful research studies have shown that within the most effective schools, leadership extends beyond the senior management team to encompass other levels within the school. (Harris & Muijs, 2005, p. 6) The old perspectives just do not fit the landscape as they used to. (Watson & Scribner, 2007, p. 447)

As is the case with teaching in the post-modern world, there is a shift from telling to construction (Pea, 1997) “where leadership is primarily about learning together and constructing meaning and knowledge collectively and collaboratively” (Harris & Muijs, 2005, p. 13). Communities of school leadership have been lifted by beliefs in the rising tide of failure in education (Murphy & Bleiberg, 2019), by the belief “that students coming out of public schools possess inadequate knowledge, limited skills, and poor attitudes toward work” (Cuban, 1993, p. 158). The claim is routinely presented that the nation’s economic problems are tightly linked to the failure of schools (Murphy & Meyers, 2008). Schooling is viewed and assessed as an industry that has simply been unable to “adapt” to the larger world in which it is ensconced (Halverson & Kelley, 2017). While recovery remains at least a possibility in other industries, that has not been

3 Change Forces

33

the case for over a century in education. Failure has led to a flurry of activity that almost never revitalized schooling and consequently produces very few real shifts in the industry and in concomitant measures of success (Murphy & Bleiberg, 2019; Pellicer & Anderson, 1995). Communities of school leadership are nested in the professionalization of teaching, a term that brings professional experience and expertise to the forefront of education. It means providing professionals not simply with policies, regulations, and rules from those higher in the work chain but autonomy and flexibility in making decisions for the benefit of children and their families. Communities of school leadership suggest a deep, informed engagement of professionals in the leadership of the institution at all levels, from forging direction and shaping purpose, to establishing goals, to selecting appropriate tools to make work more productive. As such it requires the development and cooperation of systems that allow professional influence to be valued and employed. The influence means that communities of school leadership attend to the allocation of time for shared decision-making activities to occur. We know that communities of school leadership has “arisen because increased external demands on schools” (Harris & Spillane, 2008, p. 31) have “begun to reformulate the educational problem in ways that suggest different policy strategies” (Darling-Hammond, 1988, p. 58). Particularly relevant here are formal policies. We also see here the emergence of a new work order that pushes schools toward greater networking and “joined up” work collaboration, that “involve teachers in school decision making processes” (York-Barr & Duke, 2004, p. 268), that allow them to shape schooling (Darling-Hammond, 1988). Teacher leadership practices are no longer confined within classroom walls—and “collective power [is] more fully capitalized to bring about educational improvement” (Lai & Cheung, 2015, p. 674). On the organizational front, changes rest, at least to some extent, on the “burgeoning literature of distributed leadership being operationalized within schools” (Heikka et al., 2013, p. 31). It draws support from a growing understanding that “knowledge is much more of a living process than a static body of information” (Wenger et al., 2002, p. 9). Likewise, it is anchored in emerging understandings from the cognitive sciences that “the ‘mind’ rarely works alone... intelligences are distributed across minds, persons, and the symbolic and physical environments, both natural and artificial” (Pea, 1997, p. 47). Communities of school leadership also is developing as “the official power over models associated with organizational roles and legitimate authority [gives way] in favor of understanding a more humane, real, and everyday exercise of leadership in problem solving” (Gunter et al., 2013, p. 567; Pirson & Lawrence, 2010). And scholars have “found that purely economistic cultures are continuously outperformed by organizations with more humanistic cultures” (Pirson & Lawrence, 2010, p. 560) and that “hierarchical and status-based models are less effective in securing outcomes than consensus-based models” (Bush & Glover, 2012, p. 22; Chubb, 1988). Over the last half century, scholars have invested considerable energy in the quest to uncover answers to the question of how industries and organizations evolve, devoting special attention to the influence of environmental movements on the shape

34

3 Change Forces

and functioning of institutions. In the mid-1980s, in an effort to bring coherence to this work Tushman and Romanelli (1985) crafted their seminal theory of organizational evolution, the “punctuated equilibrium model” of organizational change. At the core of their model, Tushman and Romanelli hypothesize that “organizations progress through convergent periods punctuated by reorientations which demark and set the bearings for the next convergent period” (p. 173). According to the theory, convergent periods cover long time spans during which incremental and marginal shifts that refine and elaborate organizational elements (e.g., goals) toward increased alignment dominate. Reorientations, on the other hand, encompass “periods of discontinuous change where strategies, power, structure, and systems are fundamentally transformed toward a new basis of alignment” (p. 173). In short, schools tend to go along for extended periods of time with only marginal changes. Then, for reasons explored below, they get pushed out of their orbits. At these times, fundamental changes are needed to ensure survivability and effectiveness. According to the model, it is external shocks to the system that necessitate radical change (transformation), shocks that “punctuate” change. Researchers in this field maintain that these disturbances arise from social, political, and economic shifts in the environment. Researchers also conclude that a sustained period of poor performance can induce disturbances that demand transformation.

References Angelle, P. S. (2010). An organizational perspective of distributed leadership: A portrait of a middle school. RMLE Online, 33(5), 1–16. Barth, R. S. (1988). School: A community of leaders place to have a career. In A. Lieberman (Ed.), Building a professional culture in schools (pp. 129–147). Teachers College Press. Bolden, R. (2011). Distributed leadership in organizations: A review of theory and research. International Journal of Management Reviews, 13(3), 251–269. Bush, T., & Glover, D. (2012). Distributed leadership in action: Leading high-performing leadership teams in English schools. School Leadership & Management, 32(1), 21–36. Chubb, J. E. (1988, Winter). Why the current wave of school reform will fail. The Public Interest, 90, 28–49. Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. L. (1999). The teacher research movement: A decade later. Educational Researcher, 28(7), 15–25. Conley, S., & Muncey, D. E. (1999). Teachers talk about teaming and leadership in their work. Theory into Practice, 38(1), 46–55. Cuban, L. (1993). How teachers taught: Constancy and change in American classrooms, 1890–1990. Teachers College Press. Darling-Hammond. (1988). School as a place to have a career. In A. Lieberman (Ed.), Developing the case for a professional culture? (pp. 55–77). Teachers College Press. Fitzsimons, D., James, K. T., & Denyer, D. (2011). Alternative approaches for studying shared and distributed leadership. International Journal of Management Reviews, 13(3), 313–328. Grant, C. P. (2011). The relationship between distributed leadership and principal’s leadership effectiveness in North Carolina (Dissertation). North Carolina State University. Gronn, P. (2003). The new work of educational leaders: Changing leadership practice in an era of school reform. Sage.

References

35

Gronn, P. (2008). The future of distributed leadership. Journal of Educational Administration, 46(2), 141–158. Gronn, P. (2009). Hybrid leadership. In K. Leithwood, B. Mascall, & T. Strauss (Eds.), Distributed leadership according to the evidence (pp. 17–39). Routledge. Gunter, H., Hall, D., & Bragg, J. (2013). Distributed leadership: A study in knowledge production. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 41(5), 555–580. Hallinger, P., & Heck, R. H. (2009). Distributed leadership in schools: Does system policy make a difference? In A. Harris (Ed.), Distributed leadership (pp. 101–117). Halverson, R. R., & Kelley, C. E. (2017). Mapping leadership: The tasks that matter in school improvement. Jossey-Bass. Haney, L. M. (2005, May). Teachers on assignment: An investigation into their roles and contributions to school improvement (Dissertation). Immaculata University. Harris, A. (2004). Distributed leadership and school improvement: Leading or misleading? Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 32(1), 11–24. Harris, A. (2009). Distributed leadership: What we know. Springer Science & Business Media. Harris, A. (2013). Distributed school leadership: Developing tomorrow’s leaders. Routledge. Harris, A., & Muijs, D. (2005). Improving schools through teacher leadership. McGraw-Hill Education. Harris, A., & Spillane, J. (2008). Distributed leadership through the looking glass. Administration Society (BELMAS), 22(1), 31–34. Hartley, D. (2009). Education policy, distributed leadership and socio-cultural theory. Educational Review, 61(2), 139–150. Hartley, D. (2010). The management of education and the social theory of the firm: From distributed leadership to collaborative community. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 42(4), 345–361. Hatcher, R. (2005). The distribution of leadership and power in schools. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 26(2), 253–267. Heck, R. H., & Hallinger, P. (2009). Assessing the contribution of distributed leadership to school improvement and growth in math achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 46(3), 659–689. Heikka, J., Waniganayake, M., & Hujala, E. (2013). Contextualizing distributed leadership within early childhood education: Current understandings, research evidence and future challenges. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 41(1), 30–44. Ho, J., & Ng, D. (2017). Tensions in distributed leadership. Educational Administration Quarterly, 53(2), 223–254. Holloway, J., Nielsen, A., & Saltmarsh, S. (2017). Prescribed distributed leadership in the era of accountability: The experiences of mentor teachers. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 46(4), 538–555. Hulpia, H., Devos, G., Rosseel, Y., & Vlerick, P. (2012). Dimensions of distributed leadership and the impact on teachers’ organizational commitment: A study in secondary education. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 42(7), 1745–1784. Hulpia, H., Devos, G., & Van Keer, H. (2011). The relation between school leadership from a distributed perspective and teachers’ organizational commitment: Examining the source of the leadership function. Educational Administration Quarterly, 47(5), 728–771. Klar, H. W., Huggins, K. S., Hammonds, H. L., & Buskey, F. C. (2016). Fostering the capacity for distributed leadership: A post-heroic approach to leading school improvement. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 19(2), 111–137. Kondakci, Y., Zayim, M., Beycioglu, K., Sincar, M., & Ugurlu, C. T. (2016). The mediating roles of internal context variables in the relationship between distributed leadership perceptions and continuous change behaviours of public school teachers. Educational Studies, 42(4), 410–426. Lai, E., & Cheung, D. (2015). Enacting teacher leadership: The role of teachers in bringing about change. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 43(5), 673–692.

36

3 Change Forces

Leithwood, K., & Mascall, B. (2008). Collective leadership effects on student achievement. Educational Administration Quarterly, 44(4), 529–561. Lieberman, A., Saxl, E. R., & Miles, M. B. (1988). Teacher leadership: Ideology and practice. In A. Lieberman (Ed.), Building a professional culture in schools (pp. 148–166). Teachers College Press. Liljenberg, M. (2015). Distributing leadership to establish development and learning school organizations in Swedish context. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 43(1), 152–170. Liu, Y., Bellibas, M. S., & Printy, S. (2016). How school context and educator characteristics predict distributed leadership: A hierarchical structural equation model with 2013 TALIS data. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 46(3), 401–423. Livingston, C. (1992). Teachers as leaders: Evolving roles. National Education Association. Lumby, J. (2016). Distributed leadership as fashion or fad. Management in Education, 30(4), 161– 167. Mangin, M. M. (2005). Distributed leadership and the culture of schools: Teacher leaders’ strategies for gaining access to classrooms. Journal of School Leadership, 15(4), 456. Marks, H. M., & Louis, K. S. (1997). Does teacher empowerment affect the classroom? The implications of teacher empowerment for instructional practice and student academic performance. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 19(3), 245–275. McLaughlin, M., & Yee, S. (1988). School as a place to have a career. In A. Lieberman (Ed.), Building a professional culture in schools (pp. 23–44). Teachers College Press. Miškolci, J. (2017). Contradictions in practising distributed leadership in public primary schools in New South Wales (Australia) and Slovakia. School Leadership & Management, 37(3), 234–253. Murphy, J. (2005). Connecting teacher leadership and school improvement. Corwin Press. Murphy, J. (2016). Creating instructional capacity. Corwin Press. Murphy, J. (2020). The five essential reasons for the failure of school reforms. Journal of Human Resources and Sustainability Studies, 8(1). Murphy, J., & Bleiberg, J. (2019). School turnaround policies and practices: Learning from failed school reform. Springer. Murphy, J., & Meyers, C. V. (2008). Turning around failing schools: Leadership lessons from the organizational sciences. Corwin. Murphy, J., & Seashore Louis, K. (2018). Positive school leadership. Teachers College. Neck, C. P., & Manz, C. C. (1994). From groupthink to teamthink: Toward the creation of constructive thought patterns in self-managing work teams. Human Relations, 47(8), 929–952. Ogawa, R. T., & Bossert, S. T. (1995). Leadership as an organizational quality. Educational Administration Quarterly, 31(2), 224–243. Pea, R. (1997). Practices of distributed intelligence and designs for education. In G. Salomon (Ed.), Distributed cognitions: Psychological and educational considerations (pp. 1–47). Cambridge University Press. Pellicer, L. O., & Anderson, L. W. (1995). A handbook for teacher leaders. Corwin Press. Pirson, M. A., & Lawrence, P. R. (2010). Humanism in business–towards a paradigm shift? Journal of Business Ethics, 93(4), 553–565. Ritchie, R., & Woods, P. A. (2007). Degrees of distribution: Towards an understanding of variations in the nature of distributed leadership in schools. School Leadership and Management, 27(4), 363–381. Ross, L., Rix, M., & Gold, J. (2005). Learning distributed leadership: Part 1. Industrial and Commercial Training, 37(3), 130–137. Scribner, J. P., Sawyer, R. K., Watson, S. T., & Myers, V. L. (2007). Teacher teams and distributed leadership: A study of group discourse and collaboration. Educational Administration Quarterly, 43(1), 67–100. Serrat, O. (2017). Knowledge solutions: Tools, methods, and approaches to drive organizational performance. Springer.

References

37

Silva, D. Y., Gimbert, B., & Nolan, J. (2000). Sliding the doors: Locking and unlocking possibilities for teacher leadership. Teachers College Record, 102(4), 779–804. Smylie, M., Murphy, J., & Seashore Louis, K. S. (2020). Caring school leadership. Corwin Press. Smylie, M. A., Conley, S., & Marks, H. M. (2011). Exploring new approaches to teacher leadership for school improvement. In E. M. Hilty (Ed.), Teacher leadership: The ‘new’ foundations of teacher education: A reader (pp. 265–282). Peter Lang. Spillane, J. P. (2006). Distributed leadership. Jossey-Bass. Stone, M., Horejs, J., & Lomas, A. (1997). Commonalities and differences in teacher leadership at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Action in Teacher Education, 19(3), 49–64. Tushman, M. L., & Romanelli, E. (1985). Organizational evolution: A metamorphosis model of convergence and reorientation. In L. L. Cummings & B. M. Straw (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (pp. 171–222). JAI Press. Uhl-Bien, M., Marion, R., & McKelvey, B. (2007). Complexity leadership theory: Shifting leadership from the industrial age to the knowledge era. The Leadership Quarterly, 18(4), 298–318. Wahlstrom, K. L., & Louis, K. S. (2008). How teachers experience principal leadership: The roles of professional community, trust, efficacy, and shared responsibility. Educational Administration Quarterly, 44(4), 458–495. Wallace, M. (2001). Sharing leadership of schools through teamwork: A justifiable risk? Educational Management & Administration, 29(2), 153–167. Wasley, P. (1991). Teachers who lead: The rhetoric of reform and the realities of practice. Teachers College Press. Watson, S. T., & Scribner, J. P. (2007). Beyond distributed leadership: Collaboration, interaction, and emergent reciprocal influence. Journal of School Leadership, 17(4), 443–468. Wenger, E., McDermott, R. A., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge. Harvard Business Press. York-Barr, J., & Duke, K. (2004). What do we know about teacher leadership? Findings from two decades of scholarship. Review of Educational Research, 74(3), 255–316. Zhang, L. (2018, February). Distributed leadership in drainage basin management: A critical analysis of ‘River Chief Policy’ from a distributed leadership perspective. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 113(1), 1–23.

Part II

Remolding Schools

Chapter 4

The Changing Nature of School Organizations and Change Forces Sense of Failure

As just noted, prolonged poor performance is one of the two forces that provide the fuel to cause institutional disequilibrium, to push organizations out of wellestablished operational orbits. Moving into the twentieth century, there was a widespread and growing feeling that the system of schooling of the nineteenth century was in trouble. On the one hand, because the center of gravity for the institution was preparation for college, enrollments were quite low and schooling was failing to address the needs of the majority of students who were not planning on attending college (Odell, 1939). In short, schooling at the turn of the nineteenth century was not educating the great bulk of America’s youngsters and was preparing almost no one “for life.” Equally important, schools were seen as failing society, in particular the rapidly emerging industrialized society. By and large, because the socialization and skill sets needed to function in the new economy were not being provided, schools were seen as out of step with needs of a post-agrarian society. Nor were they providing much help in dealing with the social problems of the time, including the effects of mass immigration (Murphy, 2006).

4.1 Changing Environment 1890–1920 According to Tushman and Romanelli (1985), environmental shifts provide the second axis on which major institutional changes are scaffolded, especially significant alterations in the ambient economic, political, and social contexts impacting an industry. On the political front, the change with the greatest impact on education as we moved into the industrial era was the rise of progressivism and the development of the liberal democratic state. Rooted in discontent with political corruption and an expanded recognition of government as too limited for the new industrial era, the political landscape was noticeably recontoured in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Direct citizen control and machine politics began to give © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. F. Murphy, Understanding Communities of School Leadership, SpringerBriefs in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23759-1_4

41

42

4 The Changing Nature of School Organizations and Change Forces Sense …

way to bureaucratized institutions led by a cadre of educational experts (Callahan, 1962; Tyack, 1974). Teacher leadership was pushed off the stage, replaced by school administrators. The social tapestry was also being rewoven during the period from 1890 to 1920. The central force was “the transformation of American society from one characterized by relatively isolated self-contained communities into an urban, industrial nation” (Kliebard, 1995, p. 2): Industrialization and demographic changes were reshaping the nation (Tyack, 1974). Most important from our perspective here is the fact that these shifts in social conditions resulted in significant changes in schools. As Cremin (1961), Kliebard (1995), Tyack (1974), and Wraga (1994) have all demonstrated, “with the recognition of social change came a radically altered vision of the role of schooling” (Kliebard, 1995, p. 1). Turning to the economy, we see the emergence of new economic realities brought on by the industrial revolution (Wraga, 1994). At the core of the matter was the transformation from an agricultural to an industrial economy, or perhaps more accurately, given the social changes outlined above, to an industrial society (Cremin, 1955). The nation was witnessing the “advent of machine production and its accompanying specialization of occupation” (Koos, 1927, p. 310). Stated in language that eerily would be reintroduced nearly a century later in reshaping the school to the realities of a postindustrial world, it could be said that by 1890 “national concerns about international economic competition” (Spring, 1990, p. 220) and the demands of “advancing technology” (Krug, 1964, p. 209) began to influence the design of the blueprints being used to shape the foundations of the newly emerging model of education.

4.2 Convergence (1920–1990) This was the time when the learning and teaching foundations that were to define comprehensive schooling for nearly a century were poured. It was here that the educational response to the new industrial world that would define the twentieth century was forged. More specifically, it was during this era that the ideology that would define schooling was developed and implanted in education. We pull the strands of this shifting ideology into three clusters: core values and purpose, teaching and learning, and organizational architecture and governance.

4.2.1 Core Values/Purpose Schooling was dominated by college interests. Preparation for college largely determined what was taught. Agreement on the central aim of public education was short-lived, however. By 1920, the purpose of schooling would be radically redefined.

4.2 Convergence (1920–1990)

43

Those who believed that the aim of education was intellectual development were not able to hold the high ground. Between 1890 and 1920, a new agenda, education for social control, buttressed by a new science of learning known as “social efficiency,” gradually came to dominate education. This newly forming purpose rested on a rejection of what critics believed to be an outdated view of schooling (Spring, 1990). According to many analysts of education during the early years of the twentieth century, “Intellectual development was of course vital, but it had to be reconciled with the school as a social institution and its place in the larger social order” (Kliebard, 1995, p. 54). Subject to the pull of the environmental conditions described earlier, a focus on individualism began to give way to the social purposes of schooling. The dominant leitmotif was that of schooling as a mechanism of social control (Kliebard, 1995). Social efficiency, in turn, became the central concept in influencing the reconfiguration of schooling (Spring, 1990) or, as the great historian of the American high school Krug (1972) concluded, schooling became “the cathedral of social efficiency” (p. 150). Education for social control included the introduction of new ideas, such as specialization, and a reformulation of older ones, such as equality of opportunity (Spring, 1990). It represented a rejection of the prevailing position on the academic function of education and provided an affirmation of the practical aims of schooling (Powell et al., 1985; Spears, 1941). It acknowledged the role of the school in addressing new socially anchored responsibilities. Social efficiency meant fundamentally that the function of schools would be to prepare students for a post-agrarian new industrial world that was redefining American society—for what Spears (1941) called “the great and real business of living” (p. 56). Advocates of the new goal of social control “wanted education to produce individuals who were trained for a specific role in society and who were willing to work cooperatively in that role” (Spring, 1990, p. 201).

4.2.2 Learning and Teaching The period from 1890–1920 was marked by “a vigorous drive to replace what was commonly regarded as a curriculum unsuited for the new industrial age and for the new population of students entering … secondary school in larger numbers” (Kliebard, 1995, p. 156). One change was that academics would be illuminated much less brightly than they had been before the turn of the century (Ravitch, 1983). As the belief that schooling was too academic became ingrained in the American culture, the curricular spotlight was redirected elsewhere (Latimer, 1958). As the academic scaffolding supporting schooling in the nineteenth century was dismantled, a new infrastructure rose up to take its place—one constructed more from the raw materials of personal and practical experiences than from the frameworks of the academic disciplines. Practical education was required and the opportunity for employment took on added significance (Kliebard, 1995). Schooling for life was no

44

4 The Changing Nature of School Organizations and Change Forces Sense …

longer education for college but rather preparation for a job. When “social control” as the foundation for schooling, and social efficiency as the theory of learning, became dominant threads in the tapestry known as schooling, a diminished—and continually decreasing—role for academics would also be woven into the fabric.

4.2.3 Organizational Architecture and Governance The revolutionary changes that took root in education from 1890 to 1920 were not confined to vision and learning and teaching. Most importantly for communities of school leadership, the methods used to govern education and the designs employed to organize and manage schools also underwent significant alterations, which were in directions heavily shaped by the powerful political, social, and economic currents outlined above. The defining element of the organizational revolution was the shift from lay control, which dominated the governance landscape before 1890, to a “corporate bureaucratic model” of governance (Tyack, 1974, p. 6). As was the case in the construction of the learning infrastructure, the new scientific models of school organization and governance provided some of the defining components of education for a post-agrarian world. The organizational transformation that marked the evolution of education was laced with two central ideologies, a “corporate form of external school governance and internal control by experts” (Tyack, 1974, p. 146). Both elements drew freely from models supporting the development of the post-agricultural business sector (Callahan, 1962; Newlon, 1934). “Working under the banner of the depoliticization of schooling and eliminating political corruption, reformers sought to remove the control of schools as far as possible from the people” (Tyack, 1974, p. 167), to eliminate community control. In terms of influence, we know that this movement accomplished much of its goal. By 1920, throughout the nation a closed system of governance that would dominate education for the next 75 years had replaced much of the more open system that had prevailed at the end of the nineteenth century (Cuban, 1993). Shifts in the basic governance equation during the early decades of the twentieth century were accompanied by a reconfiguration in the way schools were managed and organized (Callahan, 1962). One distinctive development was the appearance of a class of administrative experts to whom government agents delegated control for the management of schools (Tyack, 1974). Borrowing from the new models of organization and management being forged in the corporate sector, reformers began to develop analogs between the leadership of business enterprises and the management of schools (Newlon, 1934; Tyack, 1974). They argued that to reform education power needed to be concentrated at the top. In order to facilitate the use of this centralized power and to maximize its potential to effect change, reformers drew up blueprints for a new structure for their institution (bureaucracy) and cobbled together a new philosophy of leadership (scientific management), borrowing freely from materials originally crafted in the corporate

4.2 Convergence (1920–1990)

45

sector (Lichtenstein et al., 2006). In so doing, they brought forth the array of operating principles that would form the organizational backbone for schooling throughout the twentieth century, principles such as negative views of students (Bryk et al., 1999), the goal of “sorting and socializing students into varied socioeconomic niches” (Cuban, 1993, p. 249), authority vested in office, differentiation and specialization of roles, professionalism, separation of management from labor, chain of command, and so forth (Murphy et al., 2001). As we entered the 1990s, the foundation of schooling that had stood for nearly three quarters of a century had begun to show significant deterioration. As was the case at the dawn of the twentieth century, there was a widespread feeling that schools were performing poorly. Crosnoe (2011, p. 3) hit the mark directly when she reported that “these are definitely not the glory days of the American educational system.” What analysts saw as frustration over the continuing inadequacies of education in the United States was a multi-faceted phenomenon. Or, stated in an alternate form, the perception that the level and quality of education in schools is less than many desire was buttressed by data on a wide variety of outcomes. Specifically, critics argued that data assembled in all important performance dimensions provided a not-veryflattering snapshot of the current performance of the American educational system (Murphy, 2010). Two issues in particular ribboned analyses of educational outcomes at the turn of the twentieth century: (1) the inability of the educational enterprise to enhance levels of productivity to meet the needs of the changing workforce and (2) the failure of schools to successfully educate all of the nation’s children, especially the poor. While analysts acknowledge that student achievement has remained fairly stable over the last quarter century, they fault education for its inability to keep pace with the increasing expectations from a changing economy (Murphy, 2010). One side of the problem critics discuss is the belief that systems that hold steady in today’s world are actually in decline (Murphy & Bleiberg, 2019). While others see stability, they see damaging obsolescence (Murnane & Levy, 1996). The other side of the productivity issue raised by these reviewers is the claim that because of the changing nature of the economy outlined below, the level of outcomes needed by students must be significantly increased. They find that the schools are not meeting this new standard for productivity. Complicating all of this is the knowledge that high levels of performance must be attained by nearly all of society’s children. What appears to be especially damaging to public education at the current time is the perceived inability of schooling to reform itself. Questions raised by analysts who take the long-term view on this issue are particularly demoralizing. What has resulted from reform efforts, critics argue, has not been an increase in educational quality but rather a proliferation of professional and bureaucratic standards. The natural consequence, they hold, must be the emergence of new forms of schooling. “The implications are clear. The time for tinkering, adjusting, or amending ... schools is running out. The old structures are buckling under the weight of the external environment and the demand for higher performance. Raising the bar will require schools to jump the curve if they are to remain relevant, effective, and integral to society” (Future Leadership, n.d., p. 144).

46

4 The Changing Nature of School Organizations and Change Forces Sense …

At the same time, and consistent with the Tushman and Romanelli (1985) model, American education finds itself in a roiling environment of economic, political, and social changes. To begin with, it is almost a fundamental law that the economy is undergoing a significant metamorphosis. There is widespread agreement that we have been and continue to be moving from an industrial and technological to an information economy. Key aspects of the new economy include: the globalization of economic activity, the demise of the mass-production economy, a privileging of information technology, an increase in the skills required to be successful, and an emphasis on the service dimensions of the marketplace. The ascent of the global economy has brought an emphasis on new markets, cracks in the model of public monopoly, and discontent with managerialism. Along with these changes, as we discuss below, have come increasing deinstitutionalization, deregulation, and privatization of the American system of education. There is a growing belief that markets offer more hope than the public sector—a belief in “the assumption that left to itself economic interaction between rationally self-interested individuals in the market will spontaneously yield broad prosperity, social harmony, and all other manner of public and private good” (Himmelstein, 1983, p. 16). Supported by market theory and theories of the firm and by the public choice literature, there is a new spirit of market-based entrepreneurship in play (Murphy, 2012). The political and social environments also are undergoing important changes. There has been a loosening of the bonds of democracy (Elshtain, 1995). The infrastructure of civil society also has been impaired (Dahrendorf, 1995). As a consequence of these basic shifts—the weakening of democracy and the deterioration of civil society, especially in conjunction with the ideological space that they share with economic fundamentalism—important sociopolitical trends have emerged. One strand of this evolving sociopolitical mosaic is plummeting public support for government (Cibulka, 1999). In many ways, Americans “have disengaged psychologically from politics and governance” (Putnam, 1995, p. 68). As Hawley (1995) chronicles, “Citizens are becoming increasingly alienated from government and politics. They do not trust public officials” (p. 741) and they are skeptical of the bureaucratic quagmire of professional control that defined education for almost all of the twentieth century (Murphy & Shiffman, 2002). A second pattern in the mosaic is defined by issues of poverty (Cibulka, 1999; Murphy, 2010; Reyes et al., 1999). Many analysts have explored the accelerating movement toward a society marked by great wealth and great poverty. According to Dahrendorf (1995), this economically grounded trend represents a new type of social exclusion. He and others are quick to point out that this condition seriously undermines the health of society. Consistent with this description of diverging life chances is a body of findings on the declining social welfare of children and their families (Reyes et al., 1999). These data reveal a society populated increasingly by groups of citizens that historically have not fared well in this nation, especially ethnic minorities and citizens for whom English is a second language (Magnuson & Duncan, 2006). Concomitantly, the percentage of youngsters affected by the ills of the world in which they live,

4.3 Convergence (1990–2030)

47

for example, poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, crime, drug addiction, malnutrition, poor physical health, and homelessness is increasing (Murphy & Tobin, 2011).

4.3 Convergence (1990–2030) 4.3.1 Organizations Across the last quarter century, we have argued that a new convergence has emerged in the American schools, one that parallels in scope the changes seen in that institution from 1890–1920. Three central alterations are visible: (a) at the technical level, change from teaching to learning and a change from transmission to socialconstructivist views of learning; (b) at the organizational level, change from bureaucratic and hierarchical systems to more communal views of schooling; and (c) at the institutional level, rebalancing of the governance equation, one that adds more weight to market and citizen control while subtracting influence from government and professional elites (Murphy, 2006). Below we examine changes at the organizational level. For some time now, “critics have argued that the reforms of the Progressive Era produced bureaucratic arteriosclerosis—and the low productivity of a declining industry” (Tyack, 1993, p. 3). There is an expanding feeling that the structure of schooling that was hard wired into the system between 1890 and 1920 and that has dominated education ever since has outlived its usefulness (Cuban, 1993). In particular, it is held that the management tools of the bureaucratic paradigm pull energy and commitment away from learning. Reformers maintain that the structure cemented in place during the first recreation of schooling between 1890 and 1920 is not capable of supporting excellence in education and that, even worse, bureaucratic management has actually been damaging learning (Murphy et al., 2001). It is also argued that bureaucracy has led to siloed schools (Elmore et al., 1996; Pellicer & Anderson, 1995), that the structure that defined twentieth century schooling is counterproductive to the needs and interests of teachers in postindustrial schools. In particular, these reviewers find that the existing structure is incompatible with a professional orientation (Curry, 2008; Little, 1987). They maintain that the hierarchical foundations laid during the reform era (1990–1920) of the industrial period have neutered teachers and undermined “the drawing power and holding power of strong collegial ties” (Little, 1987, p. 502). These reviewers contend that “it has become increasingly clear that if we want to improve schools for student learning, we must also improve schools for the adults who work in them” (Smylie & Hart, 1999, p. 421). As might be expected, given this tremendous attack on the basic organizational structure of schools, stakeholders at all levels are clamoring for significant reform, arguing that the bureaucratic framework of school organization needs to be rebuilt using different blueprints and materials (MacBeath, 2009; Olivier & Hipp, 2006).

48

4 The Changing Nature of School Organizations and Change Forces Sense …

There is widespread agreement that the top down, authoritarian approach to leadership has taken us about as far as it can (Gronn, 2009). There is a significant demand for new ways of organizing schools especially changes in the way they are led (Donaldson, 2001). New perspectives of education feature these new methods of organizing and managing schools (Beachum & Dentith, 2004; Lichtenstein et al., 2006). In the image of schools for the twenty-first century, the hierarchical bureaucratic organizational structures that have defined schooling since the early 1900s are giving way to systems that are more focused on capacity building (Crowther et al., 2002). In these redesigned, postindustrial school organizations, to which Louis and Miles (1990) have given the label “adaptive model” (p. 26), there are basic shifts in roles, relationships, and responsibilities (Mayer et al., 2013): traditional patterns of relationships are altered; authority flows are less hierarchical. For example, traditional distinctions between administrators and teachers begin to blur; role definitions are both more general and more flexible—specialization is no longer held in such high regard; because influence is based on expertise, leadership is dispersed and is connected to competence for needed tasks as well as formal positions; and independence and isolation are replaced by cooperative work (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001). Furthermore, the traditional structural orientation of schools is overshadowed by a focus on the human element (Crow et al., 2002; Sergiovanni, 1991a, 1991b). The operant goal is no longer maintenance of the organizational structure but rather the development of human resources (Mojkowski & Fleming, 1988; Tichy & Cardwell, 2004). Building learning climates and promoting organizational adaptively replaces the more traditional emphasis on uncovering and applying the one best model of performance (Gray et al., 1999). A premium is placed on organizational flexibility and purpose and values (Louis et al., 2010; Sergiovanni, 1990, 1992). A new model for school management acknowledges that shared influence strengthens the organization (MacBeath, 2005). Institutional perspectives no longer dominate the organizational landscape. Rather, schools are reconceptualized as communities, professional workplaces, and learning organizations (Ancess, 2003; Visscher & Witziers, 2004). Professional community-oriented conceptions that challenge historical bureaucratic understandings of schools as organizations move to center stage (Bulkley & Hicks, 2005; Hayes et al., 2004). Ideas such as communities of school leadership, the norms of collaboration, humanism inquiry communities, and the principle of care are woven into the fabric of the school organization (Ancess, 2003; Smylie et al., 2020). The metaphor of the school as community is brightly illuminated (Beck & Foster, 1999).

References Ancess, J. (2003). Beating the odds: High schools as communities of commitment. Teachers College Press. Beachum, F., & Dentith, A. M. (2004, September). Teacher leaders creating cultures of school renewal and transformation. The Educational Forum, 68(3), 276–286.

References

49

Beck, L. G., & Foster, W. (1999). Administration and community: Considering challenges, exploring possibilities. In J. Murphy & K. S. Louis (Eds.), Handbook of research on educational administration (pp. 337–358). Jossey-Bass. Bryk, A., Camburn, E., & Louis, K. S. (1999). Professional community in Chicago elementary schools: Facilitating factors and organizational consequences. Educational Administration Quarterly, 35(5), 751–781. Bulkley, K. E., & Hicks, J. (2005). Managing community: Professional community in charter schools operated by educational management organizations. Educational Administration Quarterly, 41(2), 306–348. Callahan, R. E. (1962). Education and the cult of efficiency. University of Chicago Press. Cibulka, J. G. (1999). Ideological lenses for interpreting political and economic changes affecting schooling. In J. Murphy & K. S. Louis (Eds.), Handbook of research on educational administration (2nd ed., pp. 163–182). Jossey-Bass. Cremin, L. A. (1955). The revolution in American secondary education, 1893–1918. Teachers College Record, 56(6), 295–308. Cremin, L. A. (1961). The transformation of the school: Progressivism in American education 1876–19957. Vintage. Crosnoe, R. (2011). Fitting in, standing out: Navigating the social challenges of high school to get an education. Cambridge University Press. Crow, G. M., Hausman, C. S., & Scribner, J. P. (2002). Reshaping the role of the school principal. In J. Murphy (Ed.), The educational leadership challenge: Redefining leadership for the 21st century (pp. 189–210). University of Chicago Press. Crowther, F., Kaagan, S., Ferguson, M., & Hann, L. (2002). Developing teacher leaders: How teacher leadership enhances school success. Corwin Press. Cuban, L. (1993). How teachers taught: Constancy and change in American classrooms, 1890–1990. Teachers College Press. Curry, M. (2008). Critical friends groups: The possibilities and limitations embedded in teacher professional communities aimed at instructional improvement and school reform. The Teachers College Record, 110(4), 733–774. Dahrendorf, R. (1995). A precarious balance: Economic opportunity, civil society and political liberty. The Responsive Community, 13–19. Donaldson, G. A. (2001). Cultivating leadership in schools: Connecting people, purpose, and practice. Teachers College Press. Elmore, R. F., Peterson, P. L., & McCarthy, S. J. (1996). Restructuring in the classroom: Teaching, learning, and school organization. Jossey-Bass. Elshtain, J. B. (1995). Democracy on trial. Basic Books. Gray, J., Hopkins, D., Reynolds, D., Wilcox, B., Farrell, S., & Jesson, D. (1999). Improving schools: Performance and potential. Open University Press. Gronn, P. (2009). Hybrid leadership. In K. Leithwood, B. Mascall, & T. Strauss (Eds.), Distributed leadership according to the evidence (pp. 17–39). Routledge. Hawley, W. D. (1995, Summer). The false premises and false promises of the movement to private public education. Teachers College Record, 96(4), 735–742. Hayes, D., Christie, P., Mills, M., & Lingard, B. (2004). Productive leaders and productive leadership: Schools as learning organisations. Journal of Educational Administration, 42(5), 520–538. Himmelstein, J. L. (1983). The new right. In R. C. Liebman & R. Wuthnow (Eds.), The new Christian right: Mobilization and legitimization (pp. 13–30). Aldine. Katzenmeyer, M., & Moller, G. (2001). Awakening the sleeping giant: Helping teachers develop as leaders. Corwin. Kliebard, H. M. (1995). The struggle for the American curriculum 1893–1958 (2nd ed.). Routledge. Koos, L. (1927). The American secondary school. Ginn. Krug, E. A. (1964). The shaping of the American high school. Harper & Row.

50

4 The Changing Nature of School Organizations and Change Forces Sense …

Krug, E. A. (1972). The shaping of the American high school, 1920–1941. University of Wisconsin Press. Latimer, J. F. (1958). What’s happened to our high schools? Public Affairs Press. Lichtenstein, B. B., Uhl-Bien, M., Marion, R., Seers, A., Orton, J. D., & Schreiber, C. (2006). Complexity leadership theory: An interactive perspective on leading in complex adaptive systems. 8(4), 2–12. Little, J. W. (1987). Teachers as colleagues. In V. Richardson-Koehler (Ed.), Educators’ handbook: A research perspective (pp. 491–518). Longman. Louis, K. S., Dretzke, B., & Wahlstrom, K. (2010, September). How does leadership affect student achievement? Results from a national US survey. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 21(3), 315–336. Louis, K. S., & Miles, M. B. (1990). Improving the urban high school: What works and why. Teachers College Press. MacBeath, J. (2005). Leadership as distributed: A matter of practice. School Leadership and Management, 25(4), 349–366. MacBeath, J. (2009). Distributed leadership: Paradigms, policy, and paradox. In K. Leithwood, B. Mascall, & T. Strauss (Eds.), Distributed leadership according to the evidence (pp. 41–58). Routledge. Magnuson, K. A., & Duncan, G. J. (2006). The role of family socioeconomic resources in the black-white test score gap among young children. Developmental Review, 26(4), 365–399. Mayer, A. P., Donaldson, M. L., LeChasseur, K., Welton, A. D., & Cobb, C. D. (2013). Negotiating site-based management and expanded teacher decision making: A case study of six urban schools. Educational Administration Quarterly, 49(5), 695–731. Mojkowski, C., & Fleming, D. (1988). School-site management: Concepts and approaches. Regional Laboratory for the Educational Improvement of the Northeast and Islands. Murnane, R. J., & Levy, F. (1996). Teaching the new basic skills: Principles for educating children to thrive in a changing economy. The Free Press. Murphy, J. (2006). Preparing school leaders: An agenda for research and action. Rowman & Littlefield. Murphy, J. (2010). The educator’s handbook for understanding and closing achievement gaps. Corwin. Murphy, J. (2012). Homeschooling in America. Corwin Press. Murphy, J., Beck, L., Crawford, M., Hodges, A., & McGaughy, C. (2001). The productive high school: Creating personalized academic communities. Corwin Press. Murphy, J., & Bleiberg, J. (2019). School turnaround policies and practices: Learning from failed school reform. Springer. Murphy, J., & Shiffman, C. (2002). Understanding and assessing charter schools. Teachers College Press. Murphy, J., & Tobin, K. (2011). Homelessness comes to school. Corwin Press. Newlon, J. H. (1934). Educational administration as social policy. Scribner. Odell, C. W. (1939). The secondary school. Garland. Olivier, D., & Hipp, K. K. (2006). Leadership capacity and collective efficacy: Interacting to sustain student learning in a professional learning community. Journal of School Leadership, 16(5), 505–519. Pellicer, L. O., & Anderson, L. W. (1995). A handbook for teacher leaders. Corwin Press. Powell, A. G., Farrar, E., & Cohen, D. K. (1985). The shopping mall high school: Winners and losers in the educational marketplace. Houghton Mifflin. Putnam, R. D. (1995). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6(1), 65–77. Ravitch, D. (1983). The troubled crusade: American education, 1945–1980. Basic Books. Reyes, P., Wagstaff, L. H., & Fusarelli, L. D. (1999). Delta forces: The changing fabric of American society and education. In J. Murphy & K. S. Louis (Eds.), Handbook of research on educational administration (2nd ed., pp. 183–201). Jossey-Bass.

References

51

Sergiovanni, T. J. (1990). Value-added leadership: How to get extraordinary performance in schools. Harcourt College Pub. Sergiovanni, T. J. (1991a). The dark side of professionalism in educational administration. Phi Delta Kappan, 72(7), 521–526. Sergiovanni, T. J. (1991b). The principalship: A reflective practice perspective (2nd ed.). Allyn & Bacon. Sergiovanni, T. J. (1992). Moral leadership: Getting to the heart of school improvement. JosseyBass. Smylie, M., Murphy, J., & Seashore Louis, K. S. (2020). Caring school leadership. Corwin Press. Smylie, M. A., & Hart, A. W. (1999). School leadership for teacher learning: A human and social capital development perspective. In J. Murphy & K. S. Louis (Eds.), Handbook of research on educational administration (2nd ed., pp. 421–441). Jossey-Bass. Spears, H. (1941). Secondary education in American life. American Book. Spring, J. (1990). The American school 1642–1990: Varieties of historical interpretation of the foundations and developments of American education (2nd ed.). Longman. Tichy, N. M., & Cardwell, N. (2004). The cycle of leadership: How great leaders teach their companies to win. Harper Business. Tushman, M. L., & Romanelli, E. (1985). Organizational evolution: A metamorphosis model of convergence and reorientation. In L. L. Cummings & B. M. Straw (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (pp. 171–222). JAI Press. Tyack, D. (1993). School governance in the United States: Historical puzzles and anomalies. In J. Hannaway & M. Carnoy (Eds.), Decentralization and school improvement (pp. 1–32). San Francisco. Tyack, D. B. (1974). The one best system: A history of America urban education. Harvard University Press. Visscher, A. J., & Witziers, B. (2004). Subject departments as professional communities? British Educational Research Journal, 30(6), 785–800. Wraga, W. G. (1994). Democracy’s high school: The comprehensive high school and educational reform in the United States. University Press of America.

Chapter 5

Organizational Blueprints

While it is correct to maintain that calls for teacher leadership emanate directly from reformulations of school leadership, it is instructive to remember that “how we conceptualize organizational leadership is necessarily rooted in how we conceptualize organizations” (Ogawa & Bossert, 1995, p. 226). The two central points here are (1) that there has been a deluge of criticism about the ability of the traditional organizational structure to promote quality education for all youngsters and (2) that some insights about organizational forms that may be more productive—and more conducive to shared leadership—are taking shape. There is an expanding feeling that the existing structure of administration, which has “changed only a little since the middle of the nineteenth century” (Holmes Group, 1986, p. 6) and which discourages teacher leadership (Coyle, 1997) by “firmly fixing teachers on the bottom rung of [the] bureaucratic ladder” (Kelley, 1994, p. 301), is “obsolete and unsustainable” (Rungeling & Glover, 1991, p. 415). In particular, it is held that the management tools of the bureaucratic paradigm “misdirect the educational outcomes that schools seek to attain” (Wise, 1989, p. 301), that the “bureaucratic structure is failing in a manner so critical that adaptations will not forestall its collapse” (Clark & Meloy, 1980, p. 293). Behind this basic critique rests a central proposition: that “bureaucracies are setup to serve the adults that run them and in the end, the kids get lost in the process” (Daly, cited in Olson, 1992, p. 10). It is increasingly being concluded that the existing bureaucratic system of administration is “ineffective and counter productive” (Martin & Crossland, 2000, p. 4), that it has “led to teacher isolation, alienation, and disenchantment” (Elmore et al., 1996; Pellicer & Anderson, 1995, p. 10), and that it is “incapable of addressing the technical and structural shortcomings of the public educational system” (Lawton, 1991, p. 4). More finely grained criticism of the bureaucratic infrastructure of schooling comes from a variety of quarters. There are those who contend that schools are so paralyzed by the “bureaucratic arteriosclerosis” noted above by Tyack (1993, p. 30) that “professional judgment” (Hill & Bonan, 1991, p. 65), “innovation” (Lindelow, 1981, p. 98), “morale” (David, 1989b, p. 45), “creative capacity” (Snauwaert, 1993, p. 5), © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. F. Murphy, Understanding Communities of School Leadership, SpringerBriefs in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23759-1_5

53

54

5 Organizational Blueprints

flexibility (Elmore et al., 1996), “autonomy” (Shakeshaft, 1999, p. 108), responsibility, and “opportunities for continuing growth” (Howey, 1988, p. 30) have all been paralyzed (Bolin, 1989; Frymier, 1987). Indeed, “many teachers ... are forced to repress their leadership needs” (Fessler & Ungaretti, 1994, p. 211). Other reformers maintain “that school bureaucracies as currently constituted could [never] manage to provide high-quality education” (Elmore, 1993, p. 37) that, even worse, “bureaucratic management practices have been causing unacceptable distortions in the educational process” (Wise, 1989, p. 301), and that they are damaging schooling by “interfer[ing] with best teaching” (Johnson, 1989, p. 105). These scholars view bureaucracy as a governance-management system that deflects attention from the core tasks of learning and teaching (Elmore, 1990) and that “inhibits the successful conduct of the teaching–learning act” (Clark, 1987, p. 9). For example, in the early and mid-1980s, proposals to improve education focused primarily on raising standards by expanding centralized controls. A state-centered, top-down model of change was employed. Prescriptions and performance measurements were emphasized. Piecemeal efforts were undertaken to repair the existing educational system (Murphy, 1990). A variety of stakeholders found these approaches to be philosophically misguided and conceptually limited (Boyd, 1987; Passow, 1984). A number of these critics maintained that the reform movement enhanced the site (and district) bureaucracy while diminishing the morale of school-site personnel, thereby crippling efforts at real improvement. Others argued that reform activity failed to take “into account the most fundamental variables in the educational process: the nature of the relationship between educators and their students and the extent to which students are actively engaged in the learning process” (Sedlack et al., 1986, p. ix). Calls to address new forms of organization lead back to concerns with the prevailing model of governance and organization, program delivery, and management of schools. In short, the bureaucratic infrastructure of schools has come under severe criticism from (1) those who argue that initiative, creativity, and professional judgment have all been paralyzed (Bolin, 1989; Conley, 1989) and the likely success of reforms has been neutralized (Chubb, 1988; Lomotey & Swanson, 1990); (2) critics who maintain that “bureaucratic management practices have been causing unacceptable distortions in educational process” (Wise, 1989, p, 301), that they are “paralyzing American education ... [and] getting in the way of children’s learning” (Sizer, 1984, p. 206; also Cuban, 1989; McNeil, 1988a, 1988b, 1988c; Wise, 1978, 1989); (3) analysts who believe that bureaucracy is counterproductive to the needs and interests of educators within the school—“that it is impractical, and it does not fit the psychological and personal needs of the workforce” (Bolin, 1989; Clark & Meloy, 1980, p. 293); (4) critics who suggest that bureaucratic management is inconsistent with the sacred values and purposes of education; (5) scholars who view bureaucracy as a form of operation that inherently forces attention away from the core technology; (6) reform proponents who hold that the existing organizational structure of schools is neither sufficiently flexible nor sufficiently robust to meet the needs of students in a techno service (Maccoby, 1989) or postindustrial society (Beare, 1989; Sizer, 1984); and (7) analysts who believe that the rigidities of bureaucracy impede the

5 Organizational Blueprints

55

ability of parents and citizens to govern and reform schooling (see Campbell et al., 1987). This tremendous attack on the bureaucratic infrastructure of schools has led to demands to develop alternative methods of operating that are grounded on new values and principles: Our analysis suggests that people who create organizational designs for schools should construct forms that aid the articulation and development of professional values, since these values are sources of guidance when people process nonroutine information. Our review also suggests that organic organizational forms are better designs both for developing values and for clarifying vague causal structures than are mechanistic forms. Since organic forms also encourage the development of substitutes for leadership, they encourage professional development as well as utilize current skills and attitudes (Weick & McDaniel, 1989, p. 350).

Many analysts believe that bureaucracy is counterproductive to the needs and interests of educators within the school—“it is impractical, and it does not fit the psychological and personal needs of the workforce” (Clark & Meloy, 1980, p. 293); it “undermine[s] the authority of teachers” (Sackney & Dibski, 1992, p. 2); and it is “incompatible with the professional organization” (p. 4). They maintain that “the bureaucratic routinization of teaching and learning that has grown out of administrative attempts to control schools” (Fay, 1992, p. 58) has neutered teachers (Frymier, 1987), undermined “the drawing power and holding power of strong collegial ties” (Little, 1987, p. 502), and “discourage[d] teachers from taking on additional responsibilities” (Creighton, 1997, p. 3). Still other critics assert that bureaucratic management is inconsistent with the sacred values and purposes of education; they question “fundamental ideological issues pertaining to bureaucracy’s meaning in a democratic society” (Campbell et al., 1987, p. 73) and find that it is inconsistent to endorse democracy in society but to be wary of teacher leadership (Fusarelli & Scribner, 1993; Glickman, 1990). They maintain that “if the primary purpose of public schools is to support democracy, then schools should be structured around a democratic model” (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001, p. 26). New perspectives of schooling include methods of organizing and managing schools that are generally consistent with the “quiet revolution [in] organizational and administrative theory in Western societies” (Foster, 1988, p. 71). In the image of schools for the twenty-first century, the hierarchical bureaucratic organizational structures that defined schooling since the onslaught of scientific management (Forster, 1997) give way to systems that are more focused on capacity building (Crowther et al., 2002) and that are more organic (Weick & McDaniel, 1989), more decentralized (Harvey & Crandall, 1988; Watkins & Lusi, 1989), and more professionally controlled (David, 1989a; Weick & McDaniel, 1989), systems that suggest a new design for school leadership (Fay, 1992). The basic shift is from a “power over approach ... to a power to approach” (Sergiovanni, 1991b, p. 57). This model of change spotlights values of community (Murphy, 2005). We also find that communities of school leadership has drawn strength from efforts to recalibrate school improvement, efforts that are shifting the calculus of change from a nearly exclusive reliance on centralized, government-directed measures to initiatives that legitimize decentralization and professionalism. At the outset of the

56

5 Organizational Blueprints

reform movement beginning around 1980, attempts at change featured centralized controls (Murphy & Adams, 1998), “a tightening of the organization and an increased supervision and evaluation of both teachers and students” (Sedlack et al., 1986, p. 175). The attack on the supposed problems with schooling assumed that the conditions of schooling contributing to poor student outcome measures were attributable to the poor quality of the workers and to the inadequacy of their tools, and that they were subject to revision through mandated, top-down initiatives. Using the bureaucratic model to institute improvement proposals led, in turn, to the emphasis in early reform efforts on policy mechanisms such as prescriptions, tightly specified resource allocations, and performance measurements that focused on repairing components of the system and raising the quality of the workforce by telling employees how to work. The notion of communities of school leadership was conspicuous by its absence from this wave of educational reform. Or, as Maeroff (1988) asserts, “the teacher role [was] ignored in the recommendations for improving schools” (p. 472). “Citizens increasingly are demanding that the huge central bureaucracy be broken up into smaller, more workable units that will give them the opportunity to have input in the decisions and that will respond effectively, efficiently, and quickly to demands and pleas being heard from the clients” (Candoli, 1991, p. 31) (Tables 5.1 and 5.2). In its place, reformers are arguing for “a philosophy of devolved decision-making and school self-determination” (Dellar, 1992, p. 5) and “policies ... that unleash productive local initiatives” (Guthrie, 1986, p. 306). New ways to formulate school improvement began to surface, new forms that grew from a different philosophical seedbed than the one that nourished the early round of change efforts. Teachers were now “perceived as part of the solution to school revitalization” (Keedy, 1999, p. 785; Snell & Swanson, 2000). Reformers began to assert that educational improvement was (and is) contingent on empowering teachers to work more effectively with students (Holmes Group, 1986; Pellicer & Anderson, 1995). More and more people began to discern “the tremendous potential of teacher leaders” (Smyser, 1995, p. 131) and to hold “teacher leadership qualities as necessary elements for redesigning schools for success” (Wynne, 2001, p. 1) (Table 5.3). Advocates for decentralizing schools have found support for fundamentally different methods of operation from modern management theory and from activities in the corporate sector (Schlechty, 1990; Thompson, 1988). Faced with a series of problems not unlike those confronting schools—diminished product quality, low employee morale, unhappy consumers—businesses looked inward to see how the most successful of their group were operating. By and large, it was discovered that the most effective corporations had transformed their businesses by decentralizing operations—by pushing decisions down to the level of closest contact with the consumer, by reorienting their management philosophy from control to empowerment, by establishing scrupulous reputations for attention to quality, and by changing their views of workers—from property of the company to partners in the corporate undertaking (Beare, 1989; Maccoby, 1989). In short, they had restructured themselves from units to more flued and organic systems.

5.1 Leadership Work Table 5.1 Core elements of communities of school leadership

57 Individual/conventional

Community/post-conventional

Solitary/individual work

Multiple persons/collaborative

Control of teachers

Involvement of teachers

Autocratic and hierarchical

Democratic/shared

Assigned work

Agency by right

Independent

Interdisciplinary

Fixed sum

Leadership as emergent (• Co-constructed, living process • Interactive, • Adaptive, flexible, and fluid)

Rule-based

Relations-based

Contained

Organization-wide

Individual capacity

Social capacity

Formal, pro forma

Open activity

Structural dimensions of interaction

Human dimensions of interaction

Contained

Stretched across people

Top down imposed

Shared pooling

Competitive

Cooperative

Closed boundaries

Open boundaries

Individual

Social phenomenon

Positional

Personal

Static/fixed

Open/stretched

Procedure/organizational

Human potential

Formulaic

Thinking and action in situ

Directives

Support

Locked power

Shifting power

Unitary form

Multiple forms

Structure

Culture

5.1 Leadership Work It is becoming increasingly clear that these changes will make the principal’s job not only more exciting but also more complex and more demanding; new responsibilities are being added, but “few if any of the former role demands [are being] taken away” (Bredeson, 1989, p. 16). In general, it appears that principals in communities of school leadership will need to place considerably more emphasis on three areas of responsibility—technical core operations, people management, and school-environmental relations. To begin with, because “one of the immediate results of decentralization and devolution [is] to put great pressures on the principal as curriculum leader”

58 Table 5.2 The DNA of communities of school leadership

5 Organizational Blueprints • Shared process for enhancing individual and collective capacity • Leadership functions spread over employees • Emerging property of community endeavors • Patterns of interpersonal relationships rather than individual actions • Pooled expertise and creativity not only roles • Concerted actions of people working together • Dynamic interventions between multiple leaders and followers • Expanded leadership boundaries • Cooperative work, not simply the distribution of orders • Fluid, not constantly positioned • Changed situations requiring professional knowledge-based work • Increased interdependency and joint responsibility • Alienation and powerlessness are detrimental to the performance of workers • Consultative and participative mechanisms and teamwork can increase commitment, efficacy, and job satisfaction • Organizations require an involvement and commitment approach to the leadership of work organizations • Evolving demands on schools and formal school leaders reveal a need for increasing organizational capacity • Bureaucratic efforts often constrain teacher actions and cripple performance • More people with substantive knowledge should be involved • More intentional work in managing knowledge • Blended of the roles of leaders and followers • Social context as a critical dimension • Focus on interrelations • Interdependencies • Shared responsibility • Focus on practice, not persons • Organization of diverse competencies • Common frame of values • Shared beliefs • Elimination of leader follower divide • Agency as expansion, not diminishment of the power of other • Contextually situated • Impetus often generated by environmental pressures • Decision making autonomy • Two-way flow of influence • Power sharing

5.1 Leadership Work Table 5.3 Essential beliefs supporting communities of school leadership

59 • Teachers require professional discretion for schools to work • Implicit coordination is required to complete routine work • Growing amount of unseen interdependency among teachers is growing • Single agent leadership is obsolete; new tools required • Revisiting past strategies will generally fail • Rejection of the deficit model of development • Growing understandings of schools as knowledge-based entities • Community leadership leads to better organizational performance • Holistic leadership builds human not economistic culture • Teaching in its current state is unlikely to produce more competent students • Change is required if teachers are to be able to contribute to the revitalization of schools • Understanding and recognition that leadership is a collective art • Intelligence is a property of the minds of many • Knowledge required to solve complex problems is distributed throughout the organization • All employees have the ability to contribute • Professionalization of teaching will improve academic performance • Growing understanding of teachers as ends as well as means • Increased organizational capacity underscores the need for community leadership • Reforms often constrain teachers experience of professionalism • Normalization of implicit coordination as a tacit component of routine work • Command and control by a single agent is obsolete

(Chapman & Boyd, 1986, p. 42), principals will “have to attend to a much larger set of managerial tasks tied to the delivery of educational services” (Lindelow, 1981, p. 120) than they have done historically. Principals will also move “closer to the staff as mediator[s] of shared governance” (Clune & White, 1988, p. 19). They “will be chiefly concerned with creating the conditions for others to lead rather than leading from the front” (Harris, 2012, p. 15). This shift dramatically highlights the importance of participatory leadership and administrators’ interpersonal communication skills (Bredeson, 1989; Schlechty, 1990). It also underscores the need for principals to develop a better understanding of adult development and learning and of strategies and techniques for working with adults (Harris, 2012; Rallis, 1990). Finally, there

60

5 Organizational Blueprints

is evidence that establishing and nurturing relationships will require more administrative time. In communities of school leadership, principals “assume a more public role, interacting with people in the wider community, [and] forging links between the school and the environment” (Chapman & Boyd, 1986, p. 48). Thus, it appears that principals will need to concentrate more energy and effort in their boundaryspanning role, both between the school and district office (Clune & White, 1988) and between the school and the larger environment (Bredeson, 1989). Three points ground further analysis. First, promoting teacher learning is one of the most, if not the most, powerful leverage points in the portfolio leaders have to promote school improvement and increase student learning (Askew et al., 2000; Rowe, 1995). In another major review, Robinson (2007) concludes that the large impact here offers “empirical support for calls to school leaders to be actively involved with their teachers as the ‘leading learners’ of their schools” (pp. 15–16). And Newmann et al. (2000) find a “powerful positive association between comprehensive professional development and the extent to which the principal exerts leadership” (p. 283). Second, the salience of principals in this domain is heightened by the fact that the critical elements of learning are almost impossible to bring forth “in the absence of leadership initiative” (Leithwood et al., 1999, p. 150)—building professional capacity requires principal support (Hallinger & Heck, 2009). Teachers cannot pull this off on their own. Third, we reintroduce the caveat that leadership can also flummox the domain of teacher leadership. Leadership can be “counterproductive if it is done without reference to the evidence about the particular qualities and processes that produce effects on the students of participating teachers” (Robinson et al., 2008, p. 669). One aspect of the good news here is that there are a variety of ways that leaders can bolster and enhance communities of school leadership. Drago-Severson (2004) describes four pillars or “mutually reinforcing initiatives that support adult growth and development” (p. 17). They include (1) teaching/partnering with colleagues within and outside the school, (2) providing teachers with leadership roles, (3) engaging in collegial inquiry, and (4) mentoring. Blase and Blase (2000, p. 135) describe six strategies principals in their studies employed to promote communities of school leadership: emphasizing the study of teaching and learning supporting collaboration efforts among educators developing coaching relationships among educators encouraging and supporting redesign of programs applying the principles of adult learning, growth, and development to all phases of staff development (6) implementing action research to inform instructional decision making. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Youngs and King (2002) suggest, in turn, that schools can sustain high levels of capacity by establishing trust, creating structures that promote teacher learning, and either (a) connecting their faculties to external expertise or (b) helping teachers generate reforms internally (p. 665).

5.1 Leadership Work

61

And Leithwood et al. (1999, p. 161) in their extensive review point out that formal leaders promote learning communities of leadership when they: • ensure that adequate financial, time, personnel, materials and other resources necessary to support teacher development activities are available; • provide opportunities for teachers to develop a shared view of the school’s overall mission and more specific goals to which they are strongly committed; • help teachers assess their own needs for growth and gain access to sources of assistance inside or outside the school; • foster the development of a collaborative school culture within which opportunities exist for authentic participation in decision making about school-improvement efforts and meaningful interaction with colleagues about collective purposes and how to achieve them; • build feelings of self-efficacy by recognizing teachers’ accomplishments and by providing support to help reduce anxiety about tackling new initiatives; and • share or distribute responsibility ... to teachers themselves, assist in schoolimprovement efforts and to the school-improvement initiative in which teachers are engaged (p. 161). Formal leaders in high performing schools understand the value of teacher learning and honor that value in their work (Dinham, 2005; Youngs & King, 2002). They demonstrate deep personal involvement in the learning of adults. They are also “more likely to be described by their teachers as participating in informal staff discussion of teaching and teaching problems” (Robinson et al., 2008, p. 663). They exercise a more consultative stance with their teachers (Youngs & King, 2002). Analysts also routinely report that effective leaders model what they expect their teacher colleagues to do (Dinham, 2005; Leithwood et al., 1999). They lead with action not simply exhortation. They personally demonstrate the values and principles ... of “modeling continual learning in [their] own practice” (Mulford & Silins, 2003, p. 179). Nelson and Sassi (2005) capture this beautifully when they tell us that these principals “open themselves up to be learners as well as leaders” (p.174). Leaders promote learning “by widening the compass of leadership potential” (MacBeath, 2009, p. 49) in their schools and helping teachers assume leadership roles (Spillane et al., 2001). Leaders in effective schools tend to be active participants with teachers in learning opportunities (Cotton, 2003; Robinson, 2007), “participat[ing] more consistently in meetings and teachers professional development sessions than principals at comparison schools” (McDougall et al., 2007, p. 70). They are also more active in presenting to their staffs in groups and working one-on-one with teachers in their classrooms (Sweeney, 1982). They become “fellows in communities of learners” (Mullen & Hutinger, 2008, p. 280). We understand now that the principal has a hallmark position in a set of key domains, a conclusion found in nearly every study of teacher communities of school leadership (Cosner, 2011; Louis et al., 2010). We know, for example, that there are a set of key domains in which preemptive prevention, removal of existing barriers, and/or the construction of an infrastructure to support professional communities occur. We are aware that there are important differences in the shape and texture of

62

5 Organizational Blueprints

leadership in schools with robust communities and those with weak communities (Youngs & King, 2002): “principals can construct their role to either support or inhibit the strength and quality of teacher community” (McLaughlin & Talbert, 2001, p. 101). More and more, we are discovering that it is the principal who acts as the catalyst to bring other important supports to life (Bryk et al., 2010). Without effective leadership, resources, time, and structures have almost no hope of emerging to support collaborative work (Cosner, 2009; Hayes et al., 2004). We also know that principal leadership and professional community are interdependent, having an iterative relationship (McLaughlin & Talbert, 2001). Perhaps most importantly, there is a growing knowledge base which suggests that of all the ways that principals have at their disposal to influence teacher learning and leadership, developing and supporting collaborative communities of school leadership may be the most powerful (Harris, 2012; Supovitz et al., 2010). “The implications for school principals are considerable” (Crowther et al., 2002, p. 64), and this repositioning presents a real challenge for principals (Brown & Sheppard, 1999). Communities of school leadership are in some essential ways “at odds with the dominant conceptions of the principalship that have been in place in most educational systems for decades” (Crowther et al., 2002, p. 6). Thus, just as teachers are being asked to step outside traditional perspectives of their roles (Harrison & Lembeck, 1996; Mayrowetz et al., 2009). Fostering the development of communities of school leadership necessitates a new knowledge and skill base and a new set of performances that are not often found in the education of school administrators (Childs-Bowen et al., 2000; Murphy, 2005). New metaphors for the principalship emerge as well (Beck & Murphy, 1993; Sergiovanni, 1991a, 1991b)—metaphors that reflect the role of the principal not in terms of one’s fit in the organizational structure but in terms of membership in a community of learners (Klecker & Loadman, 1998; Scribner et al., 1999). It is important to acknowledge that for many principals growing community necessitates a difficult transformation of their own understanding of leadership and their own leadership roles (Goldstein, 2003; Murphy, 2005). “The implications for school principals are considerable” (Crowther et al., 2002, p. 64), and this repositioning presents a real challenge for principals (Brown & Sheppard, 1999). Communities of school leadership are in some essential ways “at odds with the dominant conceptions of the principalship that have been in place in most educational systems for decades” (Crowther et al., 2002, p. 6). Fostering the development of communities of school leadership necessitates a new knowledge and skill base and a new set of performances that are not often found in the education of school leaders. The point to be underscored here is that for many principals a personal transformation in leadership must accompany the quest to rebuild schooling to cultivate communities of school leadership. Absent this change, it is difficult to imagine that principals will develop a sense of security. Likewise, as we reported earlier, cultivating teacher community in a hierarchical and bureaucratic organizational seedbed is problematic at best. New conceptions of organizations provide the foundations for developing the skills to foster norms of school community. This is challenging work,

5.1 Leadership Work

63

but principals who do not begin here are not likely to be effective in making teacher collaboration and leadership a reality in their schools. Over the years, analysts have cobbled together various frameworks to capture the array of factors and conditions that principals can use to support the development of teacher communities. Stoll et al. (2006, p. 230) employ four categories: focusing on learning processes; making the best of human and social resources; managing structural resources; and interacting with and drawing on external agents. Mullen and Hutinger (2008, p. 280) also describe four sets of leader actions: manage resources, provide support and direction, exert appropriate pressure to achieve goals, and mediate group dynamics. Printy (2008, p. 211) discusses three principal functions: communicate vision, support teachers, and buffer teachers from outside influences. McLaughlin and Talbert (2001) offer this list of related actions: For better or worse, principals set conditions for teacher community by the ways in which they manage school resources, relate to teachers and students, support or inhibit social interactions and leadership in the faculty, respond to the broader policy context, and bring resources into the school. (p. 98)

In their work, Supovitz and Poglinco (2001) uncovered five strategies that leaders employ in their efforts to create professional communities of school leadership: First, these instructional leaders carefully developed a safe environment within which their teachers could take the risks associated with change. Second, they emphasized open channels of communication and strong collaboration amongst their faculty for the purpose of expanding the networks of engagement around issues of instructional improvement. Third, they cultivated informal and formal leaders in their schools to both allow themselves time for instructional attention and to broaden the base for change in the school. Fourth, [they] employed powerful and symbolic actions and events to dramatize and reinforce their message. Finally, they developed strong systems for accountability even as they expanded teachers’ flexibility to further develop their instructional practices. (p. 7)

A slightly different architecture is provided by Printy (2008) who sees school community building occurring through three roles: As agenda setters, leaders select policy messages to communicate to teachers and establish specific expectations or goals for teachers’ work. As knowledge brokers, leaders focus teachers’ attention on instructional matters, create the conditions for productive teacher conversations, scaffold teachers’ learning as appropriate, and facilitate the translation and alignment of meanings across communities. As learning motivators, leaders nurture positive relationships, establish urgency for new approaches and hold teachers accountable for results, in essence tightening the connections between policy and practice. (p. 199)

Saunders et al. (2009, p. 1028) highlight the centrality of time, administrative support, and structures. This is consistent with our claim that the traditional “functions” of principals (e.g., coordinating, monitoring) can be engaged to nurture collaborative leadership. More parsimonious leadership frames have been provided by Kruse and associates (1995, p. 34), such as structural conditions and characteristics of human resources; by Hurd (cited in Morrissey, 2000, p. 6), such as structural conditions and collegial relationships; and by McDougall et al. (2007, p. 54), such as settings and processes (Table 5.4).

64 Table 5.4 Professional and personal characteristics with potential impact on communities of school leaders

5 Organizational Blueprints • A. Psychological resource capabilities • B. Genetic markers • C. Cognitive dispositions • D. Task expertise • E. Personal traits • F. Work orientation • G. Emotional capabilities • H. Cognitive capabilities/capacity • I. Moral characteristics

Starting with the groundwork presented above, we explore what the research confirms about the specific leader acts that foster professional communities. Before we do so, however, we need to reinforce some core ideas. First, the goal of leadership is not the development of learning communities. The objective is the creation of human and social capital that enhances the quality of instruction in the service of student learning. The wager here is that such communities provide a robust pathway to reach these more distal ends. Second, the focus is not primarily on beefing up each element of communities of practice individually. The best strategy is to deploy supports that forge an integrated scaffolding. Finally, there are two activities that receive very limited treatment in the educational literature but rise to the level of considerable importance in the research on organizations more broadly defined (Wenger et al., 2002). To begin with, an essential responsibility of the principal is to identify people with the commitment, energy, and skills to do good work and bring them together, recognizing that these forged communities often do not follow existing organizational structures (e.g., grade level). Also important is the need for leaders to identify existing informal associations of people with shared interests (e.g., worries about a spike in the number of homeless children in the school) and support them functioning as collaborative communities. A key insight from these two lessons is that community is not isomorphic with the organizational chart. As is the case throughout the book, we carefully and deliberately build on the work of colleagues to arrive at our framework of principal supports for teacher communities. Concomitantly, we add new pillars to the structure and contextualize and add nuance to the collective body of evidence. We examine the following supports— creating structures and time, supporting learning, and managing the work—all of which are integrated with earlier analyses.

5.1 Leadership Work

65

5.1.1 Creating Structures and Time We know a good deal about organizational structures in general and in the area of school improvement more specifically. As we reported earlier, organizational structures shape what unfolds in schools partially determining what is and what is not possible. On the flip side of culture, structures allow norms to flourish, or wither (Brooks et al., 2004; Kruse et al., 1995). Our focus at this point in the analysis is on the positive side of the narrative—that is, how well-resourced and thoughtfully developed forums in schools can help communities of school leadership grow. The door through which we enter the analysis is “collaboration,” the element of shared work that provides a seedbed for the growth of relationships, shared trust, and mutual responsibility (Bryk et al., 2010). A recurring theme throughout our work is that structural change does not predict organizational performance—student learning in the case of schools (Murphy, 1991). We are also cognizant that simply giving teachers a platform to talk will not ensure the development of valued professional norms and human and social capital (Levine & Marcus, 2007; Newmann et al., 2001). So, while we acknowledge the essentiality of time and space to undertake new leadership work, we define structure in terms that underscore what is required for principals to power community. At the core then, structure is about “interactive settings” (Cosner, 2009, p. 255) and “interaction patterns” (p. 273). It is about opportunities for forging relationships, for creating patterns of networks, and for promoting professional exchange through new channels of communication (May & Supovitz, 2011; Stoll et al., 2006). In short, it is about fostering professional collaboration (Ancess, 2003; Cosner, 2009). Research helps us discern some ways principals work “structurally” to create and nurture teacher communities of school leadership. On the issue of forums, first there is unanimous agreement that schools must take advantage of existing space and time configurations, to repurpose them (Cosner, 2009; Stein & Coburn, 2008). For example, community-building work is conspicuous by its absence from most faculty meetings. Principals can repurpose these and many other meetings can be redesigned to deepen collaboration. At the same time, as we detail below, there is general agreement that new forums will need to be created as well (Ermeling, 2010). Third, a variety of community leadership-building structures are needed, not simply reliance on learning community meetings (McLaughlin & Talbert, 2001). Analysts also advance the idea that both formal and informal opportunities for building community need to be realized, with an eye open especially for the informal opportunities that often lay fallow (Cosner, 2009; McLaughlin & Talbert, 2001). As we discussed above, joining together teachers who—in informal way—already demonstrate working connections, beliefs, and relationships can be an important piece of a principal’s community building plan (Penuel et al., 2009; Useem et al., 1997). Lastly, it appears that creating structures that promote both horizontal and vertical networks and exchanges is wise (Johnson & Asera, 1999). Here scholars point to collaborative structures that stimulate cross-grade and cross-departmental linkages,

66

5 Organizational Blueprints

what Cosner (2009) calls “new interaction patterns” (pp. 268–269). Also emphasized here are forums that allow teachers from different collective teams to collaborate (Kruse et al., 1995; Stein & Coburn, 2008) by “structuring communities with overlapping boundaries and multimembership” (Printy, 2008, p. 217). The handmaiden to structure is time (Harris, 2003; York-Barr & Duke, 2004). Without time, the development of collaborative leadership becomes nearly impossible (Darling-Hammond & McLaughlin, 1995; Eilers & Camacho, 2007). Alternatively, teacher community researchers reveal that in schools, community flourishes when leaders make time available for collaborative work and professional learning (Huberman et al., 2011; Youngs, 2007). A similar conclusion is evident in studies of effective schools in general (Blase & Blase, 2004; Drago-Severson, 2004). Researchers have also teased out clues about how principals can employ space and time in the service of leadership community development. One approach to enhance interactions is to bring members of current or proposed collaboratives into close physical proximity (Bulkley & Hicks, 2005; Supovitz, 2008). According to these investigators, proximity can assist in overcoming dysfunctional norms such as privatization and egalitarianism (Gray et al., 1999; Kruse et al., 1995). A second suggestion is to take maximum advantage of formal teacher leadership positions in schools (e.g., data coach) and have them organize and lead forums in which small groups of teachers can interact (Cosner, 2009; Murphy, 2005). Relatedly, community through collaboration can be nurtured by infusing integrated leadership throughout the school (Silins & Mulford, 2004). Lastly, leaders moving to deepen collaborative communities of professional practice can create what Saunders et al. (2009, p. 1011) call “predictable, consistent settings”; what Blase and Blase (2004, p. 68) refer to as “teacher collaborative structures”; and what Ermeling (2010, p. 387) describes as “dedicated and protected times where teachers meet on a regular basis to get important work done.” As posited above, these can be new arrangements or redesigned existing settings. Whatever the designs, these predictable, patterned forums are the most efficacious method principals have of enhancing community development and leadership among teachers (Pounder, 1999). Our review also uncovers information on specific forums principals can put in play to foster stronger collaboration (Penuel et al., 2009). Staff and departmental community via meetings find a home here, as do reconfigured school schedules to allow for late start or early dismissal on selected days (Cosner, 2009; Mitchell & Castle, 2005). Ad hoc groups such as book study teams, inquiry groups, and action research teams are found in some community-anchored schools as are structures and time for teachers to collaborate around school governance and planning (Cosner, 2009; McLaughlin & Talbert, 2001). Induction and mentoring programs can provide forums to stimulate collaboration and learning (Johnson & Asera, 1999; Youngs, 2007). So also does the use of team teaching arrangements (Johnson & Asera, 1999). The strategy most often employed by leaders is the creation of a master schedule that establishes common planning time for groups of teachers, usually by grade level, subject area, or teaching team (Cosner, 2009). Finally, a crosscutting analysis of the research on teacher communities of school leadership exposes some of the essential touchstones of these collaborative forums.

5.1 Leadership Work

67

We learn that these gatherings for work and learning should: (1) occur frequently, for a reasonable block of time, and across the full year; (2) be intensive; (3) focus on student learning and instructional matters; (4) maximize interdependency and; (5) feature specific tasks that structure time usage (Center for Teaching Quality, 2007; Cosner, 2009; Felner et al., 2007). We also know that resources such as protocols are often associated with productive use of collaborative time.

5.1.2 Supporting Learning Time and working structures are important and necessary. But they are insufficient to power communities of school leadership (Ancess, 2003; Ermeling, 2010). As we have noted above, teacher communities produce valued outcomes by fostering the development of professional norms and promoting teacher learning. Leaving this to happen by chance is not a wise idea. What is required is what we call learning to learn, the development of the knowledge and the mastery of skills that make teacher growth a reality, what Supovitz (2002) refers to as “continuous capacity building” (p. 1618). We examine the work of the principal in activating the learning in the learning to learn paradigm for learning communities below. For most teachers, working with students is a nearly all-consuming activity. Consequently, they have spent very little time working with other adults. Not surprisingly, therefore, having principals work with teachers to develop “managerial skills in dealing with people” (Ainscow & Southworth, 1996, p. 234) is an essential component of development designed to help teachers work effectively in learning communities (Adams, 2010; Borko, 2004). Or, as Little (1987) captures it, “the specific skills and perspectives of working with a colleague are critical” (p. 512) for teacher communities to develop. The centrality of building relationships cannot be overstated in the work of communities of school leadership, neither can the development of relationship-building capabilities (Lynch & Strodl, 1991) or the role of the principal in making this happen. Scholars have isolated an assortment of interpersonal capacities that principals can help nurture to promote productive working relationships among teachers (Brooks et al., 2004). They conclude that principals should assist teachers in developing proficiencies around a number of interpersonal issues (Crow & Pounder, 2000). For example, Katzenmeyer and Moller (2001) conclude that development should begin with personal knowledge. Development in this area builds from the assumption that focusing “on increasing their own self-awareness, identify formation, and interpretive capacity” (Zimpher, 1988, p. 57) is critical. It is this understanding that permits teachers to (1) recognize the values, behaviors, philosophies, and professional concerns that underlie their personal performance and (2) understand their colleagues, especially those whose experiences and viewpoints do not mirror their own (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001). A bushel of competencies that lubricate effective working relations are often mentioned as candidates for inclusion in growth opportunities for teacher groups. For

68

5 Organizational Blueprints

example, analysts assert that “skills that will make teachers sensitive to seeing others’ points of view” (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001, p. 67) and “sensitive to others’ needs” (Leblanc & Shelton, 1997, p. 38) are important. Also, because teachers often “report that they became more influential through using good listening techniques with peers” (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001, p. 93), helping teachers increase proficiency in the area of listening skills is important. In a similar view, because friction that sometimes surfaces in group interactions is greatly influenced by the form of those exchanges, communities are advantaged when teachers possess well-developed facilitation skills (Zimpher, 1988). In its broadest form, facilitation means “knowing how to help a group take primary responsibility for solving its problems and mitigat[ing] factors that hinder the group’s ability to be effective” (Killion, 1996, p. 72). More specifically, it includes the ability to establish trust and rapport and to navigate collectively through problems (Kilcher, 1992). Likewise, there is agreement that leaders need to arrange opportunities for teachers to develop consulting skills and proficiency in conferencing with colleagues if they are to be effective in inquiry communities (Manthei, 1992; Zimpher, 1988). The “principles and skills of advising” (Little, 1985, p. 34) are also key pieces in the portfolio of tools that help establish a productive context for community work, as are influencing skills (Hart, 1995; Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001). In addition to the social lubrication skills just outlined, analysts assert that principals should arrange leadership development activities that address a variety of skills for attacking joint work endeavors and provide a set of group process skills (Kilcher, 1992) for understanding and managing the “group dynamics” that accompany collaborative work (Murphy, 2005). Perhaps most important here is the broad array of communication skills needed to interact with colleagues (Leblanc & Shelton, 1997). Indeed, it is almost an article of faith in the literature in this area that inquiry communities “benefit from ongoing learning and practice in effective communication” (Killion, 1996, p. 72). Problem-solving and decision-making skills are also seen as quite important. As Killion (1996) reports, “[K]nowing various decision-making methods, selecting the most appropriate method for a particular situation, and having a repertoire of strategies for helping others reach a decision with the chosen methods are [also] critical skills” (p. 74). Finally, principals can help teachers benefit from community by ensuring that they master conflict management and conflict resolution skills (Fay, 1992; Hart, 1995). “Teacher[s] who not only understand the factors that lead to conflict but also have a range of strategies for managing and resolving it will be more successful” (Killion, 1996, p. 73) in communities of practice. The general message is that principals have two roles in the domain of managing collaboration. First, they need to get communities of school leadership up and running. Second, they need to hold at bay the natural entropy associated with collaborative work. They must help keep communities viable and vibrant. They also need to master the craft of layering in multiple, integrated supports (Murphy & Torre, 2014). Principals need to be diligent in setting expectations for communities of school leadership. A clear vision for inquiry communities must be crafted along with a tangible set of expectations (Murphy, 2005). Also, because prospects for community

5.1 Leadership Work

69

will be heavily influenced by school practices, values, and expectations, principals need to bolster community by crafting “enabling policies” (Lieberman & Miller, 1999, p. 28). Bishop et al. (1997) outline the case as follows: Since policies usually guide the course of action of an organization, and their statements include objectives that guide the actions of a substantial portion of the total organization, teachers will believe that they are empowered when they feel that their actions are undergirded and protected by such formalized policy statements. (p. 78)

Little (1987) concurs, arguing that “at its strongest—most durable, most rigorously connected to problems of student learning, most commanding of teachers’ energies, talents, and loyalties—cooperative work is a matter of school policy” (p. 512) and that “high levels of joint action are more likely to persist” (p. 508) when a supportive policy structure is in place. As we documented earlier, throughout the research on implementation, change, and school improvement, the importance of adequate resources is a recurring theme. Nowhere is this finding more accurate than in the area of teacher communities (Mitchell & Sackney, 2006; Mullen & Hutinger, 2008). Resources, in addition to time, in the professional community research include materials, such as “teachers’ guides, activity sheets, and commercially prepared videos” (Burch & Spillane, 2003, p. 530). Protocols that direct collaborative work into productive channels is a type of material often underscored in studies of effective teacher leadership communities (Cosner, 2011; Saunders et al., 2009). These designed activities help generate shared language, maintain focus, teach group process skills, and reinforce professional norms while damping down dysfunctional behavior and project derailment often observed in work teams (Cosner, 2011; Young, 2006) (Table 5.5). For teacher communities to function effectively, principals need to become active and central figures in communication systems, using both formal and informal procedures (Brooks et al., 2004; Walker & Slear, 2011). When this happens, understanding is deepened and questions and misconceptions are addressed before they can become toxic (Cosner, 2011; Kochanek, 2005). Other management responsibilities for principals in communities of school leadership can be teased out of the research as well. Not surprisingly given its importance in the general literature, the principal has a central role in ensuring that explicit understandings of the rationale for, workings of, and outcomes needed from teacher communities of school leadership are established (Printy, 2008; Quint, 2006). Analysts also affirm that principals in schools with well-functioning teacher communities are adept at buffering teachers from external pressures that can hinder progress (Rossmiller, 1992). They filter demands that are not aligned with community work and reshape others so that they do fit (Cosner, 2011; Robinson, 2007) (Table 5.6). The necessity for leaders to be engaged in ongoing monitoring of the activities and outcomes of collaborative work is routinely discussed in the research as well (Quint, 2006; Stoll et al., 2006). Participation in community meetings, review of group documents, and comparative benchmarking are often featured in the monitoring portfolio (Heller & Firestone, 1995; Mullen & Hutinger, 2008). Monitoring which keeps “leaders in touch with teacher’s ongoing thinking and development” (Levine &

70 Table 5.5 Context variables with potential impact on communities of school leadership

5 Organizational Blueprints • Beliefs • Job security • Gender • Job autonomy • Intelligence • School type • School level • Emotional intelligence • Language • Race • Urgency • Student composition • Policy environment • Expertise • Developmental stage of team • Values • Norms • Dispositions toward communities of school leadership • Size of team • Culture • Resources • Available data • Work setting • Routines • Leadership power • Accountability system • Teacher training • People’s history • Collective team identity • Demands of the task • Readiness • Nature of relationships • Task clarity • Teacher commitment • Quality leadership support

5.1 Leadership Work Table 5.6 Building communities of school leadership from theory

71 • Activity theory • Cognitive theory • Social network theory • Distributive cognition • Social cultural theory • Relational theory • Systems process theory • Institutional theory • Organizational learning theory • Complexity leadership theory • Work redesign theory • Self efficacy theory • Change theory • Structurational theory

Marcus, 2007, p. 134) leads directly to another responsibility, that of providing feedback to collaborative work groups. So, too, is a system of incentives and rewards that motivates teachers to privilege collective leadership activities (Murphy, 2005). Currently, the picture that emerges from the literature is one in which there are few external incentives for community work. In fact, there are numerous disincentives to change to collaborative work at the heart of teacher communities (Little, 1988). In many schools, there is limited recognition for the work, and there are few rewards for additional effort (Crowther et al., 2002). In too many places, “the only rewards for teacher leadership are added responsibilities” (Moller & Katzenmeyer, 1996, p. 14). In schools, two types of recognition are employed by principals to energize building communities of school leadership. First, since the actions of persons of status and influence carry considerable weight, they consciously work this domain (Hart, 1994). Administrators, union leaders, and well-respected veteran teachers merit notice (Silins & Mulford, 2004). Second, principals ensure that the peer acceptance and recognition that is important to teachers—the absence of which can negatively affect the growth of teacher community in a school—is forthcoming (Leblanc & Shelton, 1997; Mulford & Silins, 2003). While “rewarding teachers who are willing to move beyond their classrooms to lead is a complicated issue” (Moller & Katzenmeyer, 1996, p. 13), in the end principals “must provide incentives and rewards for teachers who take the lead in tackling tasks and solving problems” (Boles & Troen, 1996, p. 60): Leaders need to identify ways to acknowledge teachers in ways teachers value (Harrison & Lembeck, 1996). The redesign of teacher work is based on a number of important premises. One is that teaching is a moral activity and as such should be subject to the control of teachers themselves (Angus, 1988; Bolin, 1989). A second is that teachers are intellectuals and should, therefore, take the lead role in discussions about the nature and purposes

72 Table 5.7 Types of communities of school leadership

5 Organizational Blueprints • Lateral leadership • Democratic leadership • Blended leadership • Consensual leadership • Team leadership • Shared leadership • Hybrid leadership • Distributed leadership • Participatory leadership • Collaborative leadership • Leadership couples

of schooling (Giroux, 1988). A related argument is grounded on the professional dimensions of teaching. According to reformers who tackle reorientation from this base, teaching is a profession and as such should be guided by professional canons rather than by bureaucratic rules and regulations. Supporting lines of analysis are derived from organizational theorists who conclude that the single leadership model based on line authority and role position is dysfunctional (Clark & Meloy, 1980; Maccoby, 1989). Reformers in this camp maintain that we should think of leadership in terms of its density in the organization (Sergiovanni, 1989)—that schools should “ensure that a much larger number of members of the organization are capable of taking on pieces of the leadership role” (Clinton, 1987, p. 12), and that “leadership roles are shared and leadership broadly exercised” (Sergiovanni, 1989, p. 221). They also hold that leadership and authority are separate constructs and that leadership is better connected to expertise than to line authority (Tables 5.7 and 5.8). At one level, teachers in communities of school leadership are taking on new responsibilities. They are assuming control over decisions that were historically the province of others, especially administrators. Changes in this area are of two types— “those that increase teachers’ right to participate in formal decision making [and] those that give teachers greater access to influence by making school structures more flexible” (Moore-Johnson, 1989, p. 2). Team approaches to school management and governance (see Hallinger & Richardson, 1988) are particularly good collective examples of expanded responsibilities for teachers. The formalization of teacher participation in decision-making forums from which they were previously excluded (e.g., principal and teacher selection committees, facility planning groups) has been accomplished in Dade County, Florida; Hammond, Indiana; and other districts employing communities of school leadership (Lindelow, 1981; Olson, 1988). Through expanded participation in collective decision-making models and professional support groups, teachers in these schools have also begun to exercise considerable influence over the type of evaluation procedures employed. Individual teachers are often assuming greater responsibility for the mentoring and supervision of their peers—especially beginning

5.1 Leadership Work Table 5.8 The essence of communities of school leadership

73 Bureaucracy

Communities of school leadership

• Roles and functions

• Possession of influence

• Formal organization

• Peers/expertise

• Organizational authority

• Community

• Isolation/individualism

• Interdependence

• Students as recipients

• Co-construction by students

• Teaching

• Learning

• People as liabilities

• Assets

• Transmission

• Construction

• Evaluation

• Supervision

• Closed rooms

• Open environment

• Addressing problems

• Solving problems

• Rules

• Care

• Teacher proof curriculum

• Learning-based curriculum

• Controls

• Trust

• High wire learning

• Nests

• Adults as center of gravity

• Students as center of gravity

• Charts

• Relationships

• Consequence framework

• Justice framework

• Administrative

• Participatory

• “Head” knowledge

• Use of knowledge

• Textbook

• Authentic materials

• Evaluation of

• Help for

• Blame

• Responsibility

• Micro policy

• Autonomy

• Memorization

• Thinking

• Activities

• Authentic application

• Mass learning, lock step

• Guided learning

• Grades

• Adaptive feedback

• Work completion

• Goal orientation

• Concentrated

• Spaced

• Additive

• Beyond additive

• Activity associated with leader

• Activity associated with task

• Individuals

• Group and pluralism

• Fixed

• Fluid

• Power over

• Power with

• Output

• Input

• Control and command

• Consolidation and consensus

74

5 Organizational Blueprints

teachers—evaluating the work of principals, providing professional development to their colleagues, and developing curricula for the school (Corcoran, 1989; MooreJohnson, 1988, 1989; see David, 1989a, 1989b, for a review). In short, both individually and collectively, teachers in community anchored schools are accumulating new responsibilities that extend their role beyond the confines of their own classrooms. Some teachers in transformed schools are not only adding new responsibilities to their current jobs but are also beginning to fill new professional roles. The difference between this category and the former one is a matter of extent. In examining expanded responsibilities, we were primarily concerned with new functions that are added to existing role definitions. Here we are more interested in work redesign activities that may significantly alter the basic role itself. For example, a master teacher may continue to work three or four days a week in his or her own classroom but may also spend one or two days working with colleagues in their classrooms or with peers developing student assessment materials. A teacher-facilitator or coordinator may actually leave the classroom for a semester or a year to create professional development activities or curriculum materials for peers. In almost all these cases, however—as opposed to new career lines—role changes are not permanent. Work redesign for teachers also includes the development of more permanent career opportunities that create the chance “for gifted, well-prepared educators to move upward in their chosen profession without leaving the classroom” (Goodlad, 1984, p. 301). A differentiated staffing arrangement is the most well-employed strategy of resetting work to create new career lines for teachers (David, 1989a; Malen & Hart, 1987). New career roles that are not sequentially packaged like lead teachers and teacher-directors are also beginning to be developed. Although the categorization outlined above is useful for examining the structural aspects of teacher work redesign, it does not adequately capture the nature of the conceptual change that is at the core of revised roles for teachers in communities of school leadership. In order to complete the picture, we must directly address this aspect of work design, as well as the closely related area of professional work environment. In trying to understand the conceptual core of leadership work, the classification system developed by McCarthy and Peterson (1989) is especially helpful. According to these analysts, the categories of teacher as colleague, teacher as decision maker, teacher as leader, and teachers as learner capture the essence of the new roles for teachers in remolded schools. In addition, a number of analysts have emphasized the idea of teacher as generalist in developing their conceptual picture of redesigned teacher work. In conventional practice, teachers are entrepreneurs of their own classrooms. They orchestrate their own operations almost totally independently of their peers and engage in few leadership or decision-making activities outside their own cubicles. They are viewed as pedagogical specialists whose function it is to deliver educational services to their young charges. Little time and energy are available for or devoted to self-renewal and professional growth (see Goodlad, 1984; Sizer, 1984). McCarthy and Peterson (1989) sketch a different portrait of the teaching function in communities of school leadership. According to them, teachers are professionals who engage in regular, and important, exchanges with their colleagues—“traditional isolation among teachers in schools begins to break down” (p. 6). Teachers participate

5.2 Professional Organizational Culture

75

in decisions affecting the entire school and frequently perform leadership tasks. They understand that to perform in this fashion they need to be more collegial, to develop more interdependence with peers, and to share their knowledge with others in a variety of settings—that “they must trade work assignments and work in multiple groups”. They realize that by engaging in learning themselves they “are more likely to facilitate in their students the kind of learning that will be needed” (McCarthy & Peterson, 1989, p. 11).

5.2 Professional Organizational Culture The redesign of teacher work in leadership dense schools needs to unfold within a supportive organizational climate—one that reflects “schools as stimulating workplaces and learning environments” (David, 1989a, p. 21). This larger organizational climate can best be thought of as one that professionalizes teaching (Wise, 1989). At the macro level—education in general—professional status is enhanced through efforts to align more closely preparation for teaching, remuneration for performance, and other “occupational conditions of teaching” (Elmore, 1989, p. 20) with the norms and practices of the other professions (Smylie & Denny, 1989). At this level, professionalization also entails teachers’ securing control over the profession, that is, teachers’ establishing and enforcing their own standards for entry and performance (Rallis, 1990; Wise, 1989) and exercising a larger voice over important macro-level educational decisions, e.g., having significant representation on national reform commissions and projects. At the micro level—the individual district-school classroom system—communities of school leadership is one in which teachers are more concerned with the purposes of education than with implementing predetermined goals (Conway & Jacobson, 1990; Petrie, 1990). It is also one in which they “exercise greater control over matters pertaining to curriculum and instruction and to the way in which the school’s resources are employed to support teaching and learning,” one in which there is “a decrease in control by authority and increase in control through professional norms of performance, responsibility, and commitment” (Mojkowski & Fleming, 1988, p. 4). Thus, at the school level, communities of school leadership “can be thought of as a new paradigm for school management” (Wise, 1989, p. 303), one that recognizes and supports professional control (Carnegie Forum, 1986; Short & Greer, 1989) and facilitates the redesign of teacher work by reconceptualizing the roles and responsibilities of the classroom teacher. As noted above, “the first step toward a more professional culture is the development of collegiality among teachers” (Rallis, 1990, p. 198). A professional work culture, however, is one that supports the development of organizational structures that help “break down traditional teacher isolation in the classroom” (Bredeson, 1989, p. 11; see also Newmann et al., 1989; Rosenholtz, 1985) and encourages “collegial interaction around problems of practice” (Elmore, 1989, p. 23; Giroux, 1988). This type of environment, which characterizes schools marked by communities of school leadership allows the staff to exert considerable

76

5 Organizational Blueprints

“influence over the basic elements of instructional practice (time, materials, student engagement, and so forth)” (Elmore, 1989, p. 20) and over school structures. This, in turn, permits staff to address collectively constraints within the workplace that may affect the successful development of new responsibilities for teachers, e.g., inappropriate organizational schedules (see McCarthy & Peterson, 1989). In professional organizations, knowledge and competence are highly regarded (Elmore, 1989) and growth opportunities are professionally controlled. Therefore, school cultures that support the redesign of teacher work recognize that “excellence in education will be achieved only as we invest in the education of teachers in the classroom” (Boyer, 1983, p. 179). A professional milieu reinforces teacher efforts at professional growth and the norm of continuous improvement (Little, 1982). We argued that efforts to transform schooling will necessitate a reconceptualization of the roles, responsibilities, and work of teachers and administrators, as well as a rethinking of the relationships that bind them together. We reported that the bureaucratic model currently defining roles and relationships among staff members in schools is being overhauled. In conjunction with this change, prevailing organizational arrangements such as increasing specialization of roles, management by control, and hierarchy of authority are being replaced. We showed that communities of school leadership are places where teachers see themselves as generalists, where empowerment replaces control as the primary coordinating function, and where authority is vested with those who have expertise, as well as with those who have offices. In short, we reported that the tenets of professionalism rather than bureaucratic principles undergird communities of school leadership. We also noted the manner in which these changes play out for professional staff in schools undergoing significant transformation—with administrators moving from the apex of the organizational pyramid to the center of a complex network of interpersonal relationships and teachers becoming leaders of learners. The belief “that teachers need[ed] to assume leadership if efforts to improve education [were] to succeed” (Hinchey, 1997, p. 233; Silva et al., 2000)—that teacher leadership was “essential for successful school reform in a knowledgebased society” (Crowther et al., 2002, p. 29)—began to take root (Stone et al., 1997). Analysts who turned their gaze on school change increasingly maintained that school reform would be dead on arrival “unless teachers [were] recognized as full partners in leading, defining, and implementing school improvement efforts” (Fessler & Ungaretti, 1994, p. 211); “school improvement efforts [would] succeed or fail to the degree that teachers [were] engaged as partners in the process” (Stone et al., 1997, p. 60). In particular, educators suggested that “by using the energy of teacher leaders as change agents, the reform of education [stood] a better chance of building momentum” (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001, p. 2). They also concluded that teacher quality would be more likely to improve (Childs-Bowen et al., 2000; Wasley, 1991) and that school reforms had “a better chance of penetrating the classroom and contributing to achieving better results in student learning if teacher leadership [could] be nurtured and strengthened” (Urbanski & Nickolaou, 1997, p. 250), “that without teacher leadership the changes and improvement desired in student learning [could] not be achieved” (Snell & Swanson, 2000, p. 2).

References

77

References Adams, C. (2010). Social determinants of student trust in high poverty elementary schools. In W. K. Hoy & M. DiPaola (Eds.), Analyzing school contexts: Influences of principals and teachers in the service of students (pp. 255–280). Information Age. Ainscow, M., & Southworth, G. (1996). School improvement: A study of the roles of leaders and external consultants. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 7(3), 229–251. Ancess, J. (2003). Beating the odds: High schools as communities of commitment. Teachers College Press. Angus, L. B. (1988, April). School leadership and educational reform. Paper prepared for the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA. Askew, B. J., Fountas, I. C., Lyons, C. A., Pinnell, G. S., & Schmitt, M. C. (2000). A review of reading recovery. In R. D. Robinson, M. C. McKenna, & J. M. Wedman (Eds.), Issues and trends in literacy education (2nd ed., pp. 284–303). Allyn & Bacon. Beare, H. (1989, September) Educational administration in the 1990s. Paper presented at the national conference of the Australian Council for Educational Administration, Armidale, New South Wales, Australia. Beck, L., & Murphy, J. (1993). Understanding the principalship: A metaphorical analysis, 1960– 1990. Teachers College Press. Bishop, H. L., Tinley, A., & Berman, B. T. (1997). A contemporary leadership model to promote teacher leadership. Action in Teacher Education, 19(3), 77–81. Blase, J., & Blase, J. (2000). Effective instructional leadership: Teachers’ perspectives on how principals promote teaching and learning in schools. Journal of Educational Administration, 38(2), 130–141. Blase, J., & Blase, J. (2004). Handbook of instructional leadership: How really good principals promote teaching and learning. Corwin Press. Boles, K., & Troen, V. (1996). Teacher leaders and power: Achieving school reform from the classroom. In G. Moller & M. Katzenmeyer (Eds.), Every teacher as a leader: Realizing the potential of teacher leadership (pp. 41–62). Jossey-Bass. Bolin, F. S. (1989, Fall). Empowering leadership. Teachers College Record, 91(1), 81–96. Borko, H. (2004). Professional development and teacher learning: Mapping the terrain. Educational Researcher, 33(8), 3–15. Boyd, W. L. (1987, Summer). Public education’s last hurrah? Schizophrenia, amnesia, and ignorance in school politics. Educational Evolution and Policy Analysis, 9(2), 85–100. Boyer, E. L. (1983). High school: A report on secondary education in America. Harper and Row. Bredeson, P. V. (1989, March) Redefining leadership and the roles of school principals: Responses to changes in the professional work life of teachers. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Seattle, WA. Brooks, J. S., Scribner, J. P., & Eferakorho, J. (2004). Teacher leadership in the context of whole school reform. Journal of School Leadership, 14(3), 242–265. Brown, J., & Sheppard, B. (1999). Leadership, organizational learning, and classroom change. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, Quebec. Bryk, A. S., Sebring, P. B., Allensworth, E., Luppescu, S., & Easton, J. (2010). Organizing schools for improvement: Lessons from Chicago. University of Chicago Press. Bulkley, K. E., & Hicks, J. (2005). Managing community: Professional community in charter schools operated by educational management organizations. Educational Administration Quarterly, 41(2), 306–348. Burch, P., & Spillane, J. P. (2003). Elementary school leadership strategies and subject matter: Reforming mathematics and literacy instruction. The Elementary School Journal, 519–535. Campbell, R. F., Fleming, T., Newell, L., & Bennion, J. W. (1987). A history of thought and practice in educational administration. Teachers College Press.

78

5 Organizational Blueprints

Candoli, J. C. (1991). School system administration: A strategic plan for site-based management. Technomic. Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy. (1986, May). A nation prepared: Teachers for the 21st century. Carnegie Forum on Education. Center for Teaching Quality. (2007). Teaching and learning conditions improve high school reform efforts. Author. Chapman, J., & Boyd, W. L. (1986, Fall). Decentralization, devolution, and the school principal: Australian lessons on statewide educational reform. Educational Administration Quarterly, 22(4), 28–58. Childs-Bowen, D., Moller, G., & Scrivner, J. (2000). Principals: Leaders of leaders. NASSP Bulletin, 84(616), 27–34. Chubb, J. E. (1988). Why the current wave of school reform will fail. The Public Interest, 90, 28–49. Clark, D. L. (1987, August). Thinking about leaders and followers: Restructuring the roles of principals and teachers. Paper presented at the conference on Restructuring Schooling for Quality Education, Trinity University, San Antonio, TX. Clark, D. L., & Meloy, J. M. (1980). Renouncing bureaucracy: A democratic structure for leadership in schools. In T. J. Sergiovanni & J. A. Moore (Eds.), Schooling for tomorrow: Directing reform to issues that count (pp. 272–294). Allyn & Bacon. Clinton, B. (1987, July). Speaking of leadership. Educational Commission of the States. Clune, W. H., & White, P. A. (1988, September). School-based management: Institutional variation, implementation, and issues for further research. Rutgers University, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Center for Policy Research in Education. Conley, S. C. (1989, March). “Who’s on first?”: School reform, teacher participation, and the decision-making process. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA. Conway, J. A., & Jacobson, S. L. (1990). An epilogue: Where is educational leadership going? In S. L. Jacobson & J. A. Conway (Eds.), Educational leadership in an age of reform. Longman. Corcoran, T. B. (1989). Restructuring education: A new vision at hope essential high school. In J. M. Rosow & R. Zager (Eds.), Allies in educational reform (pp. 243–274). Jossey-Bass. Cosner, S. (2009). Building organizational capacity through trust. Educational Administration Quarterly, 45(2), 248–291. Cosner, S. (2011). Supporting the initiation and early development of evidence-based grade-level collaboration in urban elementary schools: Key roles and strategies of principals and literacy coordinators. Urban Education, 46(4), 786–827. Cotton, K. (2003). Principals and student achievement: What the research says. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Coyle, M. (1997). Teacher leadership versus school management: Flatten the hierarchies. The Clearing House, 70(5), 236–239. Creighton, T. B. (1997, March). Teachers as leaders: Is the principal really needed? Paper presented at the Annual Conference on Creating Quality Schools. Oklahoma City, OK. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED411117) Crow, G. M., & Pounder, D. G. (2000). Interdisciplinary teacher teams: Context, design, and process. Educational Administration Quarterly, 36(2), 216–254. Crowther, F., Kaagan, S., Ferguson, M., & Hann, L. (2002). Developing teacher leaders: How teacher leadership enhances school success. Corwin Press. Cuban, L. (1989). The “at-risk” label and the problem of urban school reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 79(10), 78–784, 789. Darling-Hammond, L., & McLaughlin, M. W. (1995). Policies that support professional development in an era of reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 76(8), 597–604. David, J. L. (1989b, May). Synthesis of research on school-based management. Educational Leadership, 46(8), 45–53. David, J. L. (1989b). Restructuring in progress: Lessons from pioneering districts. National Governors’ Association.

References

79

Dellar, G. B. (1992, April). Connections between macro and micro implementation of educational policy: A study of school restructuring in Western Australia. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA. Dinham, S. (2005). Principal leadership for outstanding educational outcomes. Journal of Educational Administration, 43(4), 338–356. Drago-Severson, E. (2004). Helping teachers learn: Principal leadership for adult growth and development. Corwin Press. Eilers, A. M., & Camacho, A. (2007). School culture change in the making: Leadership factors that matter. Urban Education, 42(6), 616–637. Elmore, R. F. (1989, March). Models of restructured schools. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco. Elmore, R. F. (1990). Restructuring schools: The next generation of educational reform. The JosseyBass education series. Jossey-Bass Inc. Elmore, R. F. (1993). School decentralization: Who gains? Who loses? In J. Hannaway & M. Carnoy (Eds.), Decentralization and school improvement (pp. 33–54). Jossey-Bass. Elmore, R. F. (1996, March). Staff development and instructional improvement: Community District 2, New York City. Draft paper presented to the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. Ermeling, B. A. (2010). Tracing the effects of teacher inquiry on classroom practice. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26(3), 377–388. Fay, C. (1992). Empowerment through leadership: In the teachers’ voice. In C. Livingston (Ed.), Teachers as leaders: Evolving roles (pp. 57–90). National Education Association. Felner, R., Seitsinger, A., Brand, S., Burns, A., & Bolton, N. (2007). Creating small learning communities: Lessons from the project on high-performing learning communities about “what works” in creating productive, developmentally enhancing, learning contexts. Educational Psychologist, 42(4), 209–221. Fessler, R., & Ungaretti, A. (1994). Expanding opportunities for teacher leadership. In D. R. Walling (Ed.), Teachers as leaders: Perspectives on the professional development of teachers (pp. 211– 222). Phi Delta Kappa. Forster, E. M. (1997). Teacher leadership: Professional right and responsibility. Action in Teacher Education, 19(3), 82–94. Foster, W. (1988). Educational administration: A critical appraisal. In D. E. Griffiths, R. T. Stout, & R. B. Forsyth (Eds.), Leaders for America’s schools (pp. 68–81). McCutchan. Frymier, J. (1987). Bureaucracy and the neutering of teachers. Phi Delta Kappan, 69(1), 9–14. Fusarelli, L. D., & Scribner, J. D. (1993, October). Site-based management and the critical democratic pluralism: An analysis of promises, problems, and possibilities. Paper presented at the annual conference of the University Council for Educational Administration, Houston, TX. Giroux, H. A. (1988). Teachers as intellectuals: Toward a critical pedagogy of learning. Bergin & Garvey. Glickman, C. D. (1990, September). Pushing school reform to a new edge: The seven ironies of school empowerment. Phi Delta Kappan, 81(1), 68–75. Goldstein, J. (2003). Making sense of distributed leadership: The case of peer assistance and review. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 25(4), 397–421. Goodlad, J. I. (1984). A place called school: Prospects for the future. McGraw-Hill. Gray, J., Hopkins, D., Reynolds, D., Wilcox, B., Farrell, S., & Jesson, D. (1999). Improving schools: Performance and potential. Open University Press. Guthrie, J. W. (1986, December). School-based management: The next needed education reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 68(4), 305–309. Hallinger, P., & Heck, R. H. (2009). Distributed leadership in schools: Does system policy make a difference? In A. Harris (Ed.), Distributed leadership (pp. 101–117). Hallinger, P., & Richardson, D. (1988, Winter). Models of shared leadership: Evolving structures and relationships. The Urban Review, 20(4), 229–245.

80

5 Organizational Blueprints

Harris, A. (2003). Teacher leadership as distributed leadership: Heresy, fantasy or possibility? School Leadership & Management, 23(3), 313–324. Harris, A. (2012). Distributed leadership: Implications for the role of the principal. Journal of Management Development, 31(1), 7–17. Harrison, J. W., & Lembeck, E. (1996). Emergent teacher leaders. In G. Moller & M. Katzenmeyer (Eds.), Every teacher as a leader: Realizing the potential of teacher leadership (pp. 101–116). Jossey-Bass. Hart, A. W. (1994). Creating teacher leadership roles. Educational Administration Quarterly, 30(4), 472–497. Hart, A. W. (1995). Reconceiving school leadership: Emergent views. The Elementary School Journal, 96(1), 9–28. Harvey, G., & Crandall, D. P. (1988). A beginning look at the what and how of restructuring. In. C. Jenks (Ed.), The redesign of education: A collection of papers concerned with comprehensive educational reform (pp. 1–37). Far West Laboratory. Hayes, D., Christie, P., Mills, M., & Lingard, B. (2004). Productive leaders and productive leadership: Schools as learning organisations. Journal of Educational Administration, 42(5), 520–538. Heller, M. F., & Firestone, W. A. (1995). Who’s in charge here? Sources of leadership for change in eight schools. The Elementary School Journal, 96(1), 65–86. Hill, P. T., & Bonan, J. (1991, September). Decentralization and accountability in public education. Rand. Hinchey, P. H. (1997, May/June). Teacher leadership: Introduction: The Clearing House, 70(5), 233–236. Holmes Group. (1986, April). Tomorrow’s teachers. Author. Howey, K. R. (1988). Why teacher leadership? Journal of Teacher Education, 39(1), 28–31. Huberman, M., Parrish, T., Hannan, S., Arellanes, M., & Shambaugh, L. (2011). Turnaround schools in California: Who are they and what strategies do they use? WestEd. Johnson, S. M. (1989). Schoolwork and its reform. In J. Hannaway & R. Crowson (Eds.), The politics of reforming school administration. 1989 yearbook of the Politics of Education Association (pp. 95–112). Falmer Press. Johnson, J. F., Jr., & Asera, R. (1999). Hope for urban education: A study of nine high-performing, high-poverty, urban elementary schools. U.S. Department of Education, Planning and Evaluation Services. Katzenmeyer, M., & Moller, G. (2001). Awakening the sleeping giant: Helping teachers develop as leaders. Corwin. Keedy, J. L. (1999). Examining teacher instructional leadership within the small group dynamics of collegial groups. Teaching and Teacher Education, 15(7), 785–799. Kelley, J. A. (1994). The national board for professional teaching standards: Toward a community of teacher leaders. In D. R. Walling (Ed.), Teachers as leaders: Perspectives on the professional development of teachers (pp. 299–313). Phi Delta Kappa. Kilcher, A. (1992). Becoming a change facilitator: The first-year experience of five teacher leaders. In C. Livingston (Ed.), Teachers as leaders: Evolving roles (pp. 91–112). National Education Association. Killion, J. P. (1996). Moving beyond the school: Teacher leaders in the district office. In G. Moller & M. Katzenmeyer (Eds.), Every teacher as a leader: Realizing the potential of teacher leadership (pp. 63–84). Jossey-Bass. Klecker, B. J., & Loadman, W. E. (1998, Spring). Defining and measuring the dimensions of teacher empowerment in restructuring public schools. Education, 118(3), 358–371. Kochanek, J. R. (2005). Building trust for better schools: Research-based practices. Corwin Press. Kruse, S., Louis, K. S., & Bryk, A. (1995). An emerging framework for analyzing school-based professional community. In K. S. Louis & S. Kruse (Eds.), Professionalism and community: Perspectives on reforming urban schools (pp. 23–44). Corwin Press.

References

81

Lawton, S. B. (1991, September).Why restructure? Revision of paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. Leblanc, P. R., & Shelton, M. M. (1997). Teacher leadership: The needs of teachers. Action in Teacher Education, 19(3), 32–48. Leithwood, K., Jantzi, D., & Steinbach, R. (1999). Changing leadership for changing times. McGraw-Hill Education (UK). Levine, T. H., & Marcus, A. S. (2007). Closing the achievement gap through teacher collaboration: Facilitating multiple trajectories of teacher learning. Journal of Advanced Academics, 19(1), 116–138. Lieberman, A., & Miller, L. (1999). Teachers—transforming their world and their work. Teachers College Press. Lindelow, J. (1981). School-based management. In S. C. Smith, J. A. Mazarella, & P. K. Piele (Eds.), School leadership: Handbook for survival (pp. 94–129). University of Oregon, ERIC Clearing House on Educational Management. Little, J. W. (1982). Norms of collegiality and experimentation: Workplace conditions of school success. American Educational Research Journal, 19(3), 325–340. Little, J. W. (1985). Teachers as teacher advisors: The delicacy of collegial leadership. Educational Leadership, 43(3), 34–36. Little, J. W. (1987). Teachers as colleagues. In V. Richardson-Koehler (Ed.), Educators’ handbook: A research perspective (pp. 491–518). Longman. Little, J. W. (1988). School as a place to have a career. In A. Lieberman (Ed.), Assessing the prospects for teacher leadership (pp. 78–108). Teachers College Press. Lomotey, K., & Swanson, A. D. (1990). Restructuring school governance: Learning from the experiences of rural and urban schools. In S. J. Jacobson & J. A. Conway (Eds.), Educational leadership in an age of reform. Longman. Louis, K. S., Dretzke, B., & Wahlstrom, K. (2010, September). How does leadership affect student achievement? Results from a national US survey. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 21(3), 315–336. Lynch, C. A., & Strodl, P. (1991). Teacher leadership: Preliminary development of a questionnaire. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Eastern Educational Research Association, Boston, MA. MacBeath, J. (2009). Distributed leadership: Paradigms, policy, and paradox. In K. Leithwood, B. Mascall, & T. Strauss (Eds.), Distributed leadership according to the evidence (pp. 41–58). Routledge. Maccoby, M. (1989, December). Looking for leadership now. Paper presented at the National Center for Educational Leadership Conference, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Maeroff, G. I. (1988). A blueprint for empowering teachers. Phi Delta Kappan, 69(7), 472–477. Malen, B., & Hart, A. W. (1987, April). Shaping career ladder reform: The influence of teachers on the policy making process. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Washington, DC. Manthei, J. (1992). The mentor teacher as leader: The motives, characteristics and needs of seventy-three experienced teachers who seek a new leadership role. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED346042) Martin, B., & Crossland, B. J. (2000, October). The relationships between teacher empowerment, teachers’ sense of responsibility for student outcomes and student achievement. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL. May, H., & Supovitz, J. A. (2011). The scope of principal efforts to improve instruction. Educational Administration Quarterly, 47(2), 332–352. Mayrowetz, D., Murphy, J., Louis, K. S., & Smylie, M. (2009). Conceptualizing distributed leadership as a school reform. In K. Leithwood, B. Mascall, & T. Strauss (Eds.), Distributed leadership according to the evidence (pp. 167–195). Routledge.

82

5 Organizational Blueprints

McCarthy, S. J., & Peterson, P. L. (1989, March). Teacher roles: Wearing new patterns in classroom practice and school organization. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA. McDougall, D., Saunders, W. M., & Goldenberg, C. (2007). Inside the black box of school reform: Explaining the how and why of change at Getting Results schools. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 54(1), 51–89. McLaughlin, M., & Talbert, J. E. (2001). Professional communities and the work of high school teaching. University of Chicago Press. McNeil, L. M. (1988a, January). Contradictions of control, part 1: Administrators and teachers. Phi Delta Kappan, 69(5), 333–339. McNeil, L. M. (1988b, February). Contradictions of control, part 2: Teachers, students, and curriculum. Phi Delta Kappan, 69(6), 432–438. McNeil, L. M. (1988c, March). Contradictions of control, part 3: Contradictions of reform. Phi Delta Kappan, 69(7), 478–485. Mitchell, C., & Castle, J. B. (2005). The instructional role of elementary school principals. Canadian Journal of Education/revue Canadienne De L’education, 28(3), 409–433. Mitchell, C., & Sackney, L. (2006). Building schools, building people: The school principal’s role in leading a learning community. Journal of School Leadership, 16(5), 627–640. Mojkowski, C., & Fleming, D. (1988). School-site management: Concepts and approaches. Regional Laboratory for the Educational Improvement of the Northeast and Islands. Moller, G., & Katzenmeyer, M. (1996). The promise of teacher leadership. In G. Moller & M. Katzenmeyer (Eds.), Every teacher as a leader: Realizing the potential of teacher leadership (pp. 1–18). Jossey-Bass. Moore-Johnson, S. (1988, June). Pursuing professional reform in Cincinnati. Phi Delta Kappan, 69(10), 746–751. Moore-Johnson, S. (1989, May). Teachers, power, and school change. Paper presented at the Conference on Choice and Control in American Education. Madison: University of Wisconsin-Madison. Morrissey, M. S. (2000). Professional learning communities: An ongoing exploration. Southwest Educational Development Laboratory. Mulford, B., & Silins, H. (2003). Leadership for organisational learning and improved student outcomes—What do we know? Cambridge Journal of Education, 33(2), 175–195. Mullen, C. A., & Hutinger, J. L. (2008). The principal’s role in fostering collaborative learning communities through faculty study group development. Theory into Practice, 47(4), 276–285. Murphy, J. (1990). Principal instructional leadership. In L. S. Lotto & P. W. Thurston (Eds.), Advances in educational administration: Changing perspectives on the school (Vol. l, Part B). JAI Press. Murphy, J. (1991). Restructuring schools: Capturing and assessing the phenomena. Teachers College Press. Murphy, J. (2005). Connecting teacher leadership and school improvement. Corwin Press. Murphy, J., & Adams, J. E. (1998). Reforming America’s schools 1980–2000. Journal of Educational Administration, 36(5), 426–444. Murphy, J., & Torre, D. (2014). Creating productive cultures in schools: For students, teachers, and parents. Corwin Press. Nelson, B. S., & Sassi, A. (2005). The effective principal: Institutional leadership in high quality learning. Teachers College Press. Newmann, F. M., King, M. B., & Youngs, P. (2000). Professional development that addresses school capacity: Lessons from urban elementary schools. American Journal of Education, 108(4), 259–299. Newmann, F. M., Rutter, R. A., & Smith, M. S. (1989). Organizational factors that affect school sense of efficacy, community, and expectations. Sociology of Education, 62(4), 221–238. Newmann, F. M., Smith, B., Allensworth, E., & Bryk, A. S. (2001). Instructional program coherence: What it is and why it should guide school improvement policy. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 23(4), 297–321.

References

83

Ogawa, R. T., & Bossert, S. T. (1995). Leadership as an organizational quality. Educational Administration Quarterly, 31(2), 224–243. Olson, L. (1988, May 18). In Santa Fe experiment, teachers find and select their principal. Education Week, 7(34), 1, 20–21. Olson, L. (1992). A matter of choice: Minnesota puts “charter schools” idea to test. Education Week, 12(12), 10–11. Passow, A. H. (1984, April). Reforming schools in the 1980s: A critical review of the national reports. Teachers College, Columbia University, Institute for Urban and Minority Education. Pellicer, L. O., & Anderson, L. W. (1995). A handbook for teacher leaders. Corwin Press. Penuel, W. R., Riel, M., Krause, A., & Frank, K. A. (2009). Analyzing teachers’ professional interactions in a school as social capital: A social network approach. Teachers College Record, 111(1), 124–163. Petrie, H. G. (1990). Reflecting on the second wave of reform: Restructuring the teaching profession. In S. L. Jacobson & J. A. Conway (Eds.), Educational leadership in an age of reform (pp. 14–29). Longman. Pounder, D. G. (1999). Teacher teams: Exploring job characteristics and work-related outcomes of work group enhancement. Educational Administration Quarterly, 35(3), 317–348. Printy, S. M. (2008). Leadership for teacher learning: A community of practice perspective. Educational Administration Quarterly, 44(2), 187–226. Quint, J. (2006). Meeting five critical challenges of high school reform: Lessons from research on three reform models. Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation. Rallis, S. F. (1990). Professional teachers and restructured schools: Leadership challenges. In B. Mitchell & L. L. Cunningham (Eds.), Educational leadership in changing contexts of families, communities, and schools: Eighty-ninth yearbook of the national society for the study of education (pp. 184–209). National Society for the Study of Education. Robinson, V. M. (2008). Forging the links between distributed leadership and educational outcomes. Journal of Educational Administration, 46(2), 241–256. Robinson, V. M., Lloyd, C. A., & Rowe, K. J. (2008). The impact of leadership on student outcomes: An analysis of the differential effects of leadership types. Educational Administration Quarterly, 44(5), 635–674. Robinson, V. M. J. (2007). School leadership and student outcomes: Identifying what works and why. Australian Council for Educational Leaders. Rosenholtz, S. J. (1985). Effective schools: Interpreting the evidence. American Journal of Education, 93(3), 352–388. Rossmiller, R. A. (1992). The secondary school principal and teachers’ quality of work life. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 20(3), 132–146. Rowe, K. J. (1995). Factors affecting students’ progress in reading: Key findings from a longitudinal study. Literacy, Teaching and Learning, 1(2), 57–110. Rungeling, B., & Glover, R. W. (1991, January). Educational restructuring—the process for change? Urban Education, 25(4), 415–427. Sackney, L. E., & Dibski, D. J. (1992, August). School-based management: A critical perspective. Paper presented at the Seventh Regional Conference of the Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration. Hong Kong. Saunders, W. M., Goldenberg, C. N., & Gallimore, R. (2009). Increasing achievement by focusing grade-level teams on improving classroom learning: A prospective, quasi-experimental study of Title I schools. American Educational Research Journal, 46(4), 1006–1033. Schlechty, P. C. (1990). Schools for the 21st century: Leadership imperatives for educational reform. ERIC. Scribner, J. P., Cockrell, K. S., Cockrell, D. H., & Valentine, J. W. (1999). Creating professional communities in schools through organizational learning: An evaluation of a school improvement process. Educational Administration Quarterly, 35(1), 130–160. Sedlack, M. W., Wheeler, C. W., Pullin, D. C., & Cusick, P. A. (1986). Selling students short: Classroom bargains and academic reform in the American high school. Teachers College Press.

84

5 Organizational Blueprints

Sergiovanni, T. J. (1989). The leadership needs for quality schooling. In T. J. Sergiovanni & J. H. Moore (Eds.), Schooling for tomorrow: Directing reforms to issues that count. Allyn & Bacon. Sergiovanni, T. J. (1991a). The dark side of professionalism in educational administration. Phi Delta Kappan, 72(7), 521–526. Sergiovanni, T. J. (1991b). The principalship: A reflective practice perspective (2nd ed.). Allyn & Bacon. Shakeshaft, C. (1999). The struggle to create a more gender-inclusive profession. In J. Murphy & K. S. Louis (Eds.), The handbook of research on educational administration (2nd ed., pp. 99–118). Jossey-Bass. Short, P. M., & Greer, J. T. (1989, March). Increasing teacher autonomy through shared governance: Effects on policy making and student outcomes. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA. Silins, H., & Mulford, B. (2004). Schools as learning organisations—Effects on teacher leadership and student outcomes. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 15(3–4), 443–466. Silva, D. Y., Gimbert, B., & Nolan, J. (2000). Sliding the doors: Locking and unlocking possibilities for teacher leadership. Teachers College Record, 102(4), 779–804. Sizer, T. R. (1984). Horace’s compromise: The dilemma of the American high school. Houghton Mifflin. Smylie, M. A., & Denny, J. W. (1989, March). Teacher leadership: Tensions and ambiguities in organizational perspective. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. San Francisco, CA. Smyser, S. O. (1995, Autumn). Developing the teacher leader. Teacher Education, 32(2), 130–137. Snauwaert, D. T. (1993). Democracy, education, and governance: A developmental conception. State University of New York Press. Snell, J., & Swanson, J. (2000, April). The essential knowledge and skills of teacher leaders: A search for a conceptual framework. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. New Orleans, LA. Spillane, J. P., Halverson, R., & Diamond, J. B. (2001). Investigating school leadership practice: A distributed perspective. Educational Researcher, 30(3), 23–28. Stein, M. K., & Coburn, C. E. (2008). Architectures for learning: A comparative analysis of two urban school districts. American Journal of Education, 114(4), 583–626. Stoll, L., Bolam, R., McMahon, A., Wallace, M., & Thomas, S. (2006). Professional learning communities: A review of the literature. Journal of Educational Change, 7(4), 221–258. Stone, M., Horejs, J., & Lomas, A. (1997). Commonalities and differences in teacher leadership at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Action in Teacher Education, 19(3), 49–64. Supovitz, J. (2002). Developing communities of instructional practice. The Teachers College Record, 104(8), 1591–1626. Supovitz, J. (2008). Instructional influence in American high schools. In M. M. Mangin & S. R. Stoelinga (Eds.), Effective teacher leadership: Using research to inform and reform (pp. 144–162). Teachers College Press. Supovitz, J., Sirinides, P., & May, H. (2010). How principals and peers influence teaching learning. Educational Administration Quarterly, 46(1), 31–56. Supovitz, J. A., & Poglinco, S. M. (2001). Instructional leadership in a standards-based reform. Consortium for Policy Research in Education. Sweeney, J. (1982). Research synthesis on effective school leadership. Educational Leadership, 39(5), 346–352. Thompson, J. A. (1988). The second wave of educational reform: Implications for school leadership, administration, and organization. In F. C. Wendel & M. T. Bryant (Eds.), New directions for administration preparation. The University Council for Educational Administration. Tyack, D. (1993). School governance in the United States: Historical puzzles and anomalies. In J. Hannaway & M. Carnoy (Eds.), Decentralization and school improvement (pp. 1–32). ERIC. Urbanski, A., & Nickolaou, M. B. (1997, June). Reflections on teacher leadership. Educational Policy, 11(2), 243–254.

References

85

Useem, E. L., Christman, J. B., Gold, E., & Simon, E. (1997). Reforming alone: Barriers to organizational learning in urban school change initiatives. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk (JESPAR), 2(1), 55–78. Walker, J., & Slear, S. (2011). The impact of principal leadership behaviors on the efficacy of new and experienced middle school teachers. NASSP Bulletin, 95(1), 46–64. Wasley, P. (1991). Teachers who lead: The rhetoric of reform and the realities of practice. Teachers College Press. Watkins, J. M., & Lusi, S. F. (1989, March). Facing the essential tensions: Restructuring from where you are. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA. Weick, K. E., & McDaniel, R. R. (1989). How professional organizations work: Implications for school organization and management. In T. J. Sergiovanni & J. H. Moore (Eds.), Schooling for tomorrow: Directing reforms to issues that count (pp. 330–355). Allyn & Bacon. Wenger, E., McDermott, R. A., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge. Harvard Business Press. Wise, A. E. (1978, February). The hyper-rationalization of America education. Educational Leadership, 35(5), 354–361. Wise, A. E. (1989). Professional teaching: A new paradigm for the management of education. In T. J. Sergiovanni & J. H. Moore (Eds.), Schooling for tomorrow: Directing reforms to issues that count. Allyn & Bacon. Wynne, J. (2001, November). Teachers as leaders in education reform. ERIC Clearinghouse on Teaching and Teacher Education (EDO-SP-2001-5). York-Barr, J., & Duke, K. (2004). What do we know about teacher leadership? Findings from two decades of scholarship. Review of Educational Research, 74(3), 255–316. Young, V. (2006). Teachers’ use of data: Loose coupling, agenda setting, and team norms. American Journal of Education, 112(4), 521–548. Youngs, P. (2007). How elementary principals’ beliefs and actions influence new teachers’ experiences. Educational Administration Quarterly, 43(1), 101–137. Youngs, P., & King, M. B. (2002). Principal leadership for professional development to build school capacity. Educational Administration Quarterly, 38(5), 643–670. Zimpher, N. L. (1988, January/February). A design for the professional development of teacher leaders. Journal of Teacher Education, 39(1), 53–60.

Part III

Difficulties in Reaching Stabilization

Chapter 6

Barriers

As a starting point it is abundantly clear that the idea of what constitutes a “school” is dramatically and irrecoverably changing. Increasingly, principals will be working in a climate of uncertainty and unpredictable change as the system readjusts and realigns itself to the demands of twenty-first century teaching and learning. This will undoubtedly mean the abandonment of previous ways of working and the adaption of new practices in a much shorter time frame of innovation than ever before (Harris, 2012, p. 15).

Throughout the sections of the book, it is important to acknowledge that formal school leaders confront a variety of barriers as they move to help communities of leaders become a reality in schools. Greater sharing of “leadership functions ... and participation of teaches can imply more complexity and more conflicts in priorities, targets and timelines” (Hulpia & Devos, 2009, pp. 153–154). There are inevitable and inherent difficulties associated with the widespread adoption and adaption within schools. It would be naïve to ignore the major structural, cultural, and micro-political barriers in schools that make distributed forms of leadership difficult to implement. We begin with a theoretically and empirically grounded concern that insufficient attention has been devoted to the topic of “resources needed to undertake the change in direction from centralized to collective leadership, from one to many and from hierarchy to community. We know, for example, “that time is a scarce commodity in schools” (Mayrowetz et al., 2007, p. 87). For communities of school leadership to be seen and understood and begin to develop in schools will require commitments of time that are difficult to put into play. A palpable concern is whether current resources in the form of time can be located and redirected to nurturing communities of school leadership. A more robust concern is whether additional time might be purchased for schooling, e.g., before and after school hours and weekends. Others worry about whether traditional work of current leaders will simply be pushed aside as limited time is carved in new ways (Hallinger & Heck, 2009). An essential troublesome issue zeros in on the extent to which such redistributions undervalue formal leadership roles in communities of school leadership. Since we know that principals must play “a substantial and integral” role (Harris, 2013, p. 12) in communities of school leadership, this change sometimes raises concerns that such understanding is not widely shared or is quickly forgotten under the pressures of new © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. F. Murphy, Understanding Communities of School Leadership, SpringerBriefs in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23759-1_6

89

90

6 Barriers

work for leaders (Zhang & Faerman, 2007). In a similar manner, analysts worry that the foundational classroom work of teachers will become undervalued as efforts to involve them in leadership work beyond their classrooms grows. There is also some consternation that principals may be diverted from major structural and cultural restraints that require a good deal of their attention and time. Relatedly, researchers also caution that given changes in power and influence for teachers that accompany communities of school leadership, that principals will become increasingly less valuable in that work. And given what we know about their critical role in disbursing leadership in schools (Mayrowetz et al., 2007), that communities of school leadership could die off before it ever takes root. Best analysis to date informs us that this may quite likely be a recipe for failure. Indeed, principals have a more needed but more difficult task under a community of leadership framework than under traditional organizational, governance, and leadership perspectives. We also know that communities of school leadership has the power to energize concerns—real tension and dilemma (Harris, 2013; Wallace, 2001)—in formal school leaders, concerns that reduce their interest in sharing leadership. Principals often feel a real loss in their own influence when communities of school leadership takes hold and spirals in their schools. Many feel dethroned, the loss of the main seat at the table of influence (Mayrowetz et al., 2007). Influence goes down but accountability actually increases (Harris, 2013). Many principals have learned to do everything themselves, they have grown comfortable with that operational mode, and they do not wish to learn and manage in different ways. Relatedly, there is solid evidence that educators have generally not received the education required to work appropriately and effectively in schools in which communities of school leadership is in play (York-Barr & Duke, 2004). They were prepared to be captains of classroom ships, ones who tell shipmates what is needed and how to engage in and with school improvement work. Knowledge they learned in their preparation programs often lays fallow. And these dynamics are often co-joined with worries about the possible success of shared leadership. We return directly to the topic of organizational structures below. Here we simply underscore two issues that can cause consternation and can amplify the inability of communities of school leadership to be more productive than single-leader control and influence. To begin, we see that educators often turn to structures to address problems, e.g., the creation of grade-level teams to facilitate the development and implementation of communities of school leadership. Evidence highlights how those occupying formal leadership positions are increasingly recognizing the limitations of existing structural arrangements to promote organizational growth and transformation” (Harris, 2013, p. 10). Second, the new structures are accompanied by the ungrounded assumption of success to the same degree as were the structures they replaced (Scribner et al., 2007; York-Barr & Duke, 2004). Where structures grow from content and evidence, they can demonstrate power to improve schools. When structures grow from inherent beliefs about the power of structure, educators generally find that they are considerably less impactful. Starting with the structural answer in hand, without analysis and understanding, often fails principals and teachers in the quest for improvement.

6 Barriers

91

Or as Wright (2008, p. 26) tells us at the end of his story: “I left wondering if it was even possible for these principals to be reflective when their identities as instructional leaders was so clearly defined by policies and practices indicative of predictable structures” in effect trying to travel with their hands tied. We learn from York-Barr and Duke (2004, p. 288) that carrying forward “professional norms of isolation, individualism, and egalitarianisms from the past into the new era of education actually moves the base of teacher leaders from primarily horizontal to somewhat hierarchial,” a clear concern and problem for educators trying to decrease the hierarchial heart and soul of school leadership put into play 100 years ago (York-Barr & Duke, 2004). We discover that the effort to shift from a bureaucratic culture to a professional culture can “reinforce not improvement [but] a sense of desparateness or fragmentation in schools, where teachers experience eroding working conditions and failure over a long period of time” (Mayrowetz et al., 2007, p. 88). Analysts routinely suggest that existing patterns of group work will need to undergo important changes. Identity is defined by the group. Members of the school with similar identities gravitate toward members who are like them. That is, “areas of specialization within schools represent salient social categories that individuals use to think about themselves and others” (Van Der Vegt & Bunderson, 2005, p. 534). On the other hand, “there are well-documented reasons why one would expect that members of a multidisciplinary team might find it hard to engage the members of their team in critical and investigative interactions and processes.... In fact, the natural tendency may be to stereotype the other members of one’s team ... and to argue and defend rather than seek conciliation and integration ... A learning-oriented response to expertise diversity can be threatening and uncomfortable” (Van Der Vegt & Bunderson, 2005, p. 535). It is a conflict that depresses communities of school leadership over and over again. And Mayrowetz and colleagues (2007, pp. 77–78) report that “if educators have their jobs redesigned, there is a danger that they might see their own new work which takes time from their traditional responsibilities as less meaningful.” New ways must be found to forge integration of time. An important concern that is often unhighlighted is “that when we stress the importance of communities of practice, we often overemphasize community and underemphasize practice. This means that too little attention is given to who knows what and how that knowledge can be spread” (Mayrowetz et al., 2007, p. 84). “Individually perceived autonomy is a precondition for [DL]”. Therefore, management must provide appropriate structures that enable employees to participate in both work and leadership tasks” (Unterrainer et al., 2007, p. 76). What we find here is an element called openness, “openness to new ways of doing work” (p. 76). We have previously reported that the types of knowledge and skills needed for principals and teachers to become competent are often not part of the portfolio of teachers. Yet it is clear that both knowledge and skills must be prepared before distributed leadership forms can be implemented in a restructuring process” (Unterrainer et al., 2017, p. 76). We also uncover the reality, however, that oftentimes principals are unwilling or unable to share responsibility and power (Harris, 2012),

92

6 Barriers

a condition that cripples school efforts to share influence across teachers (Unterrainer et al., 2017). People who never really knew or understood their colleagues are often reluctant to do so. The tendency to discount formal school leaders who still possess hierarchically valued skills is also dysfunctional, keeping teachers and formal leaders from bonding together in a shared framework for school improvement (Hallinger & Heck, 2009). Communities of school leadership may turn out to be “incredibly fragile” (Mayrowetz et al., 2007, p. 94). This is especially true when bonding is undermined by a lack of principal stability (Mayrowetz et al., 2007). Barriers are also fermented around the knowledge base on the leadership of principals. Specifically, concern is raised that there are many viewpoints in the profession and that many have very little research evidence supporting them (Harris, 2009). Neither is there much willingness to have these concepts put to theoretical and empirical testing (Mayrowetz et al., 2007). Concerns also arise around the issue of formal leaders providing the opportunity “for others to realize and fulfill their full leadership potential” (Harris, 2013, p. 7). An even deeper concern is the possibility “that teachers and administrators will fight for power” (Mayrowetz et al., 2007, p. 91). There is a deeply rooted concern by many researchers that accepting risks and accountability may end in conflict with peers as well as a lack of improvement. When this occurs, “direct conflict around the need for achievement and the need for affiliation” (York-Barr & Duke, 2004, p. 267) can raise the needle of concern quickly and powerfully. And “empowerment of other staff does not guarantee that they will take up this entitlement in a manner acceptable to leaders” (Wallace, 2001, p. 155). Our point of departure is that “the conventions of school contexts” (Griffin, 1995, p. 44) and school social conditions exert a dramatic influence on conceptions of community-based leadership—that organizational components such as structure, support, and culture are explanatory variables in the community leadership narrative (Ho & Ng, 2017; Liu et al., 2016; Louis et al., 2010). Or as Rosenholtz (1989) concluded in her hallmark volume on teacher work, “teachers, like members of most organizations, shape their beliefs and actions largely in conformance with the structures, policies, and traditions of the workday world around them” (pp. 2–3). On a general front, research confirms that “the way [schools] are organized, structurally and normatively is not amenable to experimentation or rethinking” (Fullan, 1994, p. 243), “that organizations possess powerful conserving forces that often make persistence paramount to change” (Smylie, 1995, p. 6). More specifically that “the culture and organization of many schools does not readily foster the spirit of collaboration” (Snell & Swanson, 2000, p. 13)—“that environments that support and nurture teacher leadership are not endemic to many schools” (Crowther et al., 2002, p. vii). We also know that “deep structures of symbols, routines, norms, and conventions” (Smylie, 1995, p. 6) and “tenacious habits of mind make the achievement of strong community relations a remarkable accomplishment; not the rule but the rare, often fragile exception” (Little, 1987, p. 493), “with a top-down policy to practice orientation” (Griffin, 1985, p. 4; Hartley, 2010). Scholars in the area of community leadership have consistently discovered that “teacher leadership activities have been thwarted by constraining contexts” (Mitchell, 1997, p. 2; Harris & DeFlaminis, 2016); “differences [that] are very difficult to overcome” (Wenger et al., 2002, p. 57). This is the

6 Barriers

93

case because communities of school leadership workplace reform proposals challenge long-standing and deeply rooted patterns of teacher isolation and autonomy (Hartley, 2010). They defy most “cultural, institutional, and occupational precedents” (Little, 1988, pp. 80–81; Louis et al., 2013). Scholars such as Bolden (2011), remind us that collective approaches are absent critical perspectives which are needed to understand the phenomenon, to “facilitate reflection on the purposes and discursive mechanisms of leadership and an awareness of the dynamics of power and influence in shaping what happens within and outside organizations” (p. 263), and to recognize and address the political fog in collective leadership (Griffin, 1985). There is concern that in communities of school leadership “formally designated teachers perform leadership routines that are intended to promote different or contradictory “goals” and “visions”. And Smylie and Denny (1990) explain that teachers often form their own “conceptualizations of what roles and responsibilities” should be (p. 258). Teachers also form varied opinions and different levels of voice based on the different domains and their assessment of the importance of domains (Wenger et al., 2002). Wenger and team (2002, p. 141) reveal that teachers and administrators sometimes develop “pride of ownership” of an area which can lead to “excessive zealousness” which prevents the development of a platform of activity necessary for communities of school leadership to work. There is also concern that absent greater intellectual rigor “the more romanticized and ideological accounts of distributed leadership” (Harris & DeFlaminis, 2016, p. 143) will hold the high ground and may offer more negative than positive outcomes. Communities of school leadership is generally presented as an understanding that has many benefits (e.g., increased skill variety, greater motivation, enhanced ownership, improved instruction, more effective leadership practice, better understanding of students and the school, enhanced student engagement and outcomes, organizational change, reduction in job stress, enhanced professional status of teachers) (Bush & Glover, 2012; Hairon & Goh, 2015; Harris & Spillane, 2008). Important problems with these claims include an almost inexplicable dearth of knowledge about the unfolding outcomes of collective leadership (Supovitz & Tognatta, 2013). Conceptual linkages between and among outcomes located in their order of arrival are almost impossible to tease out. Empirical linkages are not robust. Not surprisingly, there is “a lack of academic research on how school staff members perceive the idea of communities of school leadership and to what extent they are willing to employ it as part of their daily practices” (Miškolci, 2017, p. 234). Longitudinal research is rare. Again, not surprisingly, the validity of the communities of school leadership process is in question (Conway & Calzi, 1995, p. 46). As we discuss throughout the book, the impact of communities of school leadership on school improvement has been shown to be less sanguine than often expressed (Smylie et al., 2011). While communities of school leadership enjoys a good deal of advocacy in the literature (Bush & Glover, 2012), empirical research on communities of school leadership is relatively young and narrow in scope (Harris, 2009; Robinson, 2008). Part of this is the result of the fact that a deep body of work and subsequent

94

6 Barriers

knowledge in the area has not materialized (Silva et al., 2000). “We are literally learning by doing” (Lieberman et al., 1988, p. 148). According to Gronn (2008), the evidence on the critical impact variable “survivability” seems to be positive: “This particular view of leadership [DL] appears to have weathered an initial stage of conceptual exploration [and] now is well into a phase of empirical investigation” (p. 141). Part of this new learning is also surfacing “the paradigmatic limitations of distributed leadership” (Fitzsimons et al., 2011, p. 317). Bolden (2011, p. 261) in a review of the research nicely lays out the problems that receive minimal attention at best in analyses of communities of school leadership, including: (1) understanding of the contributions of individuals, particularly females; (2) recognition of “everyday heroes and heroines whose essential contribution may go unnoticed”; and (3) formal leader silencing the work of team members. We know from the above analysis that collective leadership “is not a panacea, it depends on how it is shared, received, and enacted” (Harris & DeFlaminis, 2016, p. 143). Indeed, we often find that “the shift to a more collective representation of leadership does not necessarily have a beneficial effect for those people involved with it” (Bolden, 2011, p. 261). As we concentrate on the nature of shared leadership beyond the classroom, certain inescapable conclusions emerge. To begin with, we find that teacher leadership defined in this way is a relatively new idea (Lieberman, 1992; Spillane, 2006). Certainly prior to 1985 it is a difficult theme to observe, even employing powerful analytic lenses; “teaching and leadership [had] not been dealt with together much” (Lynch & Strodl, 1991, p. 2) before then. Given the history of teaching, one can see quite clearly why “the possibility that leadership might be a function of the work of teachers has only recently begun to be accorded serious consideration” (Crowther & Olsen, 1997, p. 7). “In addition, teachers have been ‘done to’ so often that they are beyond illusions. Secretly they are skeptical” (Cooper, 1988, p. 46). Because scholarship in the area “has only begun to emerge” (Silva et al., 2000, p. 779), there is “no well-established body of literature” (Wasley, 1991, p. 9) on communities of school leadership (Hulpia & Devos., 2009). Thus, even while the idea appears to have “burst upon the scene” (Lieberman, 1992, p. 160) and is something of a “hot topic” (Smylie, 1996, p. 573; Boles & Troen, 1996) today, it is instructive to remember that teacher leadership outside the classroom has rather shallow roots. Communities of school leadership initially rode into play on the back of various broad-based reform movements, for example, school-based management and professionalization (Murphy, 1990). Thus, while the concept sometimes assumed the leading role, it has more often been a supporting actor. For example, it is one of a series of critical elements in most models of site-based decision making (Monson & Monson, 1993; Smylie, 1995). At the same time, the idea of teacher leadership is often “caught in the collision ... between two strategies for achieving reform: one resting on heightened involvement and commitment of participants and one relying on intensified control of participants’ work” (Little, 1995, p. 50; Murphy, 1990)—and more recently, we would add, the reliance on market forces to fuel improvement. It is also often difficult to tease out the extent to which teacher leadership is a causal variable in the school reform algorithm

6 Barriers

95

or a product of reform movements such as learning organizations and communities of practice. Existing arrangements generally leave teachers “ill-equipped” (Fessler & Ungaretti, 1994, p. 213) to exercise leadership outside their classrooms. They express limits to their capacities. Scholarship in the area of preservice activities reveals “that little in teacher education programs prepares teachers for such roles” (Carr, 1997, p. 241); that is, “teacher education programs do not regularly include preparation in assuming leadership roles outside of the classroom” (Creighton, 1997, p. 8). Specifically, they fail to facilitate the growth and refinement of the “diverse skills and expertise” (Killion, 1996, p. 70) in an array of areas that are crucial for exercising leadership at the school level (Fay, 1992). Concomitantly, “little attention has been paid to preparing the school as a new setting for new leadership” (Smylie & Denny, 1990, p. 237). In a similar vein, “within the teaching profession there is little to nurture such potential” (Carr, 1997, p. 240). Likewise, school districts have largely failed to provide “information, practice, preparation, and support” (Manthei, 1992, pp. 14–15) to “address teacher leadership” (Moller & Katzenmeyer, 1996, p. 9) or to “experience ... schoolwide leadership roles” (Teitel, 1996, p. 150). Even when such initial investments are forthcoming, they are often undermined by the failure of the district to have “teacher leaders ... participate in ongoing professional development” (Smith-Burke, 1996, p. 4) to provide the “career-long” (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001, p. 125) support needed for teacher leaders to sustain their roles. Given that professional development opportunities have been shown to be “seminal in the development ... of teacher leadership” (Snell & Swanson, 2000, p. 20; Smylie, 1992a, 1995, 1996), our conclusion that “many teachers have not been prepared for leadership roles in preservice education or staff development” (Johnson & Hynes, 1997, p. 115; Sherrill, 1999)—and “even the most accomplished teachers have had little preparation for an experience with roles outside their classrooms” (Urbanski & Nickolaou, 1997, p. 252; Tahir et al., 2016)—is disheartening. Equally troubling is the fact that even when leadership development is available, it is often constructed on defunct and dysfunctional models of growth (James et al., 2007). And it is critical to report that all the unsupportive conditions noted for teacher education apply to school leaders as well. Concomitantly, there are important organizational dynamics that exacerbate the problem of principal and teacher preparedness for shared leadership activities. Teachers in schools, as Swanson (2000) observes, too infrequently “have the benefit of effective leaders to guide their careers” (p. 14). Thus, they often lack the informal mentoring as well as the formal staff development opportunities that support the exercise of leadership. Even more troubling is the fact that the work of teaching as currently defined in most schools, that is, “teaching students” (Killion, 1996, p. 73), does not furnish these educators with “the knowledge and skills to create and/or assume new teacher leadership roles” (Manthei, 1992, p. 1). “Most teachers and school staff report that they do not possess the talent and personality of a leader” (Tahir et al., 2016, p. 852). Indeed, Lambert (2003) avers that to assume the mantle of teacher leader, many teachers will actually need to unlearn some of the dynamics of

96

6 Barriers

schooling and elements of organizational culture that define their lives as classroom instructors and principals will need to unlearn much of what they practice as leaders and the cultures in which they work. Equally important, research is confirming that organizational strategies, such as professionalization and school-based management, that endeavor to operationalize communities of school leadership directly are generally ineffective (Murphy & Beck, 1995). Further evidence that teachers are often ill equipped to handle the reigns of leadership outside the classroom comes from these educators themselves. As Stone et al. (1997), Smylie (1996), and Manthei (1992) have all discovered, teachers are “the first to admit that they lack some of the knowledge and skills needed to move into leadership roles with their colleagues” (Manthei, 1992, p. 16). Because they are often forced to “learn the new role just by doing it” (Gehrke, 1991, p. 1), they often express “high levels of frustration [as they] pilot new leadership roles” (McCay et al., 2001, p. 137). Contrary to much of the writing in this area, community leadership is not a simple concept (Spillane, 2006). It is marked by “a range of conceptual confusions” (Torrance, 2013, p. 368). As a dimension of the larger dynamic of power redistribution in schools, it “is marked by substantial disagreement and confusion” (Ingersoll, 1996, p. 159). Collective leadership work is “full of problems and riddled with paradoxes” (Wasley, 1991, p. 155). And the more one moves from conceptual analysis to implementation—“to how teacher leadership roles play out in practice” (Wasley, 1991, p. 154)—the more visible this complexity becomes (Little, 1988; Liu, et al., 2016). Nesting community leadership within the plethora of changes required to bring it to life in schools only heightens the complexity (D’Innocenzo et al., 2016; Manthei, 1992). Or to capture this idea in slightly different form, context is a critical variable here (Adams, 2010; Penuel et al., 2010). “The environment at the school and district” (Clemson-Ingram & Fessler, 1997, p. 100) and state adds to both the richness of communities of school leadership as well as the difficulty of neatly boxing up the concept (Kowalski, 1995). Community leadership also means different things to different groups; for example, for teacher unions standing up for the rights of teachers as opposed to support-starved school principals looking for assistance in completing school improvement work. There is also a good deal of within-group variability in how teacher leadership is portrayed; for example, for some teachers it is a path to career advancement while for others it is a vehicle to build professional community, and for many it turns out to be an unasked-for-burden that pulls them away from students. It also varies depending on the reform vehicle to which it is attached; for example, as a dimension of school-based management versus an element of charter schools. Or as Miller et al. (2000) note, “teacher leadership is used widely among many different educational reform efforts” (p. 4). In a real sense, then, teacher leadership is like an evolving thread that appears in widely diverse locations and in a variety of shapes and colors in the school reform tapestry. “In a context of unprecedented accountability they [teachers] may be inhibited from sharing because it could backfire should empowered colleagues act in ways

6 Barriers

97

that generate poor standards of pupil achievement ... alienate parents ... or attract negative media attention” (Wallace, 2001, p. 157). And underlying this is the “tension of uncertainty and the sense of unneeded risk taking ... i.e., principals are not always confident pooling the expertise of school members [is] more effective and efficient than relying on more directive leadership approaches” (Wright, 2008, p. 25). “Giving up control over key decisions becomes an increasingly high-stakes stance when the bottom line for accountability rests with the principal” (Wahlstrom & Louis, 2008, p. 461). Communities of school leadership “frequently contain incompatible elements, contradictory beliefs and values existing in tension” (Wallace, 2001, p. 155). And even when reform policies “appear to decentralize accountability” school principals may feel a conflict between what they see as decentralization and simultaneous moves to centralize and control the educational system” (Wright, 2008, p. 25). Relatedly, we see the issue of preparation for new roles. The general finding is that neither formal school leaders nor teachers are assisted in their efforts to address the realities of a new decentralized understanding of schooling (Mascall et al., 2008; Wallace, 2001). York-Barr and Duke (2004, p. 277) conclude that “explicit attention to the preparation of teachers for leadership [is under-emphasized] and more thought must be devoted to the intentional development of principals who effectively support teacher leadership.” In addition, teachers work almost exclusively by themselves. There is little reason that without important involvement by formal school leaders that teachers will nurture the abilities needed to work collaboratively. Teachers often find it difficult to believe that decentralization of influence and changed activities for principals is a viable possibility. History informs them that this belief over time has carried little weight and produced few real changes in schools. Given this state of affairs, “the need to give up their independent approaches to their job functions and conform to a uniform process” (Zhang & Faerman, 2007, p. 487) are viewed with a great deal of skepticism, making the possibility of robust overhauls quite difficult for school leaders. Nurturing the meaningful understanding of and commitment does not unfold on a level playing field. There is copious evidence that the deep-seated norms of the teaching profession push and pull teachers away from community leadership. Formal leaders who are unaware of these norms and the resultant difficulties and who generally fail to devote time with colleagues to change them produce little progress to school improvement. Even when they do become cognizant of this deepseated reality, they often lack the capacity to change it. And even when they do gain some traction and progress, they are generally unaware that a good amount of work over time will be required to make sustainability of new norms a reality. And even when they agree to start the journey, they often regress to the safe actions with which they are familiar. Principals are also likely to discover that absent a good deal of interpersonal trust with teachers, those teachers may simply not undertake the new responsibilities associated with communities of school leadership. In particular, they often find that the

98

6 Barriers

more intensive “boundary crossing” role that they need to undertake with empowered teachers to develop distributed cognition about teaching and learning is more arduous than they previously thought. Equally troubling, formal leaders themselves can act as barriers to communities of school leadership. Much of what unfolds “depends on the internal conditions set, often by the heads, to support and nurture communities of school leadership and to harness their leadership energy that results” (Harris, 2004, p. 15). At the same time, we have learned that the inculcation of these important internal conditions is not well attended to by formal school leaders. On the one hand, they are not sufficiently aware of what these conditions are. On the other hand, even if aware of these conditions, they often lack the knowledge and experiences to bring them to life. Teacher leaders are known to “experience difficulty in switching roles between teacher and leader” (York-Barr & Duke, 2004, p. 283). And stress can result from efforts to do so, especially when divisions are nearly impossible to discern and the work itself is “varied [and] ambiguous” (p. 283). An even deeper barrier is erected when teachers are unable to discern what roles are in play when they work with other teachers and formal school leaders. When studying the literature on communities of school leadership, we learn that structures and cultures of schools are often frozen in place and regularly act as barriers to school improvement initiatives. On the cultural side of the equation, the fact that schools emphasize a “top down” model of leadership rather than “a form of leadership that is more organic, spontaneous, and more difficult to control” (Harris, 2009, p. 183) occurs because the barriers of the past still dominate cultural fiber in today’s postindustrial schools. The idea that leadership is equated with one person rather than “a more sophisticated complex notion of leadership” remains in place (Harris, 2009, p. 183). It cannot, therefore, nurture communities of school leadership. Scholars who ply the domain of organizations have carefully documented how “the structure of the organization directs and defines the flow and pattern of human interactions in the organization” (Johnson, 1998, p. 13), how “the work-related attitudes, activities, and behaviors of teachers and principals are functions of the organizational contexts of the schools in which they work” (Feng et al., 2017; Smylie & Brownlee-Conyers, 1992, p. 155). Because “organizational contexts” (Doyle, 2000, p. 19) and “the actual organizational structure” (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001, p. 79) reflect values and beliefs, they exercise considerable pull on collective leadership in a school, primarily through their “impact [on] school community and school change” (Doyle, 2000, p. 19) and a collective and reciprocal activity. Indeed, there is plentiful evidence that organizational conditions are “critically important factors with regard to the extent of distributed leadership in a school” (Liu et al., 2016, p. 1), “the organizational contexts of schools have substantial influence on the performance and outcomes of teacher leadership” (Smylie, 1996, p. 575). Indeed, processes and contexts are often as, if not more, important than the content. Unfortunately, “the organizational structure of schools” (Kowalski, 1995, p. 244)—with its “organizational and structural barriers” (Chrispeels, 1992, p. 75) has regularly “bedeviled ... efforts to develop teacher leadership” (Smylie et al., 2020, p. 183). “Organizational characteristics [and] structural components can adversely

6 Barriers

99

impact the work of teacher leaders” (Silva et al., 2000, p. 790) and “impediments ... found within ... the organizational structures” (Duke, 1994, p. 269) of schools exercise a powerful dampening influence on shared leadership (Silva et al., 2000). The disheartening result is that “given the present structure of schools, it is difficult for teachers to view themselves as leaders or to view one another as leaders” (Coyle, 1997, p. 238). A number of dimensions of the organizational dynamic merit attention. First, in a real sense, the current structure of schooling has worked—if not to educate all youngsters well, then at least to help meet the goal of universal access. Second, existing organizational arrangements benefit some people: actors who are not simply willing to promote the development of new structures and forms in which their deepseated values are undermined, and advantaged positions are negated (Crowther et al., 2002). Third, for most educators, the current organizational system is the only one they have known. It is difficult to move to the unknown even when one can glimpse its contours. In addition, even if the change process can be engaged, there are strong inclinations to regress to the familiar. As Lieberman and Miller (1999) remind us, “new behaviors are difficult to acquire, and in the end it is easier to return to old habits than to embrace new ones” (p. 126). Needed changes are often “abandoned in favor of more familiar and more satisfying routines” (Little, 1987, p. 493). Or as Heller (1994) observes, “people become used to a hierarchical structure which can be comforting. Someone else is responsible. Someone else takes the blame, finds the money, obtains the permission, and has the headaches” (p. 289). Fourth, the current arrangements are not especially malleable (Donaldson, 2001). The “forces of organizational persistence” (Smylie & Hart, 1999, p. 421) and “institutional precedent” (Smylie, 1992a, p. 55) are quite robust. Hierarchy has an extensive and deep root structure and enjoys a good deal of legitimacy (Murphy et al., 2001). The system also displays considerable capacity to engage in the ritual of change (Meyer & Rowan, 1975) and to absorb new ideas and initiatives in ways that leave existing organizational structures largely unaffected (Cohen, 1988; Weick, 1976). Finally, while some currents buoy concepts such as decentralization and professionalism that undergird community leadership, equally powerful if not stronger currents support the movement to centralization and to the hardening of the hierarchical forms of schooling that “are having a challenging effect on the teaching profession and on the inclination and ability of teachers to assume broad leadership within their schools” (Barth, 2001, p. 445). Thus, while it is discouraging, it should not be surprising given the dynamics described above that “in many cases teachers and administrators have actively resisted the creation and implementation of these new [collective leadership] roles” (Boles & Troen, 1994, p. 8). Turning specifically to the forces of hierarchy, reviewers have observed that the “organizational structure makes it ... inappropriate for a teacher to assume leadership” (Troen & Boles, 1994, p. 276), that “the school’s bureaucratic structure makes it difficult for teachers to define and legitimate forms of leadership that are fully consistent with teaching’s egalitarian culture” (Little, 1995, p. 55; Crawford, 2012). Especially

100

6 Barriers

problematic for communities of leadership are the following ideas embedded in hierarchical structures: “the notion of a single leader” (Moller & Katzenmeyer, 1996, p. 6); “traditional patterns of relationships” (Conley, 1989, p. 2) featuring a boss and subordinates; the idea that the leader is “synonymous with boss” (Moller & Katzenmeyer, 1996, p. 4); and the metaphor of leader as supervisor (Myers, 1970). Hierarchical organizations also define power and authority in ways that dampen the viability of shared leadership (Hartley, 2010; Ritchie & Woods, 2007). Specifically, by defining authority in centralized (Fay, 1992) and solitary terms (Barth, 1988b), the traditional structure of schools “simply does not support teacher decision making” (Rallis, 1990, p. 193). It leaves teachers “with very limited power in making decisions outside their own classrooms” (Smyser, 1995, p. 132). By configuring authority “as a ‘zero-sum game’” (Boles & Troen, 1994, p. 10), “unyielding bureaucracies” (Suleiman & Moore, 1997, p. 3) make it “difficult for teacher leaders to emerge in schools” (Boles & Troen, 1994, p. 10). Simply put, “the hierarchical structure of schools works against multilevel access to policy debate and decision making” (Manthei, 1992, p. 15). For example, Chubb (1988, pp. 50–51) reminds us that the changes needed for communities of school leadership to develop and grow often “threaten the security of political representatives and educational administrators whose positions are tied to the existing system and now hold the reins of school reform.” Bureaucracies also exert negative force on the health of communities of school leadership through the use of structures that isolate teachers, structures “work against the development of teacher leadership” (Urbanski & Nickolaou, 1997, p. 244). Two elements are featured in these structures: time schedules (Coyle, 1997) and systems for dividing up work responsibilities (Pellicer & Anderson, 1995; Printy, 2008). Both of these strands promote segmentation (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001). They slot teachers into self-contained classrooms (Buckner & McDowelle, 2000). All of this promotes the use of an “egg crate” (Boles & Troen, 1996, p. 59) structure that “buttress[es] teaching as a private endeavor” (Little, 1990, p. 530) that (1) “block[s] teachers’ ability to work together” (Silva et al., 2000, p. 789)—that makes it “difficult for teachers to engage with other teachers” (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001, p. 67) and “makes genuine interdependence among teachers rare” (Little & McLaughlin, 1993, p. 2)—and (2) promotes “individual rather than collective accountability” (Duke, 1994, p. 270). The consequence is “an assemblage of entrepreneurial individuals” (Little, 1990, p. 530) who “rather than work[ing] collectively on their problems ... must struggle alone” (Lieberman et al., 1988, p. 151). Unions as a piece of the organizational mosaic require attention here. At the macro level, unions can act as a brake on the development of collective leadership throughout the profession (Pellicer & Anderson, 1995; Stone et al., 1997). This is most likely to occur when it is seen as unsettling well-established patterns of collective bargaining (Wasley, 1991). At the micro level, “union contracts can be another challenge to teacher leadership” (Blegen & Kennedy, 2000, p. 5). By design, bureaucracy in general and labor relations in particular separate school administrators and teachers. And given that divide, it is not clear why teachers would gravitate to schoolwide leadership positions (Barth, 1988a, 1988b). More likely is the possibility that “the

6 Barriers

101

tension that exists between teacher unions and school district administrators [will] discourage teachers from engaging in roles beyond the classroom” (Killion, 1996, p. 75). And under existing structures and relationships, “the possibility that teacher leadership might actually mean union control” (Institute for Educational Leadership, 2001, p. 6) is not lost on school administrators. Clearly, “if teacher leadership is to flourish, hierarchical perspectives of labor embedded in school organizations will need to experience a transformation, “as will “labor-management relationships” (Boles & Troen, 1994, p. 8). As discussed earlier, scholars who ply the domain of organizations have carefully documented how “the structure of the organization directs and defines the flow and pattern of human interactions in the organization” (Johnson, 1998, p. 13), how “the work-related attitudes, activities, and behaviors of teachers and principals are functions of the organizational contexts of the schools in which they work” (Smylie & Brownlee-Conyers, 1992, p. 155). Collective leadership introduces important changes in the work of individuals and essential transformations in relationships in schools. In addition to new structures, it requires a web of supporting conditions to take root and blossom (Frost & Durrant, 2003)—“support for individual teacher’s roles” (Hart, 1994, p. 495) and a reconceptualization of “the context in which they work” (Moller & Katzenmeyer, 1996, p. 7), that is, attention to conditions required to work well is needed. The spotlight here is on support for teachers, support in addition to materials and time treated above. The perhaps obvious but still-needed-to-made point is that principal support is a cardinal element in the equation of leadership effectiveness (Cotton, 2003). Indeed, teachers often inform us that it is the hallmark element (Leithwood et al., 2010). A few notes are helpful before we revisit the concept of leader support for teachers. We know from research studies and the wisdom of practice that support is a difficult construct to corral. Or, as Mangin notes (2007, p. 326), the “notion of support is inherently elusive owing to its subjective manner.” And as Littrell and associates (1994, p. 297) extend this point, “defining support is a multidimensional concept that includes a wide range of behaviors.” Metaphorically, support is more akin to a stew than it is a dish of distinct foods (Murphy et al., 2001). It is also helpful to expose some of the embedded concepts in the narrative around support, insights that are easy to lose sight of in the rush of leaders’ frenetic work schedules. We know, for example, that not all support work is equal. Supports can be categorized across the continuum from low-level to high-level activities (May & Supovitz, 2011). Researchers and practitioners also remind us that support is often informal as well as formal in design (Penuel et al., 2010; Smylie et al., 2020). Supovitz and Poglinco (2001, p. 16), in turn, reinforce one of the essential conclusions here. That is, context is always critical (see also Feng et al., 2017). In this case, they confirm that support is “dependent on the personality and temperament of the principal, the particular needs of individual teachers, and the environment of the school.” The literature also helps us see that support is bifurcated. At times the focus is on subtraction—taking away problems, reducing ambiguities, buffering unhelpful

102

6 Barriers

forces, and removing organizational barriers. At other times, the focus is on additions—augmenting actions. As with most issues in schools, there is a difference between assessments of the amount of support teachers desire and the amount of support they see coming their way from principals (Littrell et al., 1994). Researchers, developers, and practitioners have developed a variety of frames to array support. Crum and Sherman (2008) define principal support as understanding, encouraging, and empowering teachers. Leithwood and colleagues (1999) employ the concept as individualized support, a construct that stands above others in the platform of transformational leadership practices. Supovitz and Poglinco (2001) suggest that principals’ support for teachers materializes through the provision of resources, counseling, and encouragement. Gurr and team (2005) find that leaders provide three types of support: one-off or cross crisis support, support for individuals as they undergo change processes, and ongoing support in the form of acknowledging others. Finally, House (cited in Littrell et al., 1994) created a four-dimensional framework to describe support: emotional support, instrumental support, informational support, and appraisal support. In their hallmark volume on teacher leadership, Katzenmeyer and Moller (2001) assert that “supporting teacher leadership means understanding the concept, awakening the understanding of teachers themselves to their leadership potential, and then providing for the development of teacher leadership” (pp. 123–124). Factors that hinder development include “a lack of time, unsatisfactory relationships with teachers and administrators, and a lack of money to get the job done” (Pellicer & Anderson, 1995, p. 8). Supportive factors, on the other hand, “enable [teachers] to engage in collaborative relationships” (Wasley, 1991, p. 136; Bouwmans et al., 2017). According to Little (1987), they include (1) “symbolic endorsements and rewards that place value on cooperative work and make the sources of interdependence clear; (2) school-level organization of staff assignments and leadership; (3) latitude for influence on crucial matters of curriculum and instruction; (4) time; (5) training and assistance; and (6) material support” (p. 508). For Hart and Baptist (1996), supportive conditions cluster into three categories: (1) “interpersonal support,” (2) “tangible support,” and (3) “enlarged opportunities” (p. 97). Building on the work of colleagues in this area, we describe support for teacher leadership under six broad dimensions: (1) values and expectations, (2) structures, (3) training, (4) resources, (5) incentives and recognition, and (6) role clarity (Murphy, 2005). Erb (1987, p. 6) adds “communications between teachers and other actors in the educational drama.” Also, “teams with shared leadership experience less conflict, greater consensus, and higher intergroup trust” (Bergman et al., 2012, p. 17; Harris & Muijs, 2005)—“an internalized sense of ownership and commitment” (York-Barr & Duke, 2004, p. 258). Scholars investigating the nature of teacher work in general (Lortie, 1975; Rosenholtz, 1989) and teacher work redesign (Hart, 1990) and communities of school leadership specifically (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001; Little, 1987, 1988) have uncovered a thick vein of knowledge about how “professional norms and school culture” (Wilson, 1993, p. 27)—“the occupational structure of teaching work itself” (Little, 1990, p. 511)—exert a powerful and often negative sway on the birth and development of communities of school leadership in schools (Hartley, 2010; Ritchie &

6 Barriers

103

Woods, 2007). At the broadest level, it is argued that “teaching is not a profession that values or encourages leadership within its ranks” (Troen & Boles, 1994, p. 279) and “that teachers who adhere to the current norms of the profession are ... a barrier to changing the role of teachers in our schools” (Odell, 1997, p. 121). In particular, in the narrative that unfolds below, we reveal how norms of “privacy, autonomy, and egalitarianism” define the teaching profession. We describe how these standards provide “the yardstick[s] most teachers use to measure ... acceptability” (Whitaker, 1995, p. 80) and how “proposals for teacher leadership challenge [these] long-established ... norms” (Hart, 1995, p. 12)—how “norms of equality, autonomy, cordiality, and privacy can counter interventions designed to redistribute leadership in schools and how these norms can neutralize teacher leader attempts to form new roles in providing support and collegial interaction for teachers” (Keedy, 1999, p. 788; Pounder, 1998). We explain that because teacher leadership assaults the central “norms influencing working relationships among teachers” (Smylie, 1992a, p. 56), it is “difficult for teachers in many schools to accept or display leadership” (Barth, 2001, p. 445). Too often, when opportunities for shared leadership are presented, professional norms stimulate teachers to resist new ways of doing business (Duke, 2012; Smylie et al., 2008) and cause those who accept schoolwide leadership responsibilities to “display caution toward their colleagues” (Little, 1988, p. 84) and “to tread lightly” (Smylie, 1996, p. 576). We learn that “each school’s culture directly influences how willing its teachers will be to take on positive leadership roles” (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001, p. 71), that “teacher leadership can be encouraged or impeded depending on school culture and climate” (Snell & Swanson, 2000, p. 2). Indeed, it seems that “the specific social relationships and norms of individual schools [are] more influential ... than the general professional norms” (Smylie, 1996, p. 555). “The school social unit” (Hart, 1990, p. 526) also appears to “outweigh the strength of individual teachers’ training, years of experience, effort, personal characteristics, and abilities, and the formal work structure and its impact on the functions of redesigned work” (p. 526). This appears to be the case because “the social and normative contexts of schools ... define and govern teachers’ professional relationships” (Smylie, 1996, p. 560), and “social system dynamics” (Hart, 1994, p. 493), in turn, exert considerable control over work redesign efforts such as teacher leadership. There is also a plentiful store of evidence that “something deep and powerful within school cultures seems to work against teacher leadership” (Barth, 2001, p. 443). That is, “the culture and social norms of schools conspire against leadership development ... and bedevil ... efforts to develop teacher leadership” (Smylie et al., 2020, p. 183). “Institutionalizing teacher leadership as a norm within the cultural fabric of an entire school is a ... challenging task” (Keedy, 1999, p. 797). On one hand, efforts to cultivate shared leadership are hampered by the fact that there are “few meaningful precedents” (Little, 1990, p. 517) for introducing collective leadership into the institution of schooling and the occupation of teaching (Little, 1990; Wasley, 1991). On the other hand, attempts to institutionalize collective leadership are “influenced substantially by patterns of belief and practice that define old work roles and by socialization pressures from the workplace that resist new work roles or reshape

104

6 Barriers

them to conform to those prevailing practices and pressures” (Smylie & BrownleeConyers, 1992, p. 155). Not only are “established social patterns ... resilient” (Hart, 1994, p. 477), but the tendency to regress to prevailing norms and practices is actually “heightened” (p. 477) during periods of change such as those associated with work redesign. In “the absence of traditions for mutual work” (Little, 1988, p. 92), forays into collective leadership often violate cultural foundations that define schools, foundations that are often “fatal to new work configurations” (Hart, 1990, p. 504). Too often, the end result is that “the behaviors and attitudes commonly regarded as demonstrating leadership are not acceptable to ... teachers” (Wilson, 1993, p. 27).

6.1 Norms One value that is deeply entwined in the cultural tapestry of schools is what might best be labeled the norm of legitimacy: what counts as appropriate work for teachers. The literature confirms that authentic activity is what unfolds in classrooms (Doyle, 2000; Hinchey, 1997)—a “classroom-oriented, student-centered conception of work” (Smylie & Brownlee-Conyers, 1992, p. 156; Troen & Boles, 1994). For both the public and for teachers themselves, teaching is defined “almost exclusively by time spent in classrooms with children” (Little, 1988, p. 100). Because “time for leadership often equals time away from the classroom” (Fay, 1992, p. 81), leadership work “can be stressful” (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001, p. 111) for individual teachers, especially if time away from teaching is seen as “compromising their effectiveness with children” (Smylie & Brownlee-Conyers, 1992, p. 164), and unsettling for the existing culture. Indeed, teacher leaders “take a lot of criticism from principals [and] fellow teachers ... over ‘missing school’” (Fay, 1992, p. 81). It is not difficult to see how the norm of legitimacy could deter teachers from assuming community leadership responsibilities and how it could depress enthusiasm among the faculty for shared leadership. A related standard is the norm of separation, a separation that “has been extensive and profound” (Rallis, 1990, p. 196). One dimension of this norm is the belief that the job of teachers is to teach and the task of school administrators is to manage and lead—“principals lead; teachers teach” (Barth, 2001, p. 445). A second aspect is that it is “the teacher’s job to carry out plans developed by others higher up in the school hierarchy” (Boles & Troen, 1996, p. 43). This “strong us-them split” (Teitel, 1996, p. 149) is heavily buttressed by the structural elements of schooling we outlined earlier, especially the tenets of hierarchy. Where schoolwide leadership requires teachers to occupy territory traditionally held by administrators, to “cross the border” (p. 149) or “to change ranks” (Whitaker, 1997, p. 12) so to speak—that is, to violate the separation norm—formidable barriers are often erected (Little, 1988; Midgley & Woods, 1993). The norm of managerial prerogative, or what Keedy (1999) calls the “norm of the authority and power of administrators” (p. 787), has a deep root structure in most schools and, as is the case with related norms discussed above, it casts a pall over the

6.1 Norms

105

ideology of shared leadership. At the heart of the prerogative standard is the belief that school action outside of classrooms is the rightful domain of school administrators (Smylie, 1992a, 1992b). Given this culture, teachers are “reluctant to challenge traditional patterns of principals’ authority” (Smylie, 1992a, p. 55). Understandings have been forged over time between administrators and teachers (Murphy et al., 1987; Sizer, 1984). They often show considerable reluctance to overturn such negotiated arrangements, especially when doing so would undercut established patterns of “authority and autonomy” (Smylie, 1992a, p. 55). Cast in less generous terms, the argument holds that teachers are powerless to influence activities beyond the classroom (Troen & Boles, 1994), that principals are resistant to actions that would alter this dynamic (Bishop et al., 1997; Brown & Sheppard, 1999), and that efforts on the part of teachers to challenge the norm would produce unpleasant “repercussions” (Clift et al., 1992, p. 902). Two related standards, the norm of followership—the belief that teachers are “followers, not leaders” (Moller & Katzenmeyer, 1996, p. 3)—and the norm of compliance—the belief that it is the job of teachers to comply with directives from above (Wasley, 1991)—also “undermine … the espoused theory of teacher leadership” (Clift et al., 1992, p. 906), hinder the emergence of teacher leadership outside the classroom, and complicate their work when they do emerge. Analysts over the last quarter century have directed considerable illumination on “the autonomy norm which defines the teaching profession” (Johnson, 1998, p. 18) and on the “deeply entrenched patterns of isolation and autonomy that define teachers’ work” (Smylie & Hart, 1999, p. 430) and breed a “school culture of isolation” (IEL, 2001, p. 7). “Most teachers ... work alone, in isolation from their colleagues” (Stigler & Hiebert, 1999, p. 157) and they prefer it that way (Griffin, 1995). Collaborative cultures are much in vogue in the educational literature but much less visible in schools. Teachers see professional autonomy—“which is viewed as freedom from outside scrutiny and the right to make independent judgments” (Wasley, 1991, p. 26), to choose ends and means ... to adopt for [one’s] classroom” (Wilson, 1993, p. 27)— “as a contested right” (Uline & Berkowitz, 2000, p. 419). They also learn “not [to] meddle in the affairs of other teachers” (Teitel, 1996, p. 144), especially in matters dealing with how their colleagues work with youngsters in their classrooms. In short, “they do not wish to lead or be led” (Wilson, 1993, p. 27). Many prefer isolation as the wall that protects their highly valued classroom autonomy, even though it may create uncertainty and anxiety (Huberman, 1993; Lortie, 1975). For others, isolation is simply a function of the work: “You do your thing in your class, and you leave, and you don’t talk to anyone about it” (Boyer, 1983, p. 158; see also Goodlad, 1984; Sizer, 1984). Perhaps no norm is more destructive to the health of collective leadership than “this very strong standard of practice” (Wasley, 1991, p. 26); “the fundamental isolation of teachers in the classroom is a major barrier to their asserting a stronger leadership role” (Firestone, 1996, p. 413). It “inhibits teachers from extending their influence beyond their classroom doors” (Moller & Katzenmeyer, 1996, p. 8). The norm of autonomy and isolation “impedes productive relationships with ... other [teachers]

106

6 Barriers

and with ... administrators” (Uline & Berkowitz, 2000, p. 419) and “inhibit[s] the work of teacher leaders with their teaching colleagues” (Leithwood et al., 1997, p. 5). It has the potential to model separation between teachers and students (Murphy, 2016). It “inhibit[s] professionalism” (Rallis, 1990, p. 194). It “stymies all attempts at reform” (IEL, 2001, p. 7). And, as Urbanski and Nickolaou (1997) assert, “for the sake of such autonomy in their own classrooms, teachers sacrifice their prospects for influence at the school level and beyond” (p. 245). Tightly linked to professional and cultural values about autonomy are the norms of privacy and noninterference (Feiman-Nemser & Floden, 1986, p. 506) “that pervade most schools” (Smylie & Brownlee-Conyers, 1992, p. 156)—what Griffin (1995) calls “the privacy of professional practice” (p. 40). As Uline and Berkowitz (2000) document, the interaction rules in a culture of privacy parallel those found in highly autonomous climates and “include never interfering in another teacher’s classroom affairs, and always being self-reliant with one’s own” (p. 418), holding the classroom “inviolate” (Feiman-Nemser & Floden, 1986, p. 516). “The norm of professional privacy” (Smylie, 1992b, p. 63) is construed “as freedom from scrutiny and the right of each teacher to make independent judgments about classroom practice” (Little, 1988, p. 94). While Little (1990) acknowledges that providing help to colleagues is acceptable within tight parameters, in a culture of noninterference and nonjudgmentalness there is a clear “boundary between offering advice when asked and interfering in unwarranted ways” (p. 515). “Offering ... unsolicited advice runs counter to the valued, accepted collegial behavior of teachers” (Little, 1985, p. 36) and is a breach of the norm of privacy. Rather, “under the norm of noninterference ... teachers are expected to work things out on their own” (Feiman-Nemser & Floden, 1986, p. 506). “Hands off” (p. 509) rules apply, especially on issues “that bear directly on classroom work” (Huberman, 1993, p. 34). “The precedents of noninterference are powerful” (Little, 1987, p. 500), and the culture of privacy is potent. Both are toxic to shared leadership and to the culture of collaboration that supports it (Little, 1987) because “the more strongly that leaders are committed to the norm of professional privacy the less willing they are to participate in decisions concerning curriculum and instruction” (Smylie, 1992a, p. 63). On the other hand, it is growing increasingly clear that “the prospects for school-based teacher leadership rest on displacing the privacy norm” (Little, 1988, p. 94) and on “teacher leaders abandon[ing] their privateness” (Carr, 1997; McCay et al., 2001, p. 137). “The culture of teaching [also] contends that all teachers are equal” (ChildsBowen et al., 2000, p. 32), a condition that is widely cited as the norm of professional equality or egalitarian norm (Conley, 1989) or “the egalitarian ethic” (Boles & Troen, 1994, p. 9). Analysts consistently show that “egalitarian norms” (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001, p. 4) and “the culture of sameness” (Urbanski & Nickolaou, 1997, p. 245) have a long history within the profession (Lortie, 1975; Wasley, 1991) and “run deep in school buildings” (Huberman, 1993, p. 29): “egalitarianism is deeply rooted and with long-standing traditions” (Little, 1995, p. 55); “it is compelling” (Little, 1987, p. 510). As noted above, at its core, the egalitarian ethic of teaching— “the fact that all teachers hold equal position and rank, separated by number of

6.1 Norms

107

years of experience and college credit earned” (Wasley, 1991, p. 166) “rather than function, skill, advanced knowledge, role, or responsibility” (Lieberman et al., 1988, p. 151)—“suggests that all teachers should be equal” (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001, p. 4). Against this cultural backdrop, “teacher leadership ... introduce[s] status differences based on knowledge, skill, and initiative” (Little, 1988, p. 98; Yarger & Lee, 1994). Teacher leadership positions “suggest superordinate and subordinate status differences that teachers may not view as socially and professionally legitimate” (Smylie & Brownlee-Conyers, 1992, p. 156). The consequence is not unexpected— “new responsibilities ... clash with old expectations for equality” (Hart, 1990, p. 517). At a minimum, “the helping relationships that [are] central to [communities of school leadership] challenge the norms of professional equality” (Smylie & Denny, 1989, p. 16). More severely, they “may compel violations of long-standing egalitarian norms among teachers” (Conley, 1989, p. 15). In effect, then, because “teacher leadership is inconsistent with the egalitarian culture in most schools” (Moller & Katzenmeyer, 1996, p. 7) and “assaults the egalitarian norms that have long been in place in teaching” (Wasley, 1991, p. 147), norms of equality act as an “obstacle to teacher leadership” (Killion, 1996, p. 75) and as “an obstacle to designing meaningful teacher leadership roles” (Pellicer & Anderson, 1995, p. 20). On the one hand, norms of equality “constrain teachers from the kinds of initiative, or exercise of authority, one typically associates with images of formal leadership responsibility” (Little, 1995, p. 55). They make help giving “problematic” (Little, 1990, p. 517). On the other hand, “they suggest a system of social costs associated with their violation” (Smylie & Denny, 1989, p. 15), social costs such as “collegial disfavor and sanction” (Smylie, 1992a, p. 56) and “amage[ed] relationships with peers” (Leblanc & Shelton, 1997, p. 43). The presence of such costs often produces reluctance on the part of teachers to assume the mantle of “leadership.” Since they “fear the reactions of their colleagues and because they are hesitant to be singled out from the group in an environment that has valued treating everyone the same” (Bishop et al., 1997, p. 77), reticence to take on leadership roles is often the norm. In short, as Katzenmeyer and Moller (2001) confirm, “the egalitarian norms among teachers do not encourage a teacher to take leadership roles” (p. 79). When teachers do accept schoolwide leadership responsibilities, they often “seem reluctant to challenge the norms of professional equality” (Smylie & Denny, 1989, p. 16). They sometimes “reject responsibility and role innovation ... in favor of egalitarian norms” (Hart, 1990, p. 519). They are “hesitant to set themselves up as experts” (Little, 1985, p. 36). They avoid “drawing attention to themselves” (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001, p. 4) and “display a wondrous ability to diminish their new status and to downplay the leadership opportunities and obligations that (inescapably) accompany the title” (Little, 1988, p. 101). And, at times, in the face of “both covert and overt criticism [and] passive and/or active resistance [they] may relinquish their leadership role[s]” (Blegen & Kennedy, 2000, p. 4). The research reveals that such reticence on the part of teacher leaders may be well founded because “attempts to assign formal leadership roles to teachers often place would-be teacher leaders in direct opposition to their colleagues” (Darling-Hammond

108

6 Barriers

et al., 1995, p. 90) because teachers often are “not gentle with [colleagues] who violate egalitarian norms” (Hart, 1990, p. 521). And since in an egalitarian culture “the opinions of peers are important to teachers, ... negative comments ... may stop their initiatives” (Moller & Katzenmeyer, 1996, p. 7). Teachers are known to “defend turf” (Boles & Troen, 1996, p. 44) in the face of collective leadership and to distance themselves from colleagues who assume leadership roles (Johnson & Hynes, 1997). They often make it difficult for peers to be seen as experts (Wasley, 1991). They often resist the initiatives of communitybased leaders (Hart, 1990; Little, 1988). More aggressively, they sometimes work to undermine the efforts of teacher leaders (Leblanc & Shelton, 1997), to silence their voices (Dana, 1992), and to banish them from the ranks of the collegium (Stone et al., 1997; Wilson, 1993). In short, “teacher leaders ... may ... suffer rejection from peers” (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001, p. 80). And, as Duke (1994) observes, “teacher leadership hardly can thrive in such circumstances” (p. 270). A final standard that often impedes the development of a culture of community leadership and shackles the work of teacher leaders is the norm of civility. As Griffin (1995) reminds us, “schools are nonconfrontative social organizations, at least in terms of how teachers interact with one another” (p. 44). There is strong pressure for “cordiality” (Hart, 1990, p. 516) among teachers that often clashes with the function of community leadership (Hart, 1990). Coupled with this are accepted modes of interaction among teachers, such as “contrived collegiality” (Hargreaves & Dawe, 1990, p. 227) and “induced collaboration” (Little, 1990, p. 509), that promote the appearance of shared leadership while maintaining deeply ingrained norms of autonomy, privacy, and egalitarianism. And coupled to all these other standards are norms of conservatism and aversion to risk taking (Lortie, 1975; Rosenholtz, 1989) that privilege the status quo in the face of change, which is at the heart of teacher leadership (Frost & Durrant, 2003).

References Adams, C. (2010). Social determinants of student trust in high poverty elementary schools. In W. K. Hoy & M. DiPaola (Eds.), Analyzing school contexts: Influences of principals and teachers in the service of students (pp. 255–280). Information Age. Barth, R. S. (1988a). Principals, teachers, and school leadership. Phi Delta Kappan, 69(9), 639–642. Barth, R.S. (1988b). School: A community of leaders place to have a career. In A. Lieberman (Ed.), Building a professional culture in schools (pp. 129–147). Teachers College Press. Barth, R. S. (2001). Teacher leader. Phi Delta Kappan, 82(6), 443–449. Bergman, J. Z., Rentsch, J. R., Small, E. E., Davenport, S. W., & Bergman, S. M. (2012). The shared leadership process in decision-making teams. The Journal of Social Psychology, 152(1), 17–42. Bishop, H. L., Tinley, A., & Berman, B. T. (1997). A contemporary leadership model to promote teacher leadership. Action in Teacher Education, 19(3), 77–81. Blegen, M. B., & Kennedy, C. (2000). Principals and teachers, leading together. NASSP Bulletin, 84(616), 1–6. Bolden, R. (2011). Distributed leadership in organizations: A review of theory and research. International Journal of Management Reviews, 13(3), 251–269.

References

109

Boles, K., & Troen, V. (1994). Teacher leadership in a professional development school. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA. Boles, K., & Troen, V. (1996). Teacher leaders and power: Achieving school reform from the classroom. In G. Moller & M. Katzenmeyer (Eds.), Every teacher as a leader: Realizing the potential of teacher leadership (pp. 41–62). Jossey-Bass. Bouwmans, M., Runhaar, P., Wesselink, R., & Mulder, M. (2017). Towards distributed leadership in vocational education and training schools: The interplay between formal leaders and team members. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 1–17. Boyer, E. L. (1983). High school: A report on secondary education in America. Harper and Row. Brown, J., & Sheppard, B. (1999). Leadership, organizational learning, and classroom change. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, Quebec. Buckner, K. G., & McDowelle, J. O. (2000). Developing teacher leaders: Providing encouragement, opportunities, and support. NASSP Bulletin, 84(616), 35–41. Bush, T., & Glover, D. (2012). Distributed leadership in action: Leading high-performing leadership teams in English schools. School Leadership & Management, 32(1), 21–36. Carr, D. A. (1997, May/June). Collegial leaders: Teachers who want more than just a job. The Clearing House, 70(5), 240–242. Childs-Bowen, D., Moller, G., & Scrivner, J. (2000). Principals: Leaders of leaders. NASSP Bulletin, 84(616), 27–34. Chrispeels, J. H. (1992). Purposeful restructuring: Creating a culture for learning and achievement in elementary schools. Falmer. Chubb, J. E. (1988, Winter). Why the current wave of school reform will fail. The Public Interest, (90), 28–49. Clemson-Ingram, R., & Fessler, R. (1997, Fall). Innovative programs for teacher leadership. Action in Teacher Education, 19(3), 95–106. Clift, R., Johnson, M., Holland, P., & Veal, M. L. (1992). Developing the potential for collaborative school leadership. American Educational Research Journal, 29(4), 877–908. Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Conley, S. C. (1989, March). “Who’s on first?”: School reform, teacher participation, and the decision-making process. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA. Conway, J. A., & Calzi, F. (1995). The dark side of shared decision making. Educational Leadership, 53(4), 45–49. Cooper, M. (1988). School as a place to have a career. In A. Lieberman (Ed.), Whose culture is it, anyway? (pp. 45–54). Teachers College Press. Cotton, K. (2003). Principals and student achievement: What the research says. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Coyle, M. (1997). Teacher leadership vs. school management: Flatten the hierarchies. The Clearing House, 70(5), 236–239. Crawford, M. (2012). Solo and distributed leadership: Definitions and dilemmas. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 40(5), 610–620. Creighton, T. B. (1997, March). Teachers as leaders: Is the principal really needed? Paper presented at the Annual Conference on Creating Quality Schools. Oklahoma City, OK. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED411117). Crowther, F. (1997). The William Walker oration, 1996: Unsung heroes: The leaders in our classrooms. Journal of Educational Administration, 35(1), 5–17. Crowther, F., Kaagan, S., Ferguson, M., & Hann, L. (2002). Developing teacher leaders: How teacher leadership enhances school success. Corwin Press.

110

6 Barriers

Crum, K. S., & Sherman, W. H. (2008). Facilitating high achievement: High school principals’ reflections on their successful leadership practices. Journal of Educational Administration, 46(5), 562–580. D’Innocenzo, L., Mathieu, J. E., & Kukenberger, M. R. (2016). A meta-analysis of different forms of shared leadership–team performance relations. Journal of Management, 42(7), 1964–1991. Dana, N. F. (1992, October). Teacher leadership through collaborative action research: Implications for teachers, principals, and university researchers/teacher educators. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Pennsylvania Association for Colleges of Teacher Educators, Grantsville, PA. Darling-Hammond, L., Bullmaster, M. L., & Cobb, V. L. (1995). Rethinking teacher leadership through professional development schools. The Elementary School Journal, 96(1), 87–106. Donaldson, G. A. (2001). Cultivating leadership in schools: Connecting people, purpose, and practice. Teachers College Press. Doyle, M. (2000, April). Making meaning of teacher leadership in the implementation of a standards-based mathematics curriculum. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA. Duke, D. L. (1994). Drift, detachment, and the need for teacher leadership. In R. Walling (Ed.), Teachers as leaders: Perspectives on the professional development of teachers (pp. 255–273). Phi Delta Kappa. Duke, D. L. (2012). Tinkering and turnarounds: Understanding the contemporary campaign to improve low-performing schools. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk (JESPAR), 17(1–2), 9–24. Erb, T. O. (1987). What team organization can do for teachers. Middle School Journal, 18(4), 3–6. Fay, C. (1992). Empowerment through leadership: In the teachers’ voice. In C. Livingston (Ed.), Teachers as leaders: Evolving roles (pp. 57–90). National Education Association. Feiman-Nemser, S., & Floden, R. (1986). The culture of teaching. In M. C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed., pp. 505–516). Macmillan. Feng, Y., Hao, B., Iles, P., & Brown, N. (2017). Rethinking distributed leadership: Dimensions, antecedents and team effectiveness. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 38(2), 284–302. Fessler, R., & Ungaretti, A. (1994). Expanding opportunities for teacher leadership. In D. R. Walling (Ed.), Teachers as leaders: Perspectives on the professional development of teachers (pp. 211– 222). Phi Delta Kappa. Firestone, W. A. (1996). Leadership roles or functions. In K. Leithwood, J. Chapman, D. Corson, P. Hallinger, & A. Hart (Eds.), International handbook of educational administration (pp. 395–418). Kluwer Academic. Fitzsimons, D., James, K. T., & Denyer, D. (2011). Alternative approaches for studying shared and distributed leadership. International Journal of Management Reviews, 13(3), 313–328. Frost, D., & Durrant, J. (2003, May). Teacher leadership: Rationale, strategy, and impact. School Leadership & Management, 23(2), 173–186. Fullan, M. (1994). Teacher leadership: A failure to conceptualize. In R. Walling (Ed.), Teachers as leaders: Perspectives on the professional development of teachers (pp. 241–254). Phi Delta Kappa. Gehrke, N. (1991). Developing teachers’ leadership skills. ERIC Digest. Goodlad, J. I. (1984). A place called school: Prospects for the future. McGraw-Hill. Griffin, G. A. (1985). The school as a workplace and the master teacher concept. The Elementary School Journal, 86(1), 1–16. Griffin, G. A. (1995). Influences of shared decision making on school and classroom activity: Conversations with five teachers. The Elementary School Journal, 96(1), 29–45. Gronn, P. (2008). The future of distributed leadership. Journal of Educational Administration, 46(2), 141–158. Gurr, D., Drysdale, L., & Mulford, N. (2005). Successful principal leadership: Australian case studies. Journal of Educational Administration, 43(6), 539–551.

References

111

Hairon, S., & Goh, J. W. (2015). Pursuing the elusive construct of distributed leadership: Is the search over? Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 43(5), 693–718. Hallinger, P., & Heck, R. H. (2009). Distributed leadership in schools: Does system policy make a difference? In A. Harris (Ed.), Distributed Leadership (pp. 101–117). Hargreaves, A., & Dawe, R. (1990). Paths of professional development: Contrived collegiality, collaborative culture, and the case of peer coaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 6(3), 227–241. Harris, A. (2004). Distributed leadership and school improvement: Leading or misleading? Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 32(1), 11–24. Harris, A. (2009). Distributed leadership: What we know. Springer Science & Business Media. Harris, A. (2012). Distributed leadership: Implications for the role of the principal. Journal of Management Development, 31(1), 7–17. Harris, A. (2013). Distributed school leadership: Developing tomorrow’s leaders. Routledge. Harris, A., & Muijs, D. (2005). Improving schools through teacher leadership. McGraw-Hill Education. Harris, A., & Spillane, J. (2008). Distributed leadership through the looking glass. Administration Society (BELMAS), 22(1), 31–34. Harris, A., & DeFlaminis, J. (2016). Distributed leadership in practice: Evidence, misconceptions and possibilities. Management in Education, 30(4), 141–146. Hart, A. W. (1990, Fall). Impacts of the school social unit on teacher authority during work redesign. American Educational Research Journal, 27(3), 503–532. Hart, A. W. (1994). Creating teacher leadership roles. Educational Administration Quarterly, 30(4), 472–497. Hart, A. W. (1995). Reconceiving school leadership: Emergent views. The Elementary School Journal, 96(1), 9–28. Hart, R., & Baptist, B. (1996). Developing teacher leaders: A state initiative. In G. Moller & M. Katzenmeyer (Eds.), Every teacher as a leader: Realizing the potential of teacher leadership (pp. 85–100). Jossey-Bass. Hartley, D. (2010). The management of education and the social theory of the firm: From distributed leadership to collaborative community. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 42(4), 345–361. Heller, D. A. (1994). The problem with power. In D. R. Walling (Ed.), Teachers as leaders: Perspectives on the professional development of teachers (pp. 287–297). Phi Delta Kappa. Hinchey, P. H. (1997, May/June). Teacher leadership: Introduction: The Clearing House, 70(5), 233–236. Ho, J., & Ng, D. (2017). Tensions in distributed leadership. Educational Administration Quarterly, 53(2), 223–254. Huberman, M. (1993). The model of the independent artisan in teachers’ professional relations. In J. W. little & M. W. McLaughlin (Eds.), Teachers’ work: Individuals, colleagues, and contexts (pp. 9–50). Teachers College Press. Hulpia, H., & Devos, G. (2009). Exploring the link between distributed leadership and job satisfaction of school leaders. Educational Studies, 35(2), 153–171. Ingersoll, R. M. (1996, April). Teachers’ decision-making power and school conflict. Sociology of Education, 69(2), 159–176. Institute for Educational Leadership. (2001, April). Leadership for student learning: Redefining the teacher as leader. Author. James, K. T., Mann, J., & Creasy, J. (2007). Leaders as lead learners: A case example of facilitating collaborative leadership learning for school leaders. Management Learning, 38(1), 79–94. Johnson, B. L. (1998). Organizing for collaboration: A reconsideration of some basic organizing principles. In D. G. Pounder (Ed.), Restructuring schools for collaboration: Promises and pitfalls (pp. 9–25). State University of New York Press. Johnson, J., & Hynes, M. C. (1997, Fall). Teaching/learning/leading: Synonyms for change. Action in Teacher Research, 19(3), 107–119.

112

6 Barriers

Katzenmeyer, M., & Moller, G. (2001). Awakening the sleeping giant: Helping teachers develop as leaders. Corwin. Keedy, J. L. (1999). Examining teacher instructional leadership within the small group dynamics of collegial groups. Teaching and Teacher Education, 15(7), 785–799. Killion, J. P. (1996). Moving beyond the school: Teacher leaders in the district office. In G. Moller & M. Katzenmeyer (Eds.), Every teacher as a leader: Realizing the potential of teacher leadership (pp. 63–84). Jossey-Bass. Kowalski, T. J. (1995). Preparing teachers to be leaders: Barriers in the work-place. In M. J. O’Hair & S. J. Odell (Eds.), Educating teachers for leadership and change (pp. 243–256). Corwin Press. Lambert, L. (2003). Leadership capacity for lasting school improvement. ASCD. Leblanc, P. R., & Shelton, M. M. (1997). Teacher leadership: The needs of teachers. Action in Teacher Education, 19(3), 32–48. Leithwood, K., Jantzi, D., Ryan, S., & Steinbach, R. (1997, March). Distributed leadership in secondary schools. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL. Leithwood, K., Jantzi, D., & Steinbach, R. (1999). Changing leadership for changing times. McGraw-Hill Education. Leithwood, K., Patten, S., & Jantzi, D. (2010). Testing a conception of how school leadership influences student learning. Educational Administration Quarterly, 46(5), 671–706. Lieberman, A. (1988). Building a professional culture in schools. Teachers College Press. Lieberman, A. (1992). Teacher leadership: What are we learning? In C. Livingston (Ed.), Teachers as leaders: Evolving roles (pp. 159–165). National Education Association. Lieberman, A., & Miller, L. (1999). Teachers—Transforming their world and their work. Teachers College Press. Little, J. W. (1985). Teachers as teacher advisors: The delicacy of collegial leadership. Educational Leadership, 43(3), 34–36. Little, J. W. (1987). Teachers as colleagues. In V. Richardson-Koehler (Ed.), Educators’ handbook: A research perspective (pp. 491–518). Longman. Little, J. W. (1988). School as a place to have a career. In A. Lieberman (Ed.), Assessing the prospects for teacher leadership (pp. 78–108). Teachers College Press. Little, J. W. (1990). The persistence of privacy: Autonomy and initiative in teachers’ professional relations. Teachers College Record, 91(4), 509–536. Little, J. W. (1995). Contested ground: The basis of teacher leadership in two restructuring high schools. The Elementary School Journal, 96(1), 47–63. Little, J. W., & McLaughlin, M. W. (1993). Introduction: Perspectives on cultures and contexts of teaching. In J. W. Little & M. W. McLaughlin (Eds.), Teachers’ work: Individuals, colleagues, and contexts (pp. 1–8). Teachers College Press. Littrell, P. C., Billingsley, B. S., & Cross, L. H. (1994). The effects of principal support on special and general educators’ stress, job satisfaction, school commitment, health, and intent to stay in teaching. Remedial and Special Education, 15(5), 297–310. Liu, Y., Bellibas, M. S., & Printy, S. (2016). How school context and educator characteristics predict distributed leadership: A hierarchical structural equation model with 2013 TALIS data. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 46(3), 401–423. Lortie, D. (1975). School teacher. University of Chicago Press. Louis, K., Leithwood, K., Wahlstrom, K., & Anderson, S. (2010). Investigating the links to improved student learning: Final report of research findings. Walton Foundation. Louis, K. S., Mayrowetz, Murphy, J., & Smylie, M. (2013). Making sense of distributed leadership: How secondary school educators look at job design. International Journal for Educational Leadership and Management, 1(1), 33–67. Lynch, C. A., & Strodl, P. (1991). Teacher leadership: Preliminary development of a questionnaire. Paper presented at the annual conference of the Eastern Educational Research Association, Boston, MA.

References

113

Mangin, M. M. (2007). Facilitating elementary principals’ support for instructional teacher leadership. Educational Administration Quarterly, 43(3), 319–357. Manthei, J. (1992). The mentor teacher as leader: The motives, characteristics and needs of seventy-three experienced teachers who seek a new leadership role. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED346042). Mascall, B., Leithwood, K., Straus, T., & Sacks, R. (2008). The relationship between distributed leadership and teachers’ academic optimism. Journal of Educational Administration, 46(2), 214– 228. May, H., & Supovitz, J. A. (2011). The scope of principal efforts to improve instruction. Educational Administration Quarterly., 47(2), 332–352. Mayrowetz, D., Murphy, J., Seashore Louis, K., & Smylie, M. A. (2007). Distributed leadership as work redesign: Retrofitting the job characteristics model. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 6(1), 69–101. McCay, L., Flora, J., Hamilton, A., & Riley, J. F. (2001, Spring). Reforming schools through teacher leadership: A program for classroom teachers as agents of change. Educational Horizons, 79(3), 135–142. Meyer, J., & Rowan, B. (1975). Notes on the structure of educational organizations: Revised version. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco, CA. Midgley, C., & Woods, S. (1993, November). Beyond site-based management: Empowering teachers to reform schools. Phi Delta Kappan, 75(3), 245–252. Miller, B., Moon, J., & Elko, S. (2000). Teacher leadership in mathematics and science: Casebook and facilitator’s guide. Heinemann. Miškolci, J. (2017). Contradictions in practising distributed leadership in public primary schools in New South Wales (Australia) and Slovakia. School Leadership & Management, 37(3), 234–253. Mitchell, A. (1997, Fall). Teacher identity: A key to increased collaboration. Action in Teacher Education, 19(3), 1–14. Moller, G., & Katzenmeyer, M. (1996). The promise of teacher leadership. In G. Moller & M. Katzenmeyer (Eds.), Every teacher as a leader: Realizing the potential of teacher leadership (pp. 1–18). Jossey-Bass. Monson, M. P., & Monson, R. J. (1993, October). Who creates curriculum? New roles for teachers. Educational Leadership, 51(2), 19–21. Murphy, J. (1990). Principal instructional leadership. In L. S. Lotto & P. W. Thurston (Eds.), Advances in educational administration: Changing perspectives on the school (Vol. l, Part B.). JAI Press. Murphy, J. (2005). Connecting teacher leadership and school improvement. Corwin Press. Murphy, J. (2016). Creating instructional capacity. Corwin Press. Murphy, J., & Beck, L. G. (1995). School-based management as school reform: Taking stock. Corwin. Murphy, J., Hallinger, P., Lotto, L. S., & Miller, S. K. (1987). Barriers to implementing the instructional leadership role. Canadian Administrator, 27(3), 1–9. Murphy, J., Beck, L., Crawford, M., Hodges, A., & McGaughy, C. (2001). The productive high school: Creating personalized academic communities. Corwin Press. Myers, M. S. (1970). Every employee a manager: More meaningful work through job enrichment. McGraw-Hill. Odell, S. J. (1997, Fall). Preparing teachers for teacher leadership. Action Teacher Education, 19(3), 120–124. Pellicer, L. O., & Anderson, L. W. (1995). A Handbook for Teacher Leaders. Corwin Press. Penuel, W. R., Riel, M., Joshi, A., Pearlman, L., Kim, C. M., & Frank, K. A. (2010). The alignment of the informal and formal organizational supports for reform: Implications for improving teaching in schools. Educational Administration Quarterly, 46(1), 57–95.

114

6 Barriers

Pounder, D. G. (Ed.). (1998). Restructuring schools for collaboration: Promises and pitfalls. SUNY Press. Printy, S. M. (2008). Leadership for Teacher Learning: A Community of Practice Perspective. Educational Administration Quarterly, 44(2), 187–226. Rallis, S. F. (1990). Professional teachers and restructured schools: Leadership challenges. In B. Mitchell & L. L. Cunningham (Eds.), Educational leadership in changing contexts of families, communities, and schools: Eighty-ninth yearbook of the national society for the study of education (pp. 184–209). National Society for the Study of Education. Ritchie, R., & Woods, P. A. (2007). Degrees of distribution: Towards an understanding of variations in the nature of distributed leadership in schools. School Leadership and Management, 27(4), 363–381. Robinson, V. M. (2008). Forging the links between distributed leadership and educational outcomes. Journal of Educational Administration, 46(2), 241–256. Rosenholtz, S. J. (1989). Teachers’ workplace: The social organization of schools. Addison-Wesley Longman Ltd. Scribner, J. P., Sawyer, R. K., Watson, S. T., & Myers, V. L. (2007). Teacher teams and distributed leadership: A study of group discourse and collaboration. Educational Administration Quarterly, 43(1), 67–100. Sherrill, J. A. (1999). Preparing teachers for leadership roles in the 21st Century. Theory into Practice, 38(1), 56–61. Silva, D. Y., Gimbert, B., & Nolan, J. (2000). Sliding the doors: Locking and unlocking possibilities for teacher leadership. Teachers College Record, 102(4), 779–804. Sizer, T. R. (1984). Horace’s compromise: The dilemma of the American high school. Houghton Mifflin. Smith-Burke, M. T. (1996, Winter). Professional development for teacher leaders: Promoting program ownership and increased success. Reading Recovery Council Network News, 1–4, 13, 15. Smylie, M. A. (1992a). Teacher participation in school decision making: Assessing willingness to participate. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 14(1), 53–67. Smylie, M. A. (1992b). Teachers’ reports of their interactions with teacher leaders concerning classroom instruction. The Elementary School Journal, 93(1), 85–98. Smylie, M. A. (1995). New perspectives on teacher leadership. The Elementary School Journal, 96(1), 3–7. Smylie, M. A. (1996). Research on teacher leadership: Assessing the state of the art. In B. J. Biddle, T. L. Good, & I. F. Goodson (Eds.), International handbook of teachers and teaching (pp. 521–592). Kluwer Academic. Smylie, M. A., & Denny, J. W. (1989, March). Teacher leadership: Tensions and ambiguities in organizational perspective. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. San Francisco, CA. Smylie, M. A., & Denny, J. W. (1990). Teacher leadership: Tensions and ambiguities in organizational perspective. Educational Administration Quarterly, 26(3), 235–259. Smylie, M. A., & Brownlee-Conyers, J. (1992). Teacher leaders and their principals: Exploring the development of new working relationships. Educational Administration Quarterly, 28(2), 150–184. Smylie, M. A., & Hart, A. W. (1999). School leadership for teacher learning: A human and social capital development perspective. In J. Murphy & K. S. Louis (Eds.), Handbook of research on educational administration (2nd ed., pp. 421–441). Jossey-Bass. Smylie, M., Mayrowetz, D., Murphy, J., & Louis, K. S. (2008). Trust and the development of distributed leadership. Journal of School Leadership, 17(4), 469–503. Smylie, M. A., Conley, S., & Marks, H. M. (2011). Exploring new approaches to teacher leadership for school improvement. In E. M. Hilty (Ed.), Teacher leadership: The ‘new’ foundations of teacher education: A reader (pp. 265–282). Peter Lang. Smylie, M., Murphy, J., & Seashore Louis, K. S. (2020). Caring school leadership. Corwin Press.

References

115

Smyser, S. O. (1995, Autumn). Developing the teacher leader. Teacher Education, 32(2), 130–137. Snell, J., & Swanson, J. (2000, April). The essential knowledge and skills of teacher leaders: A search for a conceptual framework. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. New Orleans, LA. Spillane, J. P. (2006). Distributed leadership. Jossey-Bass. Stigler, J. W., & Hiebert, J. (1999). The teaching gap: Best ideas from the world’s teachers for improving education in the classroom. The Free Press. Stone, M., Horejs, J., & Lomas, A. (1997). Commonalities and differences in teacher leadership at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Action in Teacher Education, 19(3), 49–64. Suleiman, M., & Moore, R. (1997). Teachers roles revisited: Beyond classroom management. Paper presented at the ATE summer workshop, Tarpon Springs, FL. Supovitz, J. A., & Poglinco, S. M. (2001). Instructional leadership in a standards-based reform. Consortium for Policy Research in Education. Supovitz, J. A., & Tognatta, N. (2013). The impact of distributed leadership on collaborative team decision making. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 12(2), 101–121. Swanson, J. (2000, April). What differentiates an excellent teacher from a teacher leader? Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA. Tahir, L. M., Lee, S. L., Musah, M. B., Jaffri, H., Said, M. N. H. M., & Yasin, M. H. M. (2016). Challenges in distributed leadership: Evidence from the perspective of head teachers. International Journal of Educational Management, 30(6), 848–863. Teitel, L. (1996). Finding common ground: Teacher leaders and principals. In G. Moller & M. Katzenmeyer (Eds.), Every teacher as a leader: Realizing the potential of teacher leadership (pp. 139–154). Jossey-Bass. Torrance, D. (2013). Distributed leadership: Challenging five generally held assumptions. School Leadership & Management, 33(4), 354–372. Troen, V., & Boles, K. (1994). Two teachers examine the power of teacher leadership. In D. R. Walling (Ed.), Teachers as leaders: Perspectives on the professional development of teachers (pp. 275–286). Phi Delta Kappa. Uline, C. L., & Berkowitz, J. M. (2000). Transforming school culture through teaching teams. Journal of School Leadership, 10(1), 416–444. Unterrainer, C., Jeppesen, H. J., & Jønsson, T. F. (2017). Distributed Leadership Agency and its relationship to individual autonomy and occupational self-efficacy: A two wave-mediation study in Denmark. Humanistic Management Journal, 2(1), 57–81. Urbanski, A., & Nickolaou, M. B. (1997, June). Reflections on teacher leadership. Educational Policy, 11(2), 243–254. Van Der Vegt, G. S., & Bunderson, J. S. (2005). Learning and performance in multidisciplinary teams: The importance of collective team identification. Academy of Management Journal, 48(3), 532–547. Wahlstrom, K. L., & Louis, K. S. (2008). How teachers experience principal leadership: The roles of professional community, trust, efficacy, and shared responsibility. Educational Administration Quarterly, 44(4), 458–495. Wallace, M. (2001). Sharing leadership of schools through teamwork: A justifiable risk? Educational Management & Administration, 29(2), 153–167. Wasley, P. (1991). Teachers who lead: The rhetoric of reform and the realities of practice. Teachers College Press. Weick, K. E. (1976, March). Educational organizations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative Science Quarterly, 21(1), 1–19. Wenger, E., McDermott, R. A., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge. Harvard Business Press. Whitaker, T. (1995, January). Informed teacher leadership—the key to successful change in the middle level school. NASSP Bulletin, 79(567), 76–81.

116

6 Barriers

Whitaker, K. S. (1997, Summer). Developing teacher leadership and the management team concept. A case study. Teacher Education, 33(1), 1–16. Wilson, M. (1993). The search for teacher leaders. Educational Leadership, 50(6), 24–27. Wright, L. L. (2008). Merits and limitations of distributed leadership: Experiences and understandings of school principals. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, 69, 1–33. Yarger, S. J., & Lee, O. (1994). The development and sustenance of instructional leadership. In D. R. Walling (Ed.), Teachers as leaders: Perspectives on the professional development of teachers (pp. 223–237). Phi Delta Kappa. York-Barr, J., & Duke, K. (2004). What do we know about teacher leadership? Findings from two decades of scholarship. Review of Educational Research, 74(3), 255–316. Zhang, J., & Faerman, S. R. (2007). Distributed leadership in the development of a knowledge sharing system. European Journal of Information Systems, 16(4), 479–493.

Chapter 7

Dangers

In a number of the earlier sections, we reported that communities of school leadership is not well grounded and that reality often places it in danger (Lumby, 2016; Tian et al., 2016). “It remains an unclear and divergent concept” (Devos et al., 2013, p. 209). It is “conceptually murky” and a “contested topic” (Mifsud, 2017, p. 978). Even if educators find that communities of school leadership can be brought to life, gains are questionable. Some analysts suggest that communities of school leadership does not really “offer anything new”—that they are “the emperor’s new clothes” (Bolden, 2011, p. 254); and a “buzzword”. These reviewers hold that it is “leadership déjà vu” (Gordon, 2010, p. 261)—“the proverbial old wine in new skins” (Pearce et al., 2014, p. 277). Harris, a major scholar in the broad area of shared leadership, worries that the “chameleon-like quality of the term … immediately invites misinterpretation and misunderstanding” (Harris, 2012, p. 11). And indeed, conceptualizations of what communities of school leadership is “vary widely” (Tahir et al., 2016, p. 848). Not surprisingly then, in both the conceptual and evidence domains investors rely a good deal upon distal theoretical foundations, “simplistic advocacy” (Woods & Gronn, 2009, p. 443), “sketchy, testimonial evidence” (Mohrman et al., 1992, p. 353), evangelism (Lumby, 2013), and rhetoric of “faith and logic” (Conway, 1984, p. 33) and “advocacy” (Gunter et al., 2013, p. 565) to define and support communities of school leadership. It leaves one to wonder if communities of school leadership is simply another dead fish on the rolling tide of failed school reform (Mayrowetz, 2008) or whether issues of interpretation still hold the high ground. We also discover that communities of school leadership can and has been used in contradictory ways in a school and in different ways in different schools (Gronn, 2003). Smylie and Denny (1990) remind us that teachers often form their own conceptualizations of what roles and responsibilities should be. Teachers also form varied opinions and different levels of voice based upon the different domains of schooling in play (Wenger et al., 2002). There are also quite reasonable concerns about the empirical basis of support for communities of school leadership, especially about the lack of empirical data (Klar et al., 2016; Torrance, 2013). That is, an essential concern is that communities of school leadership will generate a great deal of effort and large expenditures absent a © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. F. Murphy, Understanding Communities of School Leadership, SpringerBriefs in Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23759-1_7

117

118

7 Dangers

strong cluster of findings (Holloway et al., 2017; Supovitz & Riggan, 2012). Some research suggests that community leadership does not strengthen student learning and may actually hurt improvement work (D’Innocenzo et al., 2016; Feng et al., 2017), although there is a growing body of work that finds community leadership is positively linked to the earlier antecedents of team performance (Mayrowetz, 2008). Hartley (2010, p. 354) reminds us that there is no direct causal relationship here and clearly no research available for “prescribing best practice.” Harris (2012) concurs with this assessment concluding that “the distributed leadership evidential base is not robust enough to offer definitive leadership models, blueprints, or algorithms” (p. 15; Klar et al., 2016). In sum, to date “empirical research presents a less [than] rosy outlook” (Mayrowetz, 2008, p. 430). For example, in their examination of communities of school leadership in secondary schools, Louis et al. (2013) found that “although teachers involvement in leadership was clear, [communities of school leadership] did not as the overall model suggests, lead to consistent improvement” either in student engagement (Grant, 2011) or learning outcomes. Supovitz and Riggan (2012) report similar findings. Collective leadership is marked by a significant number of conditions and problems that can undermine its implementation in schools. One of the most severe dangers is the limited attention to two of the three domains of productive reform— the change process (Bouwmans et al., 2017; Kempster et al., 2014) and the context (Liljenberg, 2015; Murphy, 2020) including the false belief that teachers can overcome context (D’Innocenzo et al., 2016), i.e., “[i]nvolving teachers in management decisions can lead to serious consequences” (Conway & Calzi, 1995, p. 46) and “harmful practices” (Tahir et al., 2016, p. 858) in the natural flow of their work (Wenger et al., 2002). We also know now that communities of school leadership has the power to displace productive programs and activities in schools. While it is also held that communities of school leadership can be useful, according to Silva et al. (2000) there is no way to insure this or to even know if a school is tipping the scale in the favor of communities of school leadership. Other scholars have also reminded us that teacher leadership in the work of schooling can ignite dangers (Conway & Calzi, 1995; Likert, 1979), dangers that receive very little attention in research. Harris and DeFlaminis (2016), for example, show us how communities of school leadership “can go wrong” proving to be disastrous for those with formal leadership responsibilities (p. 143) which can set up a “theoretical paradox” in regard to the empowerment of followers (Gordon, 2010, p. 265). It can also “open up” schooling to unwanted inspection (Pickler, 1987). Other related problems at this level include a lack of attention to the policy work in and around communities of school leadership and a near absence of attention to actors at the district level (Louis et al., 2010). “Nor does literature attend much to the question of power and its asymmetrical distributions of who distributes what and to whom, when, and why” (Hartley, 2010, p. 354). Neither are the unintended consequences of communities of school leadership, more “potential risks, often laid out” (Tian et al., 2016, p. 155). There is a sense that even if important findings, either positive or negative, are uncovered that such information would not lead to clear guidelines for practice (Harris, 2009). The assumptions in the communities

7 Dangers

119

of school leadership narrative that relationships between and among teachers are positive and that trust is high (Serrat, 2017) are, as we discuss below, absent support. It is also noteworthy how little progress has been seen in efforts to develop reliable instruments to measure communities of school leadership. Observers often report that the work of building shared leadership surfaces, and sometimes opens up new tensions, neglect, conflict, and uncertainty (Grant, 2011; Pounder, 1999), inequity (Klar et al., 2016), and anarchy (Holloway et al., 2017; Ritchie & Woods, 2007). We are also reminded that communities of school leadership can possibly produce “groupthink” (Janis cited by Neck & Manz, 1994, p. 931) and the misunderstanding that “everyone leads” (Harris & DeFlaminis, 2016, p. 144) which can have “serious narrowing and dwarfing consequences” (Likert, 1979, p. 224). Administrators have also shown that collaboration constructed by teachers can be undermined or killed off by school leaders (Firestone & Martinez, 2007) and that multiple sources of leadership in collective work can lead to the pursuit of “different, even conflicting goals” (Spillane, 2006, p. 40; Harris, 2012). Pickler (1987, p. 6) in turn, makes the case clear when noting “that those who become enamored with the prospective benefits of teaming, do so at some peril.” Grant (2011, p. 27) expands on this, reporting that communities of school leadership can be seen as “a subtle strategy for indoctrination among staff of the values and goals of the more powerful members in the organization” to reinforce the domination of particular individuals and groups over others” (Bolden, 2011, p. 260)—to see “the same leaders applying constraint and control in new ways” (Crawford, 2012, p. 615). Analysts are also worried that communities of school leadership can “be reduced to a tool of government reform” (Youngs, 2009, p. 383). So too does the simultaneous commitment to communities of school leadership and market-driven reforms (Hartley, 2010). Perhaps the most significant danger we see is misuse by leaders to ensure that teacher contributions stay inside the boundaries set by those leaders, and to keep control of the school and/or to overwork teachers (Halverson & Clifford, 2013; Hatcher, 2005). Harris and DeFlaminis (2016, p. 143) observe that communities of school leadership can be seen in places as “a subtle means of control or a conspiratorial plot imposed upon gullible unsuspecting teachers”—as a palpable way of encouraging teachers to do more work or a form of exploitive leadership (Leithwood et al., 2009). That is “empowerment may be a form of managerial rhetoric designed to increase top-down managerial control” (Seibert et al., 2011, p. 983)—“a subtle strategy for indoctrinating among staff [the] values and goals of more members of the organization” (Grant, 2011, p. 27). It is worth reinforcing that in communities of school leadership process troubles can arise between teachers and the principal (Ovando, 1996). This line of analysis underscores the knowledge that communities of school leadership can build a defensive source of solidarity among teachers that can polarize relations required for shared leadership to work well (Silva et al., 2000). It can surface long plastered over frustrations. Tian et al. (2016) also raise the possibility that communities of school leadership may encourage principals to lay back to give teachers the opportunity to work with minimal direction or assistance. Teachers, in turn, may perceive this as a

120

7 Dangers

saddling of teachers with administrative responsibilities (Silva et al., 2000). Because communities of school leadership crosses “structural boundaries … it can result in conflicting priorities, targets, and timescales” (Harris, 2009, p. 13). Among teachers themselves, communities of school leadership can cause damage rather than provide help. Wenger et al. (2002, p. 143) reveal how shared leadership can produce “fractionalism” and “dogmatism.” When teachers have “strong commitments to their domains, their disagreements can turn to religious wars … with individuals in factions fighting for their own special interests, approach, or school of thought. This type of “imperialism” (Wenger et al., 2002, p. 142), “blind defensive solidarity” (p. 145), and “pride of ownership” can lead to “arrogance” (p. 141), both within and across leadership teams and schools. Harris (2009), for example, reveals “evidence that shows that informal leadership ‘dispersion’ can negatively affect team outcomes contributing to inefficiencies within the team” and that having “fewer informal leaders was positively related to task efficiency over time” (p. 159). We also know that principals often “express vulnerability” when they believe that communities of school leadership is “threatening the coherence they deem essential to improvement” (Wright, 2008, pp. 20–21), as well as their own personal and professional well being (Mangin, 2005, p. 23; Silva et al., 2000, p. 787), such as when they still feel “an acute sense of personal accountability for the school’s performance” (Harris, 2013, p. 124) and especially when their “views of teachers leadership has different implications for the roles teachers expect the leader to perform (Smylie & Denny, 1990, p. 252). Researchers also explain that “communities of school leadership activity can significantly constrain reform efforts” (Daly et al., 2010, p. 359) and that efforts can be “compromised through disjunction between norms followed by the head teacher” and those of other members of a community of leadership work group (Wallace, 2001, p. 165). It is not unusual here to witness declining commitment and disengagement (Hulpia et al., 2011) by those who feel unempowered (Wallace, 2001). This seems especially likely when the opportunity of more formal leadership roles are seen by other teachers as hierarchical in form and nature, as “undermining professional equality” (Smylie & Denny, 1990, p. 250)—a core element of school culture we examined earlier. There are reports of communities of school leadership work in which teachers end up pursuing “different or even conflicting visions” (Spillane, 2006, p. 40) and varied goals, including “working to maintain the status quo” (p. 41). Scholars also document that different teams inevitably create the types of boundaries (Wenger et al., 2002) which underscore natural variations such as grade levels and subject areas make “moving knowledge a notoriously difficult challenge” (p. 151). They can direct work in different directions. They also can create “toxic coziness that closes people to exploration and external input” (Wenger et al., 2002, p. 144). It may interfere with and make the search for “context sensitivity” in the quest for answers all the more difficult (Wallace, 2001, p. 165) as well as “increase the opportunities for organizational conflicts” (Hulpia & Devos, 2009, p. 156).

7 Dangers

121

Mayrowetz (2008) also reinforces the possibility of negative outcomes from communities of school leadership. He maintains that greater participation in leadership can lead to stress. He reports that “the benefits of participation do not necessarily accrue to better teaching practices or to the benefit of the school organization as a whole” (p. 429), results more likely to occur when the teachers’ views of communities of school leadership conflict with those of the principal (Smylie & Denny, 1990). Situations have been documented in which a minority of teachers, often a small minority, end up carrying almost all the new leadership work by themselves (Murphy et al., 2009). We have already reported that strong trusting relationships are the key to teacher action. We note here that while communities of school leadership can move schools in that direction, it also may generate a “fragile set of relationships” (Firestone & Martinez, 2007, p. 17) that in turn may hold teacher action as is rather than deepen it. It also has been employed as a way for school leaders “to avoid the responsibility for decisions” (Likert, 1979, p. 224). Investigations remind us that teachers sometimes avoid the work of communities of school leadership (Tahir et al., 2016) because “participation may infringe on the discretionary time that teachers allocate for instruction-related activities” (Marks & Louis, 1997, p. 250; Ovando, 1996) and it “requires teachers to absorb increased administrative responsibilities” (Holloway et al., 2017, p. 539). Marks and Louis (1997) also explain that communities of school leadership can “temper empowerment to the extent that it reduces individual autonomy …. Thus, some [teachers] prefer not to participate in decision making at all, to participate in a minimal way, or to participate selectively, for example, only when their interests are at stake” (p. 247). In other cases, they are immobilized by the absence of the needed skill sets and the failure of the organization to provide needed training (Holloway et al., 2017). “They may also respond in ways that create barriers to cooperative action” (Sanders, 2006, p. 297). Certainly, the most egregious damage—“the dark side” of communities of school leadership (Harris, 2013, p. 70)—entails efforts on the part of school leaders to manipulate collaborative work as a means of control. That is, to use communities of school leadership “to engender compliance with dominant goals and values and harnessing staff commitment, ideas, and expertise to realizing these” (Hatcher, 2005, p. 257) without the allocation of power to reach new targets (Bolden, 2011; Holloway et al., 2017), as “motivational devices to re-energize a dispirited profession into producing more effective and enthusiastic delivery of imposed government performance targets” (Hargreaves & Fink, 2008, p. 230) or time to do communities of school leadership with “assignments that constrain such work” (Firestone & Martinez, 2007, p. 24)— “a way for the administration to pass off work” (Smylie et al., 2008, p. 492), to “increase the burdens and responsibilities of teachers without actually increasing their power” (Crawford, 2012; Grant, 2011, p. 27). They can be used simply as motivational devices to help teachers feel better (Hargreaves & Fink, 2008). Firestone and Martinez (2007) show one case “in which the inner life of the teacher is molded

122

7 Dangers

to take on the vision, enthusiasm, and emotions that aid progress toward organizational goals” (Ritchie & Woods, 2007, p. 365), or “a form of managerial rhetoric designed to increase managerial top down control” (Seibert et al., 2011, p. 989)—a new type of “micro management” (Bush & Glover, 2012, p. 29) or “delegation rather than distribution” (Mifsud, 2017, p. 995) in which communities of school leadership is “willfully or woefully misinterpreted by those in position of power” (Harris & DeFlaminis, 2016, p. 143). Much of the empowerment may turn out to be horizontal not vertical, thereby preserving the “hierarchical order and ownership of control” (Hartley, 2010, p. 361; Holloway et al., 2017), the “same leaders applying constraint and control in new ways” (Crawford, 2012, p. 615). Thus, “issues such as the just distribution of power or democratization of educational organizations are absent from models of [communities of school leadership] generated within the confines of the dominant policy discourse” (Bolden, 2011; Ritchie & Woods, 2007, p. 365). We know that “principals can be barriers to distributing leadership by (a) holding tightly to power and control, (b) nurturing alternate leaders, and (c) choosing to include only those who support their agenda” (Wright, 2008, p. 1)—a “closed form” (p. 2) of communities of school leadership to “inadvertently or explicably secure and coerce commitment of teachers to improvement interventions of government reforms” (p. 3). They can also be obstacles when traditional ways of operating are dropped, when conventional ethos and procedures … are abandoned” (Woods & Gronn, 2009, p. 442). This is open ground for the distribution of power as well as of abuse. In these instances, empowerment can become “structural mechanisms of control through the efforts of teachers that are more tightly coupled to standardized performance expectations” (Scribner et al., 2007, p. 72). Leaders have also been known to damage communities of school leadership by having new activities “performed in ways that are at variance” with the definition of the concept. Smylie and Denny (1990, p. 252) describe one example of this when “instead of working at the classroom level, teacher leaders work primarily at the building and district levels. Instead of working directly with other teachers on issues related to classroom practice, teacher leaders devoted most of their time to program development, decision making, and working with administrators.” Marks and Louis (1997, p. 246) and Unterrainer et al. (2017, p. 76) remind us how “formalistic participation strategies,” “normal participation,” and “pseudo-participation” pay lip service to teacher empowerment and show us how hollow forms of empowerment can breed disenchantment and even cynicism” (Marks & Louis, 1997, p. 246) and resistance against similar communities of school leadership efforts. Based on her powerful reviews and hallmark studies, Harris (2013, p. 7) raises the possibility that communities of school leadership may be “little more than a palatable way of encouraging gullible teachers to do more work, a way of reinforcing standardization of practice [and] a way of reinforcing the ‘status quo’—simply old managerialism in contemporary guise”—“a new type of managerialism” (Hargreaves & Fink, 2008, p. 239; Tian et al., 2016, p. 157) or a “euphemism for strategic manipulation” (Frost & Durant, 2002, p. 153) by teachers who enjoy the taste of leadership for the first time. “The extra responsibilities of

References

123

teachers outside their classrooms can negatively impact instruction by moving time away from learning and teaching and toward management work (Holloway et al., 2017; Ovando, 1996). Researchers also note that communities of school leadership can produce “a sense that teachers are undervalued” and underpaid, and a sense of conflict among teachers who are used to working individually (Chrispeels et al., 2000).

References Bolden, R. (2011). Distributed leadership in organizations: A review of theory and research. International Journal of Management Reviews, 13(3), 251–269. Bouwmans, M., Runhaar, P., Wesselink, R., & Mulder, M. (2017). Towards distributed leadership in vocational education and training schools: The interplay between formal leaders and team members. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 1–17. Bush, T., & Glover, D. (2012). Distributed leadership in action: Leading high-performing leadership teams in English schools. School Leadership & Management, 32(1), 21–36. Chrispeels, J. H., Castillo, S., & Brown, J. (2000). School leadership teams: A process model of team development. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 11(1), 20–56. Conway, J. A. (1984). The myth, mystery, and mastery of participative decision making in education. Educational Administration Quarterly, 20(3), 11–40. Conway, J. A., & Calzi, F. (1995). The dark side of shared decision making. Educational Leadership, 53(4), 45–49. Crawford, M. (2012). Solo and distributed leadership: Definitions and dilemmas. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 40(5), 610–620. D’Innocenzo, L., Mathieu, J. E., & Kukenberger, M. R. (2016). A meta-analysis of different forms of shared leadership–team performance relations. Journal of Management, 42(7), 1964–1991. Daly, A. J., Moolenaar, N. M., Bolivar, J. M., & Burke, P. (2010). Relationships in reform: The role of teachers’ social networks. Journal of Educational Administration, 48(3), 359–391. Devos, G., Tuytens, M., & Hulpia, H. (2013). Teachers’ organizational commitment: Examining the mediating effects of distributed leadership. American Journal of Education, 120(2), 205–231. Feng, Y., Hao, B., Iles, P., & Brown, N. (2017). Rethinking distributed leadership: Dimensions, antecedents and team effectiveness. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 38(2), 284–302. Firestone, W. A., & Martinez, C. M. (2007). Districts, teacher leaders, and distributed leadership: Changing instructional practice. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 6(1), 3–35. Frost, D., & Durrant, J. (2002). Teachers as leaders: Exploring the impact of teacher-led development work. School Leadership & Management, 22(2), 143–161. Gordon, R. D. (2010). Dispersed leadership: Exploring the impact of antecedent forms of power using a communicative framework. Management Communication Quarterly, 24(2), 260–287. Grant, C. P. (2011). The relationship between distributed leadership and principal’s leadership effectiveness in North Carolina. (Dissertation). North Carolina State University. Gronn, P. (2003). The new work of educational leaders: Changing leadership practice in an era of school reform. Sage. Gunter, H., Hall, D., & Bragg, J. (2013). Distributed leadership: A study in knowledge production. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 41(5), 555–580. Halverson, R., & Clifford, M. (2013). Distributed instructional leadership in high schools. Journal of School Leadership, 23(2), 389–419. Hargreaves, A., & Fink, D. (2008). Distributed leadership: Democracy or delivery? Journal of Educational Administration, 46(2), 229–240.

124

7 Dangers

Harris, A. (2009). Distributed leadership: What we know. Springer Science & Business Media. Harris, A. (2012). Distributed leadership: Implications for the role of the principal. Journal of Management Development, 31(1), 7–17. Harris, A. (2013). Distributed school leadership: Developing tomorrow’s leaders. Routledge. Harris, A., & DeFlaminis, J. (2016). Distributed leadership in practice: Evidence, misconceptions and possibilities. Management in Education, 30(4), 141–146. Hartley, D. (2010). The management of education and the social theory of the firm: From distributed leadership to collaborative community. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 42(4), 345–361. Hatcher, R. (2005). The distribution of leadership and power in schools. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 26(2), 253–267. Holloway, J., Nielsen, A., & Saltmarsh, S. (2017). Prescribed distributed leadership in the era of accountability: The experiences of mentor teachers. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 46(4), 538–555. Hulpia, H., & Devos, G. (2009). Exploring the link between distributed leadership and job satisfaction of school leaders. Educational Studies, 35(2), 153–171. Hulpia, H., Devos, G., & Van Keer, H. (2011). The relation between school leadership from a distributed perspective and teachers’ organizational commitment: Examining the source of the leadership function. Educational Administration Quarterly, 47(5), 728–771. Kempster, S., Higgs, M., & Wuerz, T. (2014). Pilots for change: Exploring organisational change through distributed leadership. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 35(2), 152– 167. Klar, H. W., Huggins, K. S., Hammonds, H. L., & Buskey, F. C. (2016). Fostering the capacity for distributed leadership: A post-heroic approach to leading school improvement. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 19(2), 111–137. Leithwood, K. A., Mascall, B., & Straus, T. (2009). What we have learned and where we go from here. In K. Leithwood, B. Mascall, & T. Strauss (Eds.), Distributed leadership according to the evidence (pp. 269–281). Routledge. Likert, R. (1979). Group Dynamics. In D. A. Kolb, I. M. Rubin, & J. M. McIntyre (Eds.), Organizational Psychology (pp. 223–227). Prentice Hall. Liljenberg, M. (2015). Distributing leadership to establish development and learning school organizations in Swedish context. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 43(1), 152–170. Louis, K., Leithwood, K., Wahlstrom, K., & Anderson, S. (2010). Investigating the links to improved student learning: Final report of research findings. Walton Foundation. Louis, K. S., Mayrowetz, Murphy, J., & Smylie, M. (2013). Making sense of distributed leadership: How secondary school educators look at job design. International Journal for Educational Leadership and Management, 1(1), 33–67. Lumby, J. (2013). Distributed leadership: The uses and abuses of power. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 41(5), 581–597. Lumby, J. (2016). Distributed leadership as fashion or fad. Management in Education, 30(4), 161– 167. Mangin, M. M. (2005). Distributed leadership and the culture of schools: Teacher leaders’ strategies for gaining access to classrooms. Journal of School Leadership, 15(4), 456. Marks, H. M., & Louis, K. S. (1997). Does teacher empowerment affect the classroom? The implications of teacher empowerment for instructional practice and student academic performance. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 19(3), 245–275. Mayrowetz, D. (2008). Making sense of distributed leadership: Exploring the multiple usages of the concept in the field. Educational Administration Quarterly, 44(3), 424–435. Mifsud, D. (2017). Distribution dilemmas: Exploring the presence of a tension between democracy and autocracy within a distributed leadership scenario. Educational Management Administration and Leadership, 46(6), 978–1001.

References

125

Mohrman, S. A., Lawler, E. E., III., & Mohrman, A. M., Jr. (1992). Applying employee involvement in schools. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 14(4), 347–360. Murphy, J. (2020). The five essential reasons for the failure of school reforms. Journal of Human Resources and Sustainability Studies, 8(1). Murphy, J., Smylie, M., Mayrowetz, D., & Louis, K. S. (2009). The role of the principal in fostering the development of distributed leadership. School Leadership and Management, 29(2), 181–214. Neck, C. P., & Manz, C. C. (1994). From groupthink to teamthink: Toward the creation of constructive thought patterns in self-managing work teams. Human Relations, 47(8), 929–952. Ovando, M. N. (1996). Teacher leadership: Opportunities and challenges. Planning and Changing, 27, 30–44. Pearce, C. L., Wassenaar, C. L., & Manz, C. C. (2014). Is shared leadership the key to responsible leadership? The Academy of Management Perspectives, 28(3), 275–288. Pickler, G. (1987). The evolutionary development of interdisciplinary teams. Middle School Journal, 18(2), 6–7. Pounder, D. G. (1999). Teacher teams: Exploring job characteristics and work-related outcomes of work group enhancement. Educational Administration Quarterly, 35(3), 317–348. Ritchie, R., & Woods, P. A. (2007). Degrees of distribution: Towards an understanding of variations in the nature of distributed leadership in schools. School Leadership and Management, 27(4), 363–381. Sanders, M. G. (2006). Missteps in team leadership: The experiences of six novice teachers in three urban middle schools. Urban Education, 41(3), 277–304. Scribner, J. P., Sawyer, R. K., Watson, S. T., & Myers, V. L. (2007). Teacher teams and distributed leadership: A study of group discourse and collaboration. Educational Administration Quarterly, 43(1), 67–100. Seibert, S. E., Wang, G., & Courtright, S. H. (2011). Antecedents and consequences of psychological and team empowerment in organizations: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(5), 981–1003. Serrat, O. (2017). Knowledge solutions: Tools, methods, and approaches to drive organizational performance. Springer. Silva, D. Y., Gimbert, B., & Nolan, J. (2000). Sliding the doors: Locking and unlocking possibilities for teacher leadership. Teachers College Record, 102(4), 779–804. Smylie, M. A., & Denny, J. W. (1990). Teacher leadership: Tensions and ambiguities in organizational perspective. Educational Administration Quarterly, 26(3), 235–259. Smylie, M., Mayrowetz, D., Murphy, J., & Louis, K. S. (2008). Trust and the development of distributed leadership. Journal of School Leadership, 17(4), 469–503. Spillane, J. P. (2006). Distributed leadership. Jossey-Bass. Supovitz, J. A., & Riggan, M. (2012). Building a foundation for school leadership: An evaluation of the Annenberg Distributed Leadership Project, 2006–2010. Tahir, L. M., Lee, S. L., Musah, M. B., Jaffri, H., Said, M. N. H. M., & Yasin, M. H. M. (2016). Challenges in distributed leadership: Evidence from the perspective of head teachers. International Journal of Educational Management, 30(6), 848–863. Tian, M., Risku, M., & Collin, K. (2016). A meta-analysis of distributed leadership from 2002 to 2013. Theory development, empirical evidence and future research focus. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 44(1), 146–164. Torrance, D. (2013). Distributed leadership: Challenging five generally held assumptions. School Leadership & Management, 33(4), 354–372. Unterrainer, C., Jeppesen, H. J., & Jønsson, T. F. (2017). Distributed Leadership Agency and its relationship to individual autonomy and occupational self-efficacy: A two wave-mediation study in Denmark. Humanistic Management Journal, 2(1), 57–81. Wallace, M. (2001). Sharing leadership of schools through teamwork: A justifiable risk? Educational Management & Administration, 29(2), 153–167. Wenger, E., McDermott, R. A., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge. Harvard Business Press.

126

7 Dangers

Woods, P. A., & Gronn, P. (2009). Nurturing democracy: The contribution of distributed leadership to a democratic organizational landscape. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 37(4), 430–451. Wright, L. L. (2008). Merits and limitations of distributed leadership: Experiences and understandings of school principals. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, 69, 1–33. Youngs, H. (2009). (Un) Critical times? Situating distributed leadership in the field. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 41(4), 377–389.