Critical Curriculum Leadership

A Framework for Progressive Education

Rose M. Ylimaki

• Verlag: Routledge
• Jahr: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781136853777
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: Didattica
• Thema: Amministrazione nella didattica

Although traditional curriculum and instructional leadership frameworks have dominated educational administration training for almost thirty years, it has become increasingly clear that even the most recent frameworks have failed today's leaders who struggle with the politics of curriculum decisions on a daily basis. Critical Curriculum Leadership is an examination of curriculum leadership in the wake of U.S. testing mandates and school reforms, all of which seem to support a particular set of conservative ideologies. Drawing from her own longitudinal ethnographic study and from existing literature and research in the field, Ylimaki explores the formation of curriculum leadership in relation to broader cultural and political shifts. She shows how traditional leadership frameworks have come up short, and makes the case for an alternative leadership theory at the intersection of educational leadership and curriculum studies. She provides analytical tools that inspire progressive education and offers critical theories, strategies, research examples, problem-posing cases, and research ideas essential for curriculum leadership in the present conservative era. Critical Curriculum Leadership will appeal to the many educational leadership scholars and practitioners who are interested in developing effective and socially just curricula in their schools and districts as well as curriculum scholars who are interested in leadership issues.

1
Introduction

This volume is situated at the intersection of educational leadership and critical curriculum studies. Since the 1980s, I have been greatly influenced by literature from two distinct fields: (1) educational administration studies of “instructional” leadership practices that contribute to improvements in teaching and learning (e.g., Hallinger & Murphy, 1985; Jackson, 2000; Purkey & Smith, 1983); and (2) studies of how curriculum theory and critiques are situated within broader cultural–political movements (e.g., Apple, 1996, 2004). I draw on literature from both fields as well as empirical research on curriculum leaders/principals to suggest that effective curriculum leaders must have the analytical tools to challenge and move beyond (conservative) ideological arguments and cultivate neoprogressive educational and social movements.

Studies of “Instructional Leadership” from the Field of Educational Administration

Within the field of educational administration, there has been some debate about whether instructional leadership is an individual or collective (distributed) domain, but the more important question is how formal leaders influence curriculum content decisions, other classroom practices, and communities. Educational administration studies typically identify high-achieving schools then attempt to identify the specific leadership qualities and behaviors that foster high academic performance and successful student outcomes. Whether one approaches instructional leadership by analyzing primarily individual administrators (principals), as Phil Hallinger and Joe Murphy (1985) do, or the distributed school leadership (capacity), as Helen Marks (2003) and James Spillane (2003) do, the argument is essentially that leadership has a strong but indirect influence on teaching and learning (student outcomes). Most often, recent “instructional” leadership studies draw on psychology and learning theories to generate a menu of individual or collective (distributive) leadership strategies that improve classroom practice. Although these studies have provided many understandings about effective leadership behaviors, they provide insufficient information relative to curriculum, cultural politics, and lifelong growth in democratic education.

In seeking to identify the direct and indirect instructional leadership tasks and behaviors that “work” because they influence academic achievement, scholars of educational administration too often pose binary questions. In other words, traditional leadership studies are typically grounded in positivistic assumptions and ask either–or questions to measure inputs (instruction-related leadership tasks and functions) against outputs (student achievement scores). Although not all of these studies have been quantitative in nature, their general goal has been to seek the “truth” about which curriculum (or instructional) leadership practices affect student outcomes and how they affect them. They frequently rely on large-scale surveys and therefore promise generalizable findings about which instructional leadership roles and practices are effective in schools. For example, the model developed by Bossert, Dwyer, Rowan, and Lee (1982) hypothesizes that characteristics of the individual principal, the district, and the external environment influence management behaviors, which in turn, affect school climate and instructional organization. School climate and instructional organization then shape teachers’ behaviors and students’ learning experiences. Heck, Larsen, and Marcoulides (1990) tested this contingency model and found support for its basic hypothesis. Principals indirectly influence student achievement when they: (1) create instructional organizations in their schools; (2) use participative actions for instructional improvement; and (3) build a school climate and culture characterized by clearly communicated goals and high expectations for academic achievement and social behavior.

In empirical literature, the term instructional leadership emerged from the literature on “outlier schools”; that is, those that effectively educated children from low socioeconomic backgrounds (e.g., Berman & McLaughlin, 1976; Edmonds, 1979; Hallinger & Murphy, 1985). Such studies (Berman & McLaughlin, 1976; Edmonds, 1979; Hallinger & Murphy, 1985) challenged the Coleman Report (Coleman, 1966), which concluded that out-of-school variables (such as socioeconomic status) were more important to student achievement than in-school variables, which largely had no effect. These studies found instead that a strong, even directive instructional leadership role from the principal was essential for the creation of a positive learning culture and a safe, orderly school that enabled students to succeed regardless of out-of-school characteristics. Other factors frequently identified as important were a clear and focused school mission, high expectations for all students, high student time on task, and positive home–school relations. Gender, race, and political ideology are not mentioned as important influences or aspects of instructional leadership roles.

Following this same tradition, Murphy (1984) conducted a large-scale survey of principals and other educators and identified four leadership tasks or functions that distinguish high-achieving from low-achieving schools. According to Murphy’s findings, effective instructional leaders:

a) develop and communicate a clear mission and goals for the schools;

b) promote quality instruction through formal and informal supervision, effective use of instructional time, parent involvement strategies, and regular assessment of academic goals;

c) promote a school culture of learning by maintaining high expectations and standards, being visible in classrooms and the school, rewarding good teachers (e.g., through increased leadership responsibility, recognition) and high-achieving students (e.g., through rewards), and fostering professional development;

d) develop a supportive work environment, characterized by a safe and orderly learning climate, clear and consistent discipline procedures, opportunities for meaningful student involvement (e.g., decision-making councils) and teacher involvement (e.g., decision-making councils, informal leadership roles), staff collaboration and cohesion, the securing of outside resources in support of school goals, and links between the home and the school.

Over time, Murphy’s (1984) instructional leadership characteristics and behaviors were corroborated by other empirical research studies (e.g. Hallinger & Murphy, 1985; Purkey & Smith, 1983; Sheppard, 1996). For instance, based on a similar large-scale survey, Hallinger and Murphy (1985) identified several “instructional leadership behaviors” that yielded improved student outcomes: setting high expectations and goals; supervising and evaluating instruction; coordinating the curriculum; and monitoring student progress. Hallinger and Murphy did not, however, find any connections between curriculum decision-making structures or learning culture and student achievement. A decade later, Sheppard (1996) replicated Murphy’s (1984) study and identified the additional factors of teacher commitment, professional involvement, and innovativeness as essential influences on classroom practice. For almost 2 decades, educational leadership training programs focused on teaching prospective principals the instructional leadership factors and behaviors identified in these and other similar research studies.

Yet despite the assumption that using quantitative methods would produce findings that could be replicated and generalized, the link between instructional leadership and student outcomes has remained elusive. In other words, the impact of instructional leadership on academic achievement—the dependent variable most often identified in these studies—is inconclusive. Further, the effects of leadership on other outcomes, such as teacher involvement in curriculum decision making, are contradictory because schools vary widely in their organizational structure, commitment to collaborative decision-making processes, professional development, level of teaching experience among the faculty, and underlying curriculum philosophy.

In an attempt to clarify the contradictory results of these early studies, some scholars have examined particular leadership processes (e.g., school organizational structure, underlying curriculum philosophy, professional development) that may mediate between inputs and outputs but be ignored or controlled for in large-scale studies, in order to refine measurements of curriculum leadership. Here the ultimate goal is to find an indirect causal model of curriculum leadership, in which a particular variety of shared or collaborative approach to instructional leadership is necessary but not sufficient for high-quality teaching and learning (e.g., Jackson, 2000; Marks & Printy, 2003).

For example, Marks and Printy (2003) used hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to analyze survey, observation, and interview data from 24 nationally recognized, restructured schools. Their findings indicated that by modeling appropriate instructional leadership behaviors and inviting teachers to share leadership responsibilities, principals build instructional leadership capacity for systemic school change, which in turn, increases student engagement and learning. Marks and Printy concluded, “When teachers perceive principals’ instructional leadership behaviors to be appropriate, they grow in commitment, professional involvement, and willingness to innovate” (p. 5). Similarly, Jackson (2000) used a mixed-methods approach to examine schools that consistently performed well on various assessment measures; he found that what he called an “interactive leadership model”—whereby principals invited teachers to lead curriculum improvement efforts and then worked with them in a shared instructional leadership capacity to develop instructional innovations—could improve student learning. Jackson (2000) further identified differences in the particular curriculum philosophy and pedagogy that individual principals advocated; specifically, strong curriculum leaders fostered the use of constructivist and innovative pedagogy rather than drill-and-practice activities in their schools.

As with earlier traditional studies of instructional leadership, however, the link between leadership and student outcomes remains inconclusive. Whereas Marks and Printy (2003) and Jackson (2000) agree that modeling instructional leadership behaviors is important for administrators, they differ as to the specific leadership behaviors that should be modeled. These studies do not provide contextualized understandings (macro or micro) of curriculum leadership. Further, because researchers assume clear-cut, measurable differences in principals’ curriculum leadership behaviors, they add and average within-study and between-study anomalies to subsume discrepant behaviors and characteristics. The presence of discrepant cases, however, suggests that the very units of analysis in traditional curriculum leadership studies may be inaccurate: in reality the characteristics that constitute strong versus typical and weak curriculum leadership may not be so easily distinguished as categorical labels suggest or statistical analysis requires, particularly if researchers consider influences of personal identity like gender and race or hegemony and politics.

A second issue is that educational administration studies have provided leaders with clear guidance on how to influence teaching and learning in schools, but rarely mention what educational content leaders should influence. For example, Spillane and colleagues (2001) define instructional leadership in terms of the various forms of capital that followers’ value (e.g., social, cultural, human). Spillane et al.’s definition of human capital encompasses curriculum content knowledge, but human capital is not explicitly grounded in social or curriculum theory. Some curriculum leadership textbooks (e.g., Glatthorn et al., 2004 provide current and aspiring leaders with curriculum development models; however, there is little discussion about educational content and the role of politics in curriculum decisions.

Although it is understandable that traditional instructional leadership frameworks have dominated educational administration training for almost 30 years, during a period when political and academic curriculum trends remained relatively stable, it is becoming increasingly clear that these frameworks fail today’s school leaders who struggle daily with the politics of curriculum content decisions. Educational leadership scholars and practitioners frequently talk about leadership theory: how formal and informal leaders influence organizational members toward some direction or reform initiative. Without denying the importance of leadership perspectives to educational change, I argue that what we lead (individually or collectively) is just as important as who leads and what strategies are used to achieve educational goals. Further, choices about what we lead are influenced by personal identities, philosophies, and broader cultural politics. Today’s educational leaders must have a deep understanding of the curriculum in relation to broader cultural politics that they consciously or unconsciously attempt to influence in their schools.

Curriculum Theories in the Fields of Curriculum and Critical Education Studies

Kliebard (1992) reminds us that theories have their origins in human problems, thoughts, and curiosity. The problem that gives rise to curriculum theory is that teaching requires making choices about what to teach; hence, curriculum development may be defined as that activity which gives systematic attention to the question of what we should teach. According to Kliebard (1992), the central question of what we should teach gives rise to other problems: (1) Why should we teach one thing rather than another? (2) Who should have access to that knowledge? (3) What rules should govern the teaching of whatever content has been selected? (4) How should the various parts of the curriculum be interrelated in order to create a coherent whole?

Progressive and conservative (traditionalist) educators and scholars have debated these questions for more than a century; however, these debates have rarely made their way into the instructional leadership literature used in educational administration certification programs or into doctoral programs and postcertification professional development, many of which emphasize practical models or strategies. As a result, unless educational leaders have a strong master’s or doctoral minor in curriculum studies, they may have to remember back to their undergraduate courses or study curriculum theory development on their own. Several early instructional leadership models (e.g. Heck et al., 1990 Murphy, 1984) and more recent textbooks (e.g., Glatthorn et al., 2004 merely allude to curriculum issues, indirectly advising leaders to use rational, step-by-step curriculum development and management procedures.

Rational Technical Curriculum Theories

This section begins with a review of the rational curriculum theories suggested in several instructional leadership models from the 1970s and ’80s, then moves on to more critical, progressive theories relevant for today’s curriculum problems. One of the earliest curriculum theories postulates that children learn content through stern mental discipline such as rote memorization—a theory echoed in the back-to-basics movement that has recently gained some traction as educators are pressured to quickly raise student achievement scores on state-level standardized tests. Ralph Tyler (1949) developed one of the most frequently cited applications of mental discipline theory. Although he presented his publication as a means of viewing, analyzing, and interpreting the program of an educational institution, it has been interpreted as a step-by-step procedure for curriculum construction: (1) designation and alignment of purpose; (2) educational experiences; (3) organization; and (4) assessment. Tyler uses the psychology of learning as a “screen” that enables educators to determine what can actually be learned and what cannot, which goals are practicable for schools, and so on. Essentially, Tyler’s commitment is to a highly rationalized, comprehensive method for arriving at logical and justifiable curricula of many different kinds. In this way, Tyler’s rationale concentrates on the how of curriculum making, not the what of curriculum itself, and his concentration has influenced generations of instructional leadership research and training programs, as well as popular comprehensive reforms such as Success for All. Schwab (1971) developed a less linear and more flexible model than Tyler’s (1949) rationale but still recommends the same steps for curriculum content and instructional decision-making processes. Tyler’s (1949) and Schwaub’s (1978) models have been the historical sources of many school district curriculum-...

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• Contents
• List of Problem-Posing Cases
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 New Professional Curriculum Leadership
• 3 Critical Curriculum Leadership
• 4 School Culture and Curriculum Leadership
• 5 Curriculum and Development Processes
• 6 The Influences of Curriculum Leadership on Community Relationships, Revitalization, and Progressive Education
• 7 Toward a New Field of Curriculum Leadership
• APPENDIX A Research Methods
• APPENDIX B Challenging the Rhetorical Identity of Curriculum Leadership
• References
• Index