Leadership For Student Learning What It is and How It Works

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Leadership For Student LearningWhat It is and
How It Works

• Ken Leithwood

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School leadership is second only to classroom
instruction as an influence on student learning.
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THE EVIDENCE . . .

• Qualitative case studies of exceptional or
  turnaround schools
• very large effects on both school conditions and
  student learning
• Large scale quantitative studies of leadership
  effects on student learning and on student
  engagement
• 5-7 variation across schools total from all
  school sources is 12-20
• iii. Leadership succession studies

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For reviews of this evidence, see, for example.

• Hallinger Heck (1996)
• Waters, Marzano McNulty (2003)
• Leithwood Jantzi (2007)
• Robinson, Lloyd Rowe (2008)

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• Almost all successful (school) leaders draw on
  the same repertoire of basic leadership practices.

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P f (M, A, S)
P teachers performance M teachers
motivation A teachers abilities, professional
knowledge and skills S work settings and
features of their school and classroom
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LEADERSHIP TASKS, FUNTIONS OR PRACTICES
Developing People (Ability)
Redesigning the Organization (Setting)
Improving the Instructional Program (attending to
the technical core)
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GroupGoals
Vision
SettingDirections
Communication
Expectations
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IntellectualStimulation
Modeling
DevelopingPeople
IndividualizedSupport
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Families and Communities
Culture
Redesigningthe Organization
Connections
Structures
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ResourceAllocation
Staffing
ImprovingtheInstructional Program
Monitoring
Buffering
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For more on this, see

• Leithwood, K. Riehl, C. (2005). What we
  already know about successful school leadership.
• In W. A. Firestone C. Riehl (Eds.), A new
  agenda directions for research on educational
  leadership. New York, NY Teachers College Press.
• .

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• It is the enactment of the same basic leadership
  practices not the practices themselves that
  is responsive to the context.

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TURNAROUND SCHOOLS AS AN ILLUSTRATION

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For example, culture building, part of
Organizational Redesign

• Stage 1 teacher isolation no expectations for
  collaboration among teachers
• Stage 2 model and clarify expectations for
  collaborative work by teachers
• Stage 3 refresh, extend expectations refine
  nature of collaborative work to increase effects
  on quality of instruction
• and
• from focused to distributed sources of leadership

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For more on this, see.

• Leithwood, K., Harris, A., Strauss, T.
  (2010). Leading School Turnaround. San
  Francisco Jossey Bass

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• School leaders improve pupil learning indirectly
  through their influence on four paths

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Four Paths of Leadership Influence on Student
Learning
RationalPath (Academic press, Disciplinary
climate, TLCPs)
LSA Initiatives
School-wideExperience
EmotionsPath (Efficacy, Trust)
Leadership Practices
StudentLearning
OrganizationalPath (Time, PLC)
FamilyPath (Expectations, Reading
ClassroomExperience
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For more on this, see

• Leithwood, K., et al (2010). School leaders
  influence on student learning The four paths, In
  T. Bush, L, Bell and D. Middlewood (Eds.),The
  principles of educational leadership and
  management. London Sage publishers
• Leithwood, K., Patten, S., Jantzi, D. (in
  press). Testing a conception of how school
  leaders influence student learning, Educational
  Administration Quarterly

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For more about how leadership influences the
emotional path, see.

• Leithwood, K., Beatty, B. (2008). Leading with
  teacher emotions in mind. Thousand Oaks, CA
  Corwin Press

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• School leadership has a greater influence on
  schools, classrooms and students when it is
  distributed

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RATING OF LEADERSHIP SOURCES BY QUINTILES BASED
ON STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

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RATING OF LEADERSHIP SOURCES BY QUINTILES BASED
ON STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

• Schools in the highest quintile attributed
  relatively high levels of influence to all
  sources of leadership
• Schools in the lowest quintile attributed
  relatively low levels of influence to all sources
  of leadership
• Highest quintile schools, as compared to the
  lowest, differed most in ratings of teams,
  parents and students
• Principals were rated as having highest influence
  in schools in ALL quintiles

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• But only some patterns of leadership distribution
  make a positive contribution

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Patterns of Distributed Leadership
Planful Alignment Spontaneous Alignment
Planful Misalignment Anarchic Misalignment
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Planful Alignment and Academic Optimism
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For more on leadership distribution, see

• Leithwood, K., Mascall, B., Strauss, T. (Eds.)
  (2009). Distributed leadership according to the
  evidence. New York, NY Routledge.

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A final observation.

• Districts make a big difference to a schools
  improvement efforts
• The instructional leadership role of district
  leaders
• The importance of building collective school
  leader efficacy
• for more
  on this see.

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• Louis, K., Leithwood, K., Wahlstrom, K.,
  Anderson, S.
• (2010). Learning from leadership
  Investigating the links to improved student
  learning. New York Final report of research to
  the Wallace Foundation.