Leadership For Student Learning What It is and How It Works Ken Leithwood

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

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

For reviews of this evidence, see, for example…. Hallinger & Heck (1996) Waters, Marzano & McNulty (2003) Leithwood & Jantzi (2007) Robinson, Lloyd & Rowe (2008)

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

P = f (M, A, S) P = teacher’s performance M = teacher’s motivation A = teacher’s abilities, professional knowledge and skills S = work settings and features of their school and classroom

LEADERSHIP TASKS, FUNTIONS OR PRACTICES Setting Directions (Motivation) Developing People (Ability) Redesigning the Organization (Setting) Improving the Instructional Program (attending to the “technical core”)

Group Goals Vision Setting Directions Communication Expectations

Modeling Developing People Intellectual Stimulation Individualized Support

Redesigning the Organization Families and Communities Culture Redesigning the Organization Connections Structures

Improving the Instructional Program Resource Allocation Staffing Improving the Instructional Program Monitoring Buffering

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. .

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

TURNAROUND SCHOOLS AS AN ILLUSTRATION

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

For more on this, see…. Leithwood, K., Harris, A., & Strauss, T. (2010). Leading School Turnaround. San Francisco: Jossey Bass

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

Four Paths of Leadership Influence on Student Learning Rational Path (Academic press, Disciplinary climate, TLCPs) LSA Initiatives School-wide Experience Emotions Path (Efficacy, Trust) Leadership Practices Student Learning Organizational Path (Time, PLC) Family Path (Expectations, Reading Classroom Experience

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]

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

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

RATING OF LEADERSHIP SOURCES BY QUINTILES BASED ON STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

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

But only some patterns of leadership distribution make a positive contribution

Patterns of Distributed Leadership Planful Alignment Spontaneous Misalignment Anarchic

Planful Alignment and Academic Optimism

For more on leadership distribution, see Leithwood, K., Mascall, B., Strauss, T. (Eds.) (2009). Distributed leadership according to the evidence. New York, NY: Routledge.

A final observation…. Districts make a big difference to a school’s improvement efforts The instructional leadership role of district leaders The importance of building collective school leader efficacy for more on this see……………….

Louis, K. , Leithwood, K. , Wahlstrom, K. , Anderson, S. (2010) 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.