Leadership Style Proposal

Views of school leadership are changing largely because of current restructuring initiatives and the demands of the present time. Advocates for school reform also usually advocate altering power relationships.

Leadership is a process in which a leader attempts to influence his or her followers to establish and accomplish a goal or goals. In order to accomplish the goal, the leader exercises his or her power to influence people. That power is exercised in earlier stages by motivating followers to get the job done and in later stages by rewarding or punishing those who do or do not perform to the level of expectation.

Leadership is a continuous process, with the accomplishment of one goal becoming the beginning of a new goal. The proper reward by the leader is of utmost importance in order to continually motivate followers in the process.

What does leadership do for an organization? If leadership is defined as a process involving interactions between a leader and followers usually subordinate employees of a company, leadership profoundly affects the organization. It defines or approves the mission or goal of the organization. This goal setting is a dynamic process for which the leader is ultimately responsible. A strong visionary leader presents and convinces followers that a new course of action is needed for the survival and prosperity of the group in the future. Once a goal is set, the leader assumes the role of ensuring successful accomplishment of the goal. Another vital role of leadership is to represent the group/organization and link it to the external world in order to obtain vital resources to carry out its mission. When necessary, leadership has to defend the organization's integrity.

Being a leader in a hypothetical academic institution the main question that I would ask so as to determine the leadership style most effective for it will be, “What does it take to make leadership successful or effective?”

Caution should be exercised when considering what style of leadership is best. Research suggests that no single leadership style can be generalized as being most effective. Organizational situations are so complex that one particular leadership style may be successful in one situation but totally ineffective in another. However, if I were to choose I would go for transformational leadership.

Transformational leadership inspires organizational success by dramatically affecting workers' attitudes about what an organization should be as well as their basic values, such as trust, fairness, and reliability. Transformational leadership, which is similar to charismatic or inspirational leadership, creates in workers a sense of ownership of the organization, encourages new ways of solving problems, and promotes lifelong learning for all members of the organization.

Regardless of culture and time, however, a great leader is remembered for his or her charisma, which means "divinely inspired gift" in Greek. Charismatic leaders have profound effects on followers. Through their exceptional inspirational and verbal ability, they articulate ideological goals and missions, communicate to followers with passion and inspiration, set an example in their own behaviors, and demand hard work and commitment from followers, above and beyond normal expectation.

A transformational leader places a higher level of trust in his or her followers and demands a much higher level of loyalty and performance beyond normal expectations. With unusual charismatic qualities and inspirational person-to-person interactions, a transformational leader transforms and motivates followers to make extra efforts to turn around ailing organizational situations into success stories.
Here are some distinctions of transformational leadership as compared to other leadership styles:

• Instructional leadership

Instructional leadership encompasses hierarchies and top-down leadership, where the leader is supposed to know the best form of instruction and closely monitors teachers' and students' work. One of the problems with this is that great administrators aren't always great classroom leaders and vice versa. Another difficulty is that this form of leadership concentrates on the growth of students but rarely looks at the growth of teachers. Since she believes that education now calls on administrators to be "the servants of collective vision," as well as "editors, cheerleaders, problem solvers, and resource finders," instructional leadership, she declares, has outlived its usefulness.

• Transactional leadership

Transactional leadership is sometimes called bartering. It is based on an exchange of services (from a teacher, for instance) for various kinds of rewards (such as a salary) that the leader controls, at least in part. Transactional leadership is often viewed as being complementary with transformational leadership. Transformational leadership is considered as a first stage and central to getting day-to-day routines carried out. However, it doesn't stimulate improvement. Transactional leadership works only when both leaders and followers understand and are in agreement about which tasks are important.

I choose transformational leadership as the style I wish to use in my hypothetical school because of the following goals in mind:

1.To help staff develop and maintain a collaborative, professional school culture

This means staff members often talk, observe, critique, and plan together. Norms of collective responsibility and continuous improvement encourage them to teach each other how to teach better. Transformational leaders involve staff in collaborative goal setting, reduce teacher isolation, use bureaucratic mechanisms to support cultural changes, share leadership with others by delegating power, and actively communicate the school's norms and beliefs. Recognizing the great intellectual potentials a science high school would have, it is very healthy that these people will be asked from time to time of their thoughts and insights and even expertise.

2.To foster teacher development

A teachers' motivation for development is enhanced when they internalize goals for professional growth. This process is facilitated when they are strongly committed to a school mission. When leaders give staff a role in solving non-routine school improvement problems, they should make sure goals are explicit and ambitious but not unrealistic.

3. To help teachers solve problems more effectively

Transformational leadership is valued because it stimulates teachers to engage in new activities and put forth that "extra effort". Transformational leaders use practices primarily to help staff members work smarter, not harder. These leaders shared a genuine belief that their staff members as a group could develop better solutions than the principal could alone.

In applying the transformational leadership style, the following strategies will be implemented:

•Visit each classroom every day; assist in classrooms; encourage teachers to visit one another's classes.

•Involve the whole staff in deliberating on school goals, beliefs, and visions at the beginning of the year.

•Help teachers work smarter by actively seeking different interpretations and checking out assumptions; place individual problems in the larger perspective of the whole school; avoid commitment to preconceived solutions; clarify and summarize at key points during meetings; and keep the group on task but do not impose your own perspective.

•Use action research teams or school improvement teams as a way of sharing power. Give everyone responsibilities and involve staff in governance functions. For those not participating, ask them to be in charge of a committee.

•Find the good things that are happening and publicly recognize the work of staff and students who have contributed to school improvement. Write private notes to teachers expressing appreciation for special efforts.

•Survey the staff often about their wants and needs. Be receptive to teachers' attitudes and philosophies. Use active listening and show people you truly care about them.

•Let teachers experiment with new ideas. Share and discuss research with them. Propose questions for people to think about.

•Bring workshops to your school where it's comfortable for staff to participate. Get teachers to share their talents with one another. Give a workshop yourself and share information with staff on conferences that you attend.

•When hiring new staff, let them know you want them actively involved in school decision-making; hire teachers with a commitment to collaboration. Give teachers the option to transfer if they can't wholly commit themselves to the school's purposes.

•Have high expectations for teachers and students, but don't expect 100 percent if you aren't also willing to give the same. Tell teachers you want them to be the best teachers they possibly can be.

•Use bureaucratic mechanisms to support teachers, such as finding money for a project or providing time for collaborative planning during the workday. Protect teachers from the problems of limited time, excessive paperwork, and demands from other agencies.

•Let teachers know they are responsible for all students, not just their own classes.
It is hoped that the effects of transformational leadership is "uniformly positive."

The leadership theory behind such leadership style is majority from the contingency theory. Contingency theory is a possible means of leading a school because this theory suggests that how a manager operates and makes decisions depends upon, or is contingent upon, a set of circumstances. It is centered on situational analysis. Using contingency theory, managers read situations with an "if-then" mentality: If this situational attribute is present, then there is an appropriate response that a manager should make. This theory takes into consideration human resources and their interaction with business operations. Managers may take different courses of action to get the same result based on differences in situational characteristics. This is very applicable if the organization that I will be handling will just be a small group as lesser intricacies can be generated. Moreover, the method of making them understand the basis for every decision made can be made on the personal level.

In general, contingency theory suggests that an educational leader needs to outline the conditions or situations in which various management methods have the best chance of success. Some of the challenges to successfully using contingency theory are the need to accurately analyze an actual situation, then to choose the appropriate strategies and tactics, and finally to implement these strategies and tactics.

Educational leaders encounter a variety of leadership situations during the course of their daily activities, each of which may require them to use leadership styles that vary considerably, depending on the situation. In using the contingency model, factors of major concern are leader-member relations, task structure, and the position power of the leader. The leader has to analyze these factors to determine the most appropriate style of response for meeting overall work-unit and organizational goals.

Leader-member relations refer to the ongoing degree to which subordinates accept an individual leader or group of leaders. Task structure refers to the degree to which tasks are clearly or poorly defined. Position power is the extent to which a leader or group of leaders has control over the work process, rewards, and punishment. Taking these factors into consideration, leaders can adjust their style to best match the context of their decision making and leadership. For those leaders who have a breadth of leadership styles, knowing when to change styles gives them the tools to successfully deal with the varying nature of business decision making. For those leaders who have a limited repertoire of leadership styles, they and their superiors can use this information to better match work situations with the styles that a specific leader possesses.

External and Internal Factors that Impact the Planning Function of Management

External and internal factors have a huge impact on the productivity and success of an educational institution. The process of assessing the external and internal factors that face an organization is a major part of the planning function of management. These factors also impact how an educational institution is organized and how resources are used to accomplish the preferred goals and objectives established during the planning process.

Rapid Change
Institutions of education operate in a rapidly changing environment characterized by rapid knowledge growth, rapid dissemination of information technology, and rapidly changing student needs and demands. Trends towards globalization and internationalization have fueled the pace of change.

The Philippine Science High School -Southern Mindanao Campus (PSHS-SMC) is aware of this situation. In fact, strategic plans are periodically analyzed by the administration so as to evaluate the applicability of policies and directives they enforce. For curriculum, the educational departments frequently updates their lesson plans so as to keep abreast with the rapidly changing bodies of knowledge the world presents. Moreover, researches both by the students and the faculty are kept up to date as well. In terms of infrastructure, the management sees to it that equipment used are still in the forefront of the present trends. Despite of the rapid changes and the decent pacing of the institution with it, it is usually caught in dilemma when the budgetary aspect is being considered. Hampered development and keeping pace is considered primary consequences of which. However, ingenuity and frugality in resources is always being witheld by the people inside. That's why despite of financial difficulties, the challenges are still being handled well.

Change can threaten and challenge traditional norms and culture. Culture is something an organization has or is. Organizational culture as “a pattern of shared basic assumptions that a group learned as it worked well enough to be considered valid and therefore to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to theseproblems ... is the glue that holds an organization together and unites people around shared values and beliefs … is the interwoven pattern of beliefs, values, practices, and artifacts that defines for members who they are and how they are to do things. Organizational theorists point to technology as a continual threat to the established norms and culture because innovation demands modified policies, changing roles for faculty, new pedagogy, increased workload/productivity measures, new governance structures, and change in promotion and tenure criteria. The current change process models are linear and bureaucratic and do not allow for culture and/or the human element of change. At the heart of change is emotion, which is the driving force that sustains change.


Globalization
Globalization is a combination of much freer trade in goods and services combined with free capital movements. The phenomenon dates far back in history with the development of international trade. However, for the past few years, we have observed a high acceleration in this trend due to a political and ideological environment eminently
favorable to its development and rapid advances in technological innovation, especially in the area of telecommunications. Educational planners – wherever they come from – must think seriously about the consequences of such a phenomenon, particularly in terms of shifts in the job market, in order to better adapt their country’s training system.

Competitiveness is one major thrust the Philippines Science High School -Southern Mindanao Campus (PSHS-SMC) always maintains. Ever since it was put up in 1988, it has already been able to send students to various competitions outside of the country. From leadership competitions to academic contests, the students have a share of this opportunity. PSHS-SMC as an institution makes sure that every year, some students would get to compete outside of the country. Just this school year three students were able to present their reasearch paper in Japan. Not to mention the previous years where several students were able to go to China to compete for Math Contests. The administration really tries very hard to support the students to become globally competitive. Not only will the students in the institution be able to share their culture to others but them also learning from other cultures that will develop them into more adaptible people in the society.


Technology
PSHS-SMC is modestly at pace with the recent trends in technology as compared to the other public secondary schools. Every year, a budget is allocated for the acquisition of computers and its associated peripherals. At present, the idea of converting the ordinary classrooms into e-classrooms are in the works. Not to mention, the technology building is currently being constructed. With this, it is a clear reflection of the management's thrust in their aim to advance further the delivery of quality science and technology education.The parents of the students are also supportive of these activities being done by the school. The management from the very start is vocal about their enthusiasm in putting up the best facilities a science high school could offer. Nonetheless, the management also reiterates the difficulty in the acquisition of enough budget for these. That's why both the administration and the parents of the students are strategically working out different plans and activities so as to materialize the different infrastructure projects. Because of this, the completion of projects in the school is a concerted effort of both the administration and the parents of the students.

Educational technology, especially computers and computer-related peripherals, have grown tremendously and have permeated all areas of our lives. It is incomprehensible that anyone today would argue that banks, hospitals, or any industry should use less technology. Most young people cannot understand arguments that schools should limit technology use.

Technology can actually assist with some of these expectations and make teachers—and their students—more successful. However, as the world becomes more complex—virtually year-to-year instead of the generation-to-generation pace of most of the last century—educational needs continue to shift from teaching and learning isolated skills and information within each content area, to teaching skills that enable students to solve complex problems across many areas. Educators must prepare for a technology-rich future and keep up with change by adopting effective strategies that infuse lessons with appropriate technologies. This makes a uthentic assessment needs even more important: Assessments must keep pace with effective instructional technology use. All this while educators at every level, but teachers especially, actively pursue professional development that enables a lifelong exploration of ways to enhance the teaching and learning of science and mathematics and support science and mathematics education reform.

E-business
E-business encompasses a vast array of activity, including the following:
• Distribution of information (content distribution) and communication—for example, Web searching, news, reference tools and digitized library material, e-mail, and chat groups
• Education and training—for example, technology enhanced learning (TEL), Web-based courses and
testing, video streaming, course delivery to distributed locations, multi-institutional and consortia-based education programs, and health care delivery
• Provision of staff and student services via the Web and a common portal, providing referrals and dynamic links to other ISPs—creating, in effect, a one-stop service
• Optimization of business processes through linked transactions, automation, and self-help—for example, online applications and payment of admissions fees, on-line purchasing, and loan programs
• On-line, collaborative research
• Electronic grant and development initiatives
• Customization of service delivery
• Electronic authentication/identification
• Selling and buying of goods and services
• Extension of market reach to new and global markets via distance education
• Promotion of brand awareness and loyalty
• Building of communities, especially learning communities
• Management of relationships and coordination of activities with business partners, as well as redefinition of business relationships

This and the many other transactions that this factor could beneficially bring is still so far from being real in our institution. It may be true that we teach robotics and other high technology subjects to the students (our institution even has some state of the art equipment). However, the delivery of ideas, transactions and other correspondence are still not done electronically. It is my hope that slowly, the academic documents in our institution will already be handled electronically so as to maximize the functionality of the computers and its associated peripherals in the school. May the management be receptive enough to the idea of pushing further the way things are done in the school. After all, delivering the quality education takes a lot of technological upgrading.


Innovation
Philippine Science High School - Southern Mindanao Campus in its continuous pursuit of excellence is not new to this factor that impacts the planning function in management. Every year, each member of the institution is made to identify an innovation in his work targets. The personnel are given the free-hand as to what aspect would he or she introduce an innovation. From teaching strategies to correspondence or even document submission, the personnel of this institution never fails to identify an aspect for his or her personal work innovation. It is seen by other campuses of the PSHS System as something worth emulating because the people inside the organization are always given an opportunity to grow and evolve and not just stay stagnant in his or her comfort zone. Initially, it was seen as a burden to most of the people inside the organization but as the years went on, they have become comfortable with it and it has been a very good source of many ideas and strategies that helped improved the delivery of quality education and service to its students.

The effective management of projects involving high levels of innovation, change or uncertainty requires open management and communication processes. The organization is likely to contain a high percentage of professionals or academics who are accustomed to operating independently. Rigid project management approaches tend to be ineffective with such groups. Effective project management processes in such projects are based around a culture of learning and iterative development, in which the project team operates largely autonomously. The project team is self governing and is held together by common goals and ownership of the project. Their project is linked into organizational processes through a project management process geared towards providing adequate resources, and a reporting process at the completion of each cycle. The accountability emphasizes what has been learned and what is planned.

Organizations which develop a culture of openness, risk taking and learning are better able to be innovative and adaptive towards change than those that do not. It is the responsibility of the senior management to create an environment for innovation to happen. The organizational processes put in place link the support and commitment of the senior management to the accountability mechanisms. Processes such as promotional systems and reward mechanisms point to what is valued within an organization. Communication and feedback are the life blood of an innovation. The lessons learned through the implementation of a project should be aggregated and disseminated to inform the next iteration of the project and the strategic direction of the organization.

Diversity
Philippine Science High School Southern Mindanao Campus' (PSHS-SMC) strategy focuses on diversity in the workplace. PSHS-SMC's faculty and staff aside from their main work functions are assigned committee's that oversee and take responsibility of several school activities the insitution holds. From program committee to restoration committee, the personnel are assigned to these different groups. Moreover, it is also devised in PSHS-SMC the assigning of assistant advisers and a third person to help out the homeroom adviser in monitoring students in every section during school activites and quarterly/yearly document submission. The rationale behind this endeavor is to provide a different venue of skills development its employees may have but does not have an opportunity to show it in his/her current work function. Moreover, this also a strategy of the management to seek for potentials in its workforce in future endeavors such as outreach and technology transfer seminars in which the school is very much active on doing. Management is constantly monitoring the engagement of faculty, staff and students.

Ethics
Organizations that give utmost attention in school ethics training and academic social responsibility promote workplace ethics among its faculty and staff by creating a school ethics policy. In Philippine Science High School Southern Mindanao Campus, an employee's behavior is governed by the pledge of a public servant. During flag ceremonies, the members of the faculty and staff recite the Panunumpa ng Lingkod Bayan or the Panunumpa sa Watawat. This action reminds us that we should always put by mind and heart the things that must be present in us as teachers and as public servants. In addition to the faculty manual where responsibilities as a teacher are enumerated, those set of pledges reinforce the things that government employees and educators must always keep in mind.

The following set of manuscripts serve as a guide for future planning activities that the school engages into. Most recent activity that the school has engaged into in line with work ethics development is the Gender Sensitivity and Awareness seminar that the school has organized on October, 2008. After the said activity, the guidelines and policies of the faculty and staff were revisited so as to check whether it has been in line with the seminar that has been initiated. Moreover, future classroom activities for homeroom classes were also planned out so as to trickle down the knowledge that was gathered from the said activity.

As regards UNESCO’s mandate in education, key ethical issues include combating fake qualifications and diplomas, violence in schools, illegal fees, misuse of funds and theft of school equipment, discriminatory attitudes, sexual harassment, unjustified absenteeism and the collection of illegal fees.

Such unethical practices are all the more damaging because one of the core roles of educational institutions is to reflect and foster values, responsible citizenship. Moreover, in the context of a globalised world, the emergence of knowledge societies encourages more and more young people to turn to educational institutions to provide them with the means to join the knowledge economy. The resulting surge in demand is one which educational systems and institutions all over the world are trying to meet. It is also a demand which unethical businesses all over the world are increasingly trying to exploit.

All in all, ethics does really affect the management function of planning. Depending on the ethical state the leaders of a particular institution has, it will serve as a gauge as to how will the overall ethics of an academic institution would be.

By gaining a thorough understanding of both internal and external factors, an educational institution will be in an excellent position to respond to the environment. In assessing where my institution is right now? It is in the thick of making things happen.

Four Functions of Management Applied in Schools

A school is a type of organization that is as complex as any business organization is. In fact, a school whether we like it or not is a business organization in itself that invests primarily on the proliferation of education that would eventually produce competent future professionals, leaders, entrepreneurs and visionaries.

A school, whether new or old, whether small or big needs to run smoothly and achieve the goals and objectives which it has set forth.In order for it to run smoothly in achieving its set goals and objectives, it needs to implement management concepts. To be successful in it, there are four basic management functions that are to be executed.

The four functions of management according to Fayol (1916) are: planning; organizing; leading; and controlling.

PLANNING
" Fail to plan and you plan to fail."

Planning is the function of management that involves setting objectives and determining a course of action for achieving these objectives. Planning requires that managers be aware of environmental conditions facing their organization and forecast future conditions. It also requires that managers be good decision-makers.

Planning is a process consisting of several steps. The process begins with environmental scanning, which simply means that planners must be aware of the critical contingencies facing their organization in terms of economic conditions, their competitors, and their customers. Planners must then attempt to forecast future conditions. These forecasts form the basis for planning.

Planners must establish objectives, which are statements of what needs to be achieved and when. Planners must then identify alternative courses of action for achieving objectives. After evaluating the various alternatives, planners must make decisions about the best courses of action for achieving objectives. They must then formulate necessary steps and ensure effective implementation of plans. Finally, planners must constantly evaluate the success of their plans and take corrective action when necessary.

In the institution to where I am connected. we usually do a week-long planning activity during the students' semestral break. During that time, we discuss the past performance of the different departments and make a SWOT analysis. It then serves as a springboard to the future plans the school will be concentrating on.

ORGANIZING

"For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned.”

Management must organize all its resources well before in hand to put into practice the course of action to decide that has been planned in the base function. Through this process, management will now determine the inside directorial configuration; establish and maintain relationships, and also assign required resources.

While determining the inside directorial configuration, management ought to look at the different divisions or departments. They also see to the harmonization of staff, and try to find out the best way to handle the important tasks and expenditure of information within the company. Management determines the division of work according to its need. It also has to decide for suitable departments to hand over authority and responsibilities.

Organizational set-up is regularly checked in our institution. Job descriptions and performance targets are frequently checked so as to ensure proper delegation and organization of job outputs. This will definitely align the personnel and all their actions towards the plan set-up.

LEADING

"Take care, don't fight, and remember: if you do not choose to lead, you will forever be led by others. Find what scares you, and do it. And you can make a difference, if you choose to do so.”

Leading involves influencing others toward the attainment of organizational objectives. Effective leading requires the manager to motivate subordinates, communicate effectively, and effectively use power. If managers are effective leaders, their subordinates will be enthusiastic about exerting effort toward the attainment of organizational objectives.

To become effective at leading, managers must first understand their subordinates' personalities, values, attitudes, and emotions. Therefore, the behavioral sciences have made many contributions to the understanding of this function of management. Personality research and studies of job attitudes provide important information as to how managers can most effectively lead subordinates.

School administration are in-charge of this activity. However, delegation of tasks and responsibilities to the rank and file is also practiced by our institution. With this, everyone is given the opportunity to exhibit their leadership skills so that when time comes, they would no longer be new to the admnistrative functions, educational managers do.

Studies of motivation and motivation theory provide important information about the ways in which workers can be energized to put forth productive effort. Studies of communication provide direction as to how managers can effectively and persuasively communicate. Studies of leadership and leadership style provide information regarding questions such as, "What makes a manager a good leader?" and "In what situations are certain leadership styles most appropriate and effective?"

It is very important to maintain a productive working environment, building positive interpersonal relationships, and problem solving. And this can be done only with Effective communication. Understanding the communication process and working on area that need improvement, help managers to become more effective communicators. The finest technique of finding the areas that requires improvement is to ask themselves and others at regular intervals, how well they are doing. This leads to better relationship and helps the managers for better directing plans.

CONTROLLING

"He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.”

Controlling involves ensuring that performance does not deviate from standards. Controlling consists of three steps, which include establishing performance standards, comparing actual performance against standards, and taking corrective action when necessary. Performance standards are often stated in monetary terms such as revenue, costs, or profits, but may also be stated in other terms, such as units produced, number of defective products, or levels of customer service.

The measurement of performance can be done in several ways, depending on the performance standards, including financial statements, sales reports, production results, customer satisfaction, and formal performance appraisals. Managers at all levels engage in the managerial function of controlling to some degree.

Work targets are usually set to individuals and units in our institution. Usually, it is agreed upon by the coordinators or supervisors in our institution. Every end of the month, it is being updated so as to give an assessment as to how far the employee or a particular unit has been doing. By that, employees and different working units are reminded of the things that are still to be done during the academic year.

The managerial function of controlling should not be confused with control in the behavioral or manipulative sense. This function does not imply that managers should attempt to control or manipulate the personalities, values, attitudes, or emotions of their subordinates. Instead, this function of management concerns the manager's role in taking necessary actions to ensure that the work-related activities of subordinates are consistent with and contributing toward the accomplishment of organizational and departmental objectives.

Effective controlling requires the existence of plans, since planning provides the necessary performance standards or objectives. Controlling also requires a clear understanding of where responsibility for deviations from standards lies. Two traditional control techniques are the budget and the performance audit. Although controlling is often thought of in terms of financial criteria, managers must also control production/operations processes, procedures for delivery of services, compliance with company policies, and many other activities within the organization.

The management functions of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling are widely considered to be the best means of describing the manager's job as well as the best way to classify accumulated knowledge about the study of management. Although there have been tremendous changes in the environment faced by managers and the tools used by managers to perform their roles, managers still perform these essential functions.

Effective and efficient management leads to success, the success where it attains the objectives and goals of the organizations. Of course for achieving the ultimate goal and aim management need to work creatively in problem solving in all the four functions. Management not only has to see the needs of accomplishing the goals but also has to look in to the process that their way is feasible for the school or institution.

Educational leaders must always keep this in mind. It all revolves in these four activities the different tasks he is deemed to do. Aside from which, the task of envisioning his institution becomes more meaningful if the said functions are always taken into consideration.

True auThoriTy comeS from auThenTiciTy

(This is a reprint of my daily spiritual subscription to one of Kerygma Family's devotional materials. I hope my fellow leaders get inspired and enlightened by this.)

I believe that God’s great gift for persons are also persons who inspire, teach, correct and empower. One person whom I consider as God’s gift in my walk as a priest and as a religious was a Pauline nun, Sr. Lucina Sarmiento. Before she died of cancer, she was one of those considered an authority in the field of Catholic mass media apostolate. It was, however, noteworthy that her being referred to as an “authority” happened even if she claimed she never had any formal education on media apostolate. In the course of one of our light conversations, she even said that there were other nuns in her community who had better training in television, in cinema and other media technology.

Jesus Himself is referred to as a “different authority” compared to the scribes and the Pharisees. These people had formal and arduous training, and many of them even descended from a bloodline of and were ordained to be scribes and Pharisees. Jesus was self-made. Compared to many of them, Jesus was probably half their age.

So where does authority come? Some have authority because of their learning; others possess authority by virtue of their position and office. Some have authority because of relationships or connections with those in power; others are perceived to be an authority because of their practical wisdom and experience. But the strongest authority flows from integrity and uprightness: one that flows from the convergence of one’s words and actions. Others refer to this as credibility. This is marked by a combination of deep qualities — such as passion, authenticity and dedication. This authority is earned, not bought; freely bestowed and recognized by others, not simply claimed for oneself. Fr. Domie Guzman, SSP

Reflection Question:

Reflect on persons whom you consider to be authorities. Why do you see them as authorities?The Bible speaks of three authorities: priests (religious authorities), prophets (moral authorities), kings (political leaders). The renowned Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner says, “Christians have to be, above all, prophets.” In what way can you be a moral leader in your own circle of friends and sphere of influence?

Lord Jesus, may my words and actions be rooted in You, the True Authority of my life.

The New Stupid by Frederick M. Hess

Educators have made great strides in using data. But danger lies ahead for those who misunderstand what data can and can't do.

A decade ago, it was disconcertingly easy to find education leaders who dismissed student achievement data and systematic research as having only limited utility when it came to improving schools or school systems. Today, we have come full circle. It is hard to attend an education conference or read an education magazine without encountering broad claims for data-based decision making and research-based practice.

Yet these phrases can too readily morph into convenient buzzwords that obscure rather than clarify. Indeed, I fear that both "data-based decision making" and "research-based practice" can stand in for careful thought, serve as dressed-up rationales for the same old fads, or be used to justify incoherent proposals. Because few educators today are inclined to denounce data, there has been an unfortunate tendency to embrace glib new solutions rather than ask the simple question, What exactly does it mean to use data or research to inform decisions?

What the New Stupid Looks Like

Today's enthusiastic embrace of data has waltzed us directly from a petulant resistance to performance measures to a reflexive and unsophisticated reliance on a few simple metrics—namely, graduation rates, expenditures, and the reading and math test scores of students in grades 3 through 8. The result has been a nifty pirouette from one troubling mind-set to another; with nary a misstep, we have pivoted from the "old stupid" to the "new stupid." The new stupid has three key elements.

1. Using Data in Half-Baked Ways

I first encountered the inclination to energetically misuse data a few years ago, while giving a presentation to a group of aspiring superintendents. They were passionate, eager to make data-driven decisions and employ research, and committed to leaving no child behind. We had clearly left the old stupid in the rearview mirror. New grounds for concern emerged, however, as we discussed value-added assessment and teacher assignments.

The group had recently read a research brief high-lighting the effect of teachers on student achievement as well as the inequitable distribution of teachers within districts, with higher-income, higher-performing schools getting the pick of the litter. The aspirants were fired up and ready to put this knowledge to use. To a roomful of nods, one declared, "Day one, we're going to start identifying those high value-added teachers and moving them to the schools that aren't making AYP."

Now, although I was generally sympathetic to the premise, the certainty of the stance provoked me to ask a series of questions: Can we be confident that teachers who are effective in their current classrooms would be equally effective elsewhere? What effect would shifting teachers to different schools have on the likelihood that teachers would remain in the district? Are the measures in question good proxies for teacher quality? What steps might either encourage teachers to accept reassignment or improve recruiting for underserved schools?

My concern was not that the would-be superintendents lacked firm answers to these questions—that's natural even for veteran big-district superintendents who are able to lean on research and assessment departments. It was that they seemingly regarded such questions as distractions. One aspirant perfectly captured the mind-set when she said, "We need to act. We've got children who need help, and we know which teachers can help them."

At that moment, I glumly envisioned a new generation of superintendents shuffling teachers among schools—perhaps paying bonuses to do so—becoming frustrated at the disappointing results, puzzling over the departure of highly rated teachers, and wondering what had gone wrong. This is what it must have been like to listen to eager stock analysts explain in 1998 why some hot new Internet start-up was a sure thing while dismissing questions about strategy and execution as evidence that the stodgy questioners "just didn't get it."

Then as now, the key is not to retreat from data but to truly embrace the data by asking hard questions, considering organizational realities, and contemplating unintended consequences. Absent sensible restraint, it is not difficult to envision a raft of poor judgments governing staffing, operations, and instruction—all in the name of "data-driven decision making."

2. Translating Research Simplistically

For two decades, advocates of class-size reduction have referenced the findings from the Student Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) project, a class-size experiment conducted in Tennessee in the late 1980s. Researchers found significant achievement gains for students in small kindergarten classes and additional gains in 1st grade, especially for black students. The results seemed to validate a crowd-pleasing reform and were famously embraced in California, where in 1996 legislators adopted a program to reduce class sizes that cost nearly $800 million in its first year and billions in its first decade. The dollars ultimately yielded disappointing results, however, with the only major evaluation (a joint American Institutes for Research and RAND study¹ ) finding no effect on student achievement.

What happened? Policymakers ignored nuance and context. California encouraged districts to place students in classes of no more than 20—but that class size was substantially larger than those for which STAR found benefits. Moreover, STAR was a pilot program serving a limited population, which minimized the need for new teachers. California's statewide effort created a voracious appetite for new educators, diluting teacher quality and encouraging well-off districts to strip-mine teachers from less affluent communities. The moral is that even policies or practices informed by rigorous research can prove ineffective if the translation is clumsy or ill considered.

When it comes to "research-based practice," the most vexing problem may be the failure to recognize the limits of what even rigorous scientific research can tell us. For instance, when testing new medical treatments, randomized field trials are the research design of choice because they can help establish cause and effect. Efforts to adopt this model in schooling, however, have been plagued by a flawed understanding of just how the model works in medicine and how it translates to education. The randomized field trial model, in which drugs or therapies are administered to individual patients under explicit protocols, is enormously helpful when recommending interventions for particular medical conditions. But it is far less useful when determining how much to pay nurses or how to hold hospitals accountable.

In education, curricular and pedagogical interventions can indeed be investigated through randomized field trials, with results that can serve as the basis for prescriptive practice. Even in these cases, however, there is a tendency for educators to be cavalier about the elements and execution of research-based practice. When medical research finds a certain drug regimen to be effective, doctors do not casually tinker with the formula. Yet, in areas like reading instruction, districts and schools routinely alter the sequencing and elements of a curriculum, while still touting their practices as research based.

Meanwhile, when it comes to policy, officials must make tough decisions about governance, management, and compensation that cannot be examined under controlled conditions and for which it is difficult to glean conclusive evidence. Although research can shed light on how policies play out and how context matters, studies of particular merit-pay or school-choice plans are unlikely to answer whether such policies "work"—largely because the particulars of each plan will prove crucial.

3. Giving Short Shrift to Management Data

School and district leaders have embraced student achievement data but have paid scant attention to collecting or using data that are more relevant to improving the performance of schools and school systems. The result is "data-driven" systems in which leaders give short shrift to the operations, hiring, and financial practices that are the backbone of any well-run organization and that are crucial to supporting educators.

Existing achievement data are of limited utility for management purposes. State tests tend to provide results that are too coarse to offer more than a snapshot of student and school performance, and few district data systems link student achievement metrics to teachers, practices, or programs in a way that can help determine what is working. More significant, successful public and private organizations monitor their operations extensively and intensively. FedEx and UPS know at any given time where millions of packages are across the United States and around the globe. Yet few districts know how long it takes to respond to a teaching applicant, how frequently teachers use formative assessments, or how rapidly school requests for supplies are processed and fulfilled.

For all of our attention to testing and assessment, student achievement measures are largely irrelevant to judging the performance of many school district employees. It simply does not make sense to evaluate the performance of a payroll processor or human resources recruiter—or even a foreign language instructor—primarily on the basis of reading and math test scores for grades 3 through 8.

Just as hospitals employ large numbers of administrative and clinical personnel to support doctors and the military employs accountants, cooks, and lawyers to support its combat personnel, so schools have a "long tail" of support staff charged with ensuring that educators have the tools they need to be effective. Just as it makes more sense to judge the quality of army chefs on the quality of their kitchens and cuisines rather than on the outcome of combat operations, so it is more sensible to focus on how well district employees perform their prescribed tasks than on less direct measures of job performance. The tendency to casually focus on student achievement, especially given the testing system's heavy emphasis on reading and math, allows a large number of employees to either be excused from results-driven accountability or be held accountable for activities over which they have no control. This undermines a performance mindset and promises to eventually erode confidence in management.

Ultimately, student achievement data alone only yield a "black box." They illustrate how students are faring but do not enable an organization to diagnose problems or manage improvement. It is as if a CEO's management dashboard consisted of only one item—the company stock's price.

Data-driven management should not simply identify effective teachers or struggling students but should also help render schools and school systems more supportive of effective teaching and learning. Doing so requires tracking an array of indicators, such as how long it takes books and materials to be shipped to classrooms, whether schools provide students with accurate and appropriate schedules in a timely fashion, how quickly assessment data are returned to schools, and how often the data are used. A system in which leaders possess that kind of data is far better equipped to boost school performance than one in which leaders have a pallette of achievement data and little else.

Steering Clear of the New Stupid

If you see warning signs of the new stupid, what should you do? There are at least four keys to avoiding the new stupid.

First, educators should be wary of allowing data or research to substitute for good judgment. When presented with persuasive findings or promising new programs, it is still vital to ask the simple questions: What are the presumed benefits of adopting this program or reform? What are the costs? How confident are we that the promised results are replicable? What contextual factors might complicate projections? Data-driven decision making does not simply require good data; it also requires good decisions.

Second, schools must actively seek out the kind of data they need as well as the achievement data external stakeholders need. Despite quantum leaps in state assessment systems and continuing investment in longitudinal data systems, school and district leaders are a long way from having the data they require. Creating the conditions for high-performing schools and systems requires operational metrics beyond student achievement. In practice, there is a rarely acknowledged tension between collecting data with an eye toward external accountability (measurement of performance) and doing so for internal management (measurement for performance).

The data most useful to parents and policymakers focus on how well students and schools are doing; this is the kind of data required by No Child Left Behind and collected by state accountability systems. Although enormously useful, these assessments have also exacerbated a tendency of school and district leaders to focus on the data they have rather than on the data they need.

Current conditions call to mind the parable of the drunken man crawling under the streetlight while searching for his keys. A Good Samaritan stops to help; after minutes of searching, she finally asks, "Are you sure you dropped your keys here?" The man looks up and gestures toward the other end of the street, saying, "No, I dropped them down there—but the light's better over here." We must take care that the ready availability of data on reading and math scores for grades 3 through 8 or on high school graduation rates—all of which provide useful information—do not become streetlights that distract more than they illuminate.

Third, we must understand the limitations of research as well as its uses. Especially when crafting policy, we should not expect research to dictate outcomes but should instead ensure that decisions are informed by the facts and insights that science can provide. Researchers can upend conventional wisdom, examine design features, and help gauge the effect of proposed measures. But education leaders should not expect research to ultimately resolve thorny policy disputes over school choice or teacher pay any more than medical research has ended contentious debates over health insurance or tort reform.

Finally, school systems should reward education leaders and administrators for pursuing more efficient ways to deliver services. Indeed, superintendents who use data to eliminate personnel or programs—even if these superintendents are successful and vindicated by the results—are often more likely to ignite political conflict than to reap professional rewards. So long as leaders are revered only for their success at consensus building and gathering stakeholder input, moving from the rhetorical embrace of data to truly data-driven decision making will remain an elusive goal in many communities. This is especially true given state and federal statutes, salary schedules, and established policies that restrict the ability to redeploy resources and that make aggressive efforts to act on data and research exhausting and contentious. The result is a chicken-and-egg conundrum, where officials have limited incentive to track managerial data given their limited ability to use it, yet the resulting vacuum makes it more difficult to argue that flexibility will be used in informed and appropriate ways.

Research and data are powerful tools. Used thoughtfully, they are dynamic levers for improving schools and schooling. In this new era, educators stand to benefit enormously from advances in research and data systems. Let us take care that hubris, faddism, or untamed enthusiasm do not render these gifts more hindrance than help.

Endnote

¹ Bohrnstedt, G. W., & Stecher, B. M. (2002). What we have learned about class size reduction in California. Washington, DC: American Institutes for Research. Available: www.classize.org/techreport/CSRYear4_final.pdf

---

Frederick M. Hess is Director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute; rhess@aei.org. He is editor of When Research Matters (Harvard Education Press, 2008) and author of Common Sense School Reform (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).

---

Copyright © 2008 by Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development

Source: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/dec08/vol66/num04/The_New_Stupid.aspx

Disclaimer: This is a re-post from the website indicated above whose aim is only to inform the readers and get the message across to more people. It is not intended to plagiarize or own the said write-up.

Educational Leaders: Here is Something Worth Reflecting

While going over the internet trying to gather materials for our assignment in my doctorate studies, I bumped into this video in Youtube that really caught my attention. When the main reason for educational leaders is to bring effective means of delivering the quality education the students deserve, do we really understand the dynamics of their personality? This video can provide us with insights on how shall we be coming up with educational policies and practices in the respective academic institutions we are connected with. Taking it constructively can definitely help us shape something better for our students. Credits go out to the students enrolled in ANTH 200: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, Spring 2007.

The Need to be Shakened

I usually get my spiritual directions in life by watching this online site preacher in blue jeans by Bo Sanchez. This first day of the new year, he shares a simple yet very true insight on how life should be expected when we want to move up on another level. I hope you open your mind to the idea and may this serve as an inspiration to hold on for this new year. Be blessed.