Instructional Leadership

Instructional leadership is a leadership policy primarily used by school principals. The policy shifts principals' focus from day-to-day school administration to the improvement of curriculum and classroom instructional practices. While the principal retains a pivotal role in the policy's current form, leadership responsibilities are also disseminated among teachers, school administrators, and district and state supervisors. Studies have shown the policy to be effective when it is fully supported by principals, teachers, and administrators. Principals can improve its probability for success by creating a climate of collaboration among the involved parties, preparing themselves through practical study, offering teachers and administrators professional development opportunities, and becoming adept at data collection and analysis.

School Administration & Policy > Instructional Leadership

Overview

Instructional leadership is a policy implemented by schools which redefines the roles of the various parties involved in a school, especially principals and administrators, towards the end of improving curriculum and instruction. Prior to the 1980s, the roles of school principals and administrators in the United States and other developed countries focused on administrative duties such as evaluating teachers and managing school budgets, schedules, and facilities. However, principals and administrators have become increasingly involved in classroom practices and teaching. In these new roles as "learning leaders" they are responsible for planning curriculum, observing classrooms, and teaching classroom instructors educational methods and philosophies. The National Association of Elementary School Principals builds the concept of instructional leadership around the goal of transforming schools into communities in which continuous learning is a central part of everyone's job function, including school leaders.

The concept of instructional leadership first became popular in the United States in the 1980s as researchers concluded from various studies that the principals who lead the most effective schools were primarily focused on curriculum and instruction rather than on other administrative matters. In the 1990s, as the concept of school-based management made its way into mainstream practice, instructional leadership took a backseat in school leadership discussions. In the climate of standards-based learning, high stakes accountability, and relentless attention to improving educational opportunities for underserved students, instructional leadership has made its way back to the forefront of education policy. Often, a school principal's main responsibility is not performing the day-to-day tasks related to school administration, but accounting for student achievement.

Research has proven that principal leadership can indeed affect student outcomes. However, instructional leadership today is very different from the form it took during the 1980s. When it was first introduced, the policy cast the principal as a singular, heroic, and charismatic leader brought in to direct, control, and revitalizes the school. However, Elmore points out that such natural leaders are few and far between. The responsibility for implementing successful instructional leadership now falls on a variety of parties within the school system. Administrators, policy-making bodies, and teachers are all as significant and involved and as the principal.

While principals are responsible for successfully adapting the instructional leadership model to improve their schools, policymakers, superintendents, researchers, and teachers also all have specific roles in implementing instructional leadership. The principal must work with administrators and others outside of the school to develop the best strategies for school improvement as well as work with instructors inside the school to raise student achievement. Teachers are then responsible for implementing these strategies in the classroom to realize improved learning outcomes. These roles are all interdependent; each group has an impact on the overall success of the reform.

Applications

The Principal's Role

Principals who employ instructional leadership as a strategy for improving student learning attend more closely to classroom practices than other matters related to school administration. While principals are still not directly responsible for teaching students, their roles as instructional leaders are pivotal in influencing student outcomes.

Principals who are transitioning into instructional leadership must develop a number of competencies for the transition to produce successful outcomes. Elmore isolates several that are important instructional leaders. First, instructional leaders must direct their actions towards improving teaching, and in turn, improving student outcomes. This requires instructional leaders to be up to date on instructional methods and model what they expect of their teachers. Instructional leadership also demands that a culture of collective learning be established and valued within the school. To affect this culture, the principle must again be a model to the teachers.

Another major aspect of leadership is teaching others to lead. Instructional leaders provide teachers with the tools they need become leaders themselves. This development of leadership can strengthen the organization of a school. In this way, a principal can directly affect classroom practices and align them with the school's mission of improvement.

Instructional leaders support teachers in curriculum development and provide opportunities for teachers to shape the cultures of their schools. Barth calls for teacher to contribute to a number of aspects of running a school including developing curriculum, choosing materials, evaluating performance, building the budget, and setting policy and practices for hiring, promotion, and retention.

Research has also shown that the most tangible improvement in student outcomes is made by placing highly qualified teachers in the classroom. The instructors at any school bring to the institution a broad range of experiences and competencies. Principals who are instructional leaders must recognize and support these competencies while also providing professional development opportunities for those who need greater support in improving classroom practices. Instructional leaders may mentor teachers towards becoming leaders, establish times when teachers can directly contribute to important school conversations, and develop a school culture in which teachers feel invested in one another and the school. Principals must recognize a variety of teacher needs.

The District's Role

Instructional leaders must be supported by the districts in which they work. In the current era of standards-based reform, school districts have a responsibility to ensure that their students are learning. Districts can support principals and teachers by providing professional development opportunities that target instructional leadership issues. Furthermore, they must carefully negotiate any barriers their policies may pose to instructional leaders. These barriers are further discussed in the Viewpoints section below.

The Teachers' Role

With the advent of instructional leadership, teacher leadership has evolved to become as much of a factor for success as principal leadership. Frost and Durrant  conclude that leadership development in teachers is fundamental to improving schools.

As a school's principal and administrators develop teachers' leadership skills, teachers may be called upon to perform a variety of tasks which may change their roles within the school. Teachers in public schools are often isolated in their classrooms; they may feel a clear delineation between their classroom and the rest of the school. With the implementation of instructional leadership, teachers may be called upon to contribute to school functions like choosing instructional materials, writing curriculum, deciding school policies and hiring practices, and analyzing and evaluating budgets.

Imperative to the success of this new role is the acceptance of new teaching practices and a new school culture. Instructional leaders will usually observe classroom practices more often and increase their overall presence in classrooms. In this sense, the principal becomes less of a supervisor and more of a mentor. For instructional leadership to be successful, it is crucial for teachers and principals to accept and embrace these changes, form strong relationships in which teachers are not afraid of failure, and constantly work towards learning and implementing better teaching practices.

Viewpoints

Instructional leadership became one of the most empirically supported policies recognized by the education community. Studies on instructional leadership and its effectiveness abound, extolling the policy's impact on student learning and the health of the overall institution. When implementation is successful, students are successful. However, some barriers to success and conditional requirements need to be taken into account.

The Autonomy Gap

The breadth of leadership involved in instructional improvement is quite wide. A wide range of duties must be performed and supported by parties both inside and outside the school. As instructional leadership requires the support of many parties, when these parties do not fulfill their roles and requirements are not met, the policy may not be successful.

A successful instructional leader must be supported by district and states supervisors as well as by teachers and administrators within the school. In a study of thirty-three elementary school principals, Adamowski, Therriault, & Cavanna define the "autonomy gap" as "the difference between the amount of authority that district school principals think they need in order to be effective leaders and the amount they actually have” (p. 5). Their research found several barriers to effective instructional leadership which result from various policies that are beyond principals' control. Many of these barriers exist in the area of hiring practices and policies which can limit principals' freedom to choose staff for their schools.

When principals' autonomy is limited by outside policymakers, the transition to instructional leadership becomes much more difficult. Instructional leadership requires the principal to promote student achievement through teacher learning by leading curriculum development and instructional practices. However, curriculum and instruction are the areas over which district and state policymakers often most hesitate to relinquish control. Though research proves that instructional leadership can improve educational outcomes for students, principals may not have enough power to make the necessary changes to curriculum and instruction.

Glanz, Shulman, & Sullivan conducted a study surveying instructional leadership in several New York City public schools. They found that a centralized education system posed significant barriers to instructional leadership. Management that comes directly from within a school is much more effective at improving student learning. They also found that when instructional leadership practices which stressed collaboration and improved instruction from teachers were instituted, students achieved at higher rates, including students whose first language was not English.

Fullan also found that school reform was most likely to be successful if decision making power was decentralized to schools, rather than mandated from a peripheral source. Michael & Young conducted a study to pinpoint characteristics of "inspired" schools - schools that are effective, resilient, and promote a community of learning. Their research suggests that these "inspired" schools, because of their shared mission, were better equipped to address problems and issues facing schools today. These schools shared many characteristics, including a belief in lifelong learning which is central to the practice of instructional leadership.

Academic Training

The impact of instructional leadership may also be directly correlated to the academic training of the principals implementing the policy. Byrd, Slater, and Brooks conducted research analyzing the effectiveness of principals according to their academic degrees. They found that student outcomes were significantly related to whether a school's principal held a PhD. or an EdD. Principals who completed EdD programs, which tend to be oriented towards practice, were more successful at improving student achievement than those who completed PhD programs, which tend to focus on research over practice.

Teacher Supervision

Teacher supervision poses additional challenges to instructional leaders. Hallinger notes that school principals often have less subject knowledge than teachers, especially at the high school level. Furthermore, the classroom has long been a space in which teachers and students can work without outside interference. Often, a feature of instructional leadership is increased principal presence in the classroom as he or she observes and mentors teachers. However, Hallinger notes that there is no empirical evidence to indicate that principals spend more time on classroom instruction in the early twenty-first century than they did in the 1980s. This finding is suggestive of a barrier between teachers and principals, even as the concept of instructional leadership has gained ground as an important policy change in schools.

Normative & Autonomous Climates

In addition to the individual participants and a principal's preparation, other issues impact the success of instructional leadership. Rosenholtz argues that schools which are not committed to a concrete set of goals are unlikely to be effective in improving student learning. She draws the distinction between collaborative versus autonomous climates. In the former, characteristics include a focus on teamwork, relationship building, and a culture of continuous improvement and learning for all. These schools are led by principals who concentrate on improving teachers' skills so that they may in turn positively impact student learning. All the players are united by a set of common goals. In the latter type of climate, however, goals are not only ambiguous, but unarticulated. The emphasis is placed on the individual rather on the group as it works together towards a collective goal. Isolation is common, and the principals' main role is not centered on curriculum and instruction practices but rather on school administration.

To create a climate in which all individuals within the school support and are supported by instructional leadership, it is crucial for all the involved parties to buy into the school's goals and culture. Hallinger builds on Rosenholtz's findings. He describes three core functions that are imperative to successful instructional leadership: delineating the school's mission, coordinating the school's curriculum and instructional practices, and creating a positive environment focused on continuous improvement.

Professional Development

The professional development of leaders and teachers is also crucial. Instructional leadership today denotes changes in everyone's roles. Using the case study of a school seeking to employ instructional leadership, argues that providing professional development opportunities related to instructional leadership skills within the school is more effective than offering outside professional development opportunities. By providing these opportunities within school teachers are able to adapt new perspectives and skills to the context of their environment.

Data Collection & Analysis

In the modern world of educational accountability, schools are required to demonstrate either proficiency or improvement. Instructional leaders, therefore, must be proficient in data collection and analysis. Schools may use a number of methods to collect data and monitor progress including surveys, standardized testing, and focus groups.

Instructional leaders can utilize data collection and analysis in a variety of ways. First, they can pinpoint areas in which their schools are strong, and areas which need improvement. This way, the conclusions they draw are not unsupported - they are backed by the numbers. Instructional leaders may also use data to monitor progress. As the various facets of the reforms associated with instructional leadership are implemented, it is important to monitor progress to determine whether or not the reforms are helping the school. Enough time must be allotted for the reforms to be implemented, however, as schools may take time to produce tangible results.

Togneri writes that districts and schools can improve data collection in three ways. First, they should focus on the process rather than the data. For example, if the data shows negative outcomes, districts will be more successful if they push leaders to accept the data and think of solutions to the problems it presents instead of placing blame. Second, when districts help leaders collect and analyze data, the analysis should identify positive and negative trends and be useful to leaders as they determine courses of improvement. Finally, if data is provided from a source outside the district, principals and teachers should be trained to analyze the data and use it as a basis for improvement.

Conclusion

The primary player in instructional leadership is the principal. However, the days are over in which principals are expected to act alone. The demands placed on schools today are too broad for an individual to single-handedly improve a school. Principals' endeavors to improve curriculum and instruction are supported by districts, administrators, and teachers. Of course, the most important aspect of instructional leadership is whether the principal can teach instructors effectively, and thus impact the learning of students.

Elmore describes the high expectations often placed on principals:

Reading the literature on the principalship can be overwhelming, because it suggests that principals should embody all the traits and skills that remedy all the defects of the schools in which they work. They should be in close touch with their communities, inside and outside the school; they should, above all, be masters of human relations, attending to all the conflicts and disagreements that might arise among students, among teachers, and among anyone else who chooses to create conflict in the school; they should be both respectful of the authority of district administrators and crafty at deflecting administrative intrusions that disrupt the autonomy of teachers; they should keep an orderly school; and so on.

In short, school principals are expected to possess nearly super-human capabilities. Rosenholtz found that principal collegiality with teachers had no significant effect on school performance directly, but that when collegiality was connected to goals set by the school, there was an impact on the school's performance. In the era of standards based reform, leadership should be refocused to make the improvement of student outcomes its central goal. If the leadership has this goal, and can diffuse it to other parties involved in the school, student outcomes may improve.

The research on instructional leadership has provided proof of the policy's many positive outcomes. However, one area that needs further study is the effect of instructional leadership at different grade levels. While there is a wealth of research on the effects instructional leadership at elementary schools, the findings have not necessarily been applied to secondary schools whose sizes, natures, and politics are far more complex.

When implementing instruction leadership, many barriers can arise. Some are rooted in the educational bureaucracy, others include teacher hesitancy, a lack of professional development opportunities, and principals' proficiency with data collection and analysis. These obstacles must be addressed carefully to improve educational outcomes for students. However, there is no doubt that changing the role of the principal to focus more directly on improving teacher competency can greatly improve student outcomes.

Terms & Concepts

Autonomous Climate: A school culture in which goals are ambiguous or unarticulated, individuals rather than groups are emphasized, and principals and other administrations are not heavily involved in curriculum or instruction.

Curriculum: Is the body of knowledge schools teach to students.

Data Driven Reform: The use of data collection and analysis to make informed decisions about school reform and improvement.

High-Stakes Testing: A testing program that has important consequences for teachers, students, or administration at a school, primarily the possible loss of funding.

Instruction: The teaching methods employed in a classroom.

Principal: The leader of a school. The position's specific responsibilities may vary across schools, but the primary role is to act as a bridge between the district and the individual school.

Professional Development: The building of professionals' knowledge and competencies. In the educational and development field, this may be done through courses of study, travel, research, internships, or sabbaticals.

School Management: The way in which schools are organized and supervised. Management may come from an outside source, such as the school district, or an internal source, such as the principal or other administrators.

Student Outcomes: The competencies displayed by students through a variety of measurement tools intended to assess whether students have successfully learned material.

Bibliography

Adamowki, S., Therriault, S.B., & Cavanna, A.P. (2007). The autonomy gap: barriers to effective school leadership. Washington, D.C.: American Institutes for Research &

Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

Banicky, L., Rodney, M., & Foss, H.K. (2000). The Promises and problems of school-based management. Dover, DE: University of Delaware Research and Development Center.

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Frost, D., & Durrant, J. (2002). Instructional leadership for school improvement. New York: Eye on Education.

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Suggested Reading

Barth, R. (1990). Improving schools from within. San Francisco: Josey-Bass.

Blase, J. & Blase, J. (2000). Effective instructional leadership: Teachers' perspectives on how principals promote teaching and learning in schools. Journal of Educational Administration, 38 , 130-141.

Chase, G. & Kane, M. (1983). The principal as instructional leader: How much more time before we act? Denver, CO: Education Commission of the States.

Jamentz, K. (2002). Isolation is the enemy of improvement: Instructional leadership to support standards-based practice. San Francisco: WestED.

Spillane, J., Halverson, R. & Diamond, J. (2000). Toward a theory of leadership practice: A distributed perspective. Evanston, IL: Institute for Policy Research.