Educational Leadership: From Label to Academic Success

by

Abstract

The present study explores the relation between educational leadership and student achievement. Semi-structured interviews with teachers and educational leaders of secondary schools were conducted. A comparative analysis of four schools with high and four schools with low committed teachers was carried out. Findings revealed differences in the leadership practices which influenced student achievement. The leadership practices include the quality and distribution of leadership functions, social interaction, cooperation of the leadership team, and participative decision-making. Teachers reported being more strongly committed to the school if the leaders were highly accessible, tackled problems efficiently or empowered teachers to participate, and frequently monitored teachers' daily practices.

Table of Content

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTIONIV

Notifying alertsxxiv

Empirical evaluationxxvi

Validation of rule-based conflict detectionxxvi

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEWXXVIII

Validation with real usersxxviii

Related workxxix

Definitions of strategyxxxiii

Summaryxxxv

Quality and distribution of leadership functions among the leadership teamxxxviii

Cooperation of the leadership teamxxxix

Social interactionxl

Participative decision-makingxl

Research objectivesxli

REFERENCESLXI

Chapter I: Introduction

Historically, school counselors have had difficulty describing and defining their roles to principals, school personnel and the general public (Coll & Freeman, 1997; Liberman, 2004; Murray, 1995). Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, researchers defined the role of the school counselor, as a combination helper and consultant role (Ginter & Scalise, 1990). O'Dell and Rak (1996) attributed this role confusion to the lack of a clear definition of school counseling by the profession even though ASCA had been responding to the need for clarification by publishing position statements in 1966, 1974, 1981, and 1990. A contention regarding school counselors' responsibilities is the concern over school counselors performing dual roles, such as counselor/disciplinarian role that can adversely affect the trust of students. Other dual roles including clerical duties, administrative tasks, hall monitoring and scheduling have also become common counselor responsibilities (Coll & Freeman, 1997; Murray, 1995). The roles of school counselors are usually determined by school principals, many of whom lack the knowledge of appropriately sanctioned counselor roles (Fitch, Ballestero & Marshal, 2001). Authors have supported the role of counselors assisting students to achieve academic success by addressing the personal and societal pressures in children's lives that contribute to their failure in school (Capuzzi & Gross, 1996; Keyes, Bemak & Lockhart, 1998; Lecapitaine, 2000). Over time, the risk factors for school failure include academic difficulties resulting from learning disabilities, particularly as the inclusion movement placed increased numbers of students with learning disabilities into the mainstream classroom. Greer and Greer (1995) assessed the special education issues and predicted that the inclusion movement would have a major impact on the school counseling profession, as counselors would be expected to head the multidisciplinary team, coordinate input from various disciplines, present information to parents, and facilitate a partnership between the parents and the team. To be qualified to fulfill this new role, Greer and Greer acknowledged that counselors would need new information, training, and awareness of a wide array of issues and opinions. Scarborough and Deck (1998) agreed with those predictions and outlined a number of challenges school counselors would face as the inclusion movement grew. Their list focused on the need ...