Special Report
School & District Management Opinion

Gauging the Quality of School Leadership

By James P. Spillane — January 03, 2008 2 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Teacher quality has garnered much attention from a diverse group of scholars. A natural next step is to focus on the quality of school leadership and management. After all, the policy environment holds schools, not individual classroom teachers, accountable. By extension, from the work on teacher quality, the obvious response is to examine principal quality by looking at the traditional cast of characters: principals’ expertise, certification, experience, and so on. While this empirical research on principal quality is important and needs to be done, more will be needed to get good proxies for leadership-and-management quality.

I’d argue that expertise or capability are not entirely an individual affair. By letting go of the myth of individualism, the challenges of measuring school leadership-and-management quality begin to emerge. The expertise or ability to perform some core task that is critical for school improvement may be distributed over two or more leaders in a school, in both formal and informal roles, and involve various tools and organizational routines.


Commentaries
Taking Teaching Quality Seriously
The Need for Data Systems
A People-Driven Business
Flexibility and Dynamic Personnel
From Gaps to Gifts
Reforming Teacher Compensation
Human Capital Management

At one level, this is an acknowledgment that the work of leading and managing the school involves a team of individuals with formally designated leadership positions (such as assistant principals and curriculum coordinators), and that the “aggregate” expertise and capability of this team might be an important consideration in the quality of the school’s leadership and management. If we were really ambitious, we might even attempt to measure the contribution of informal leaders, especially teacher leaders. Thinking about expertise and capability as distributed, we have to go beyond simply acknowledging the expertise of individual leaders in a school to considering how they complement one another in the performance of key school improvement tasks. This is difficult but important work. Finally, recognizing that expertise is situated further complicates the measurement task. A situated perspective would press us to acknowledge and understand how what counts as quality or capability in school leadership and management might differ, depending on such factors as the student population served and the teacher workforce in a school.

Work on teacher quality in the education sector has greatly benefited from the field of economics. Similar benefits can be gained from work in distributed and situated cognition, as we move forward and take on the challenge of school leadership-and-management quality. Let’s not fall into the trap of easy measures and quick fixes when it comes to studying and measuring that quality. If we do, our “easy measures” will eventually be debunked, leading to the erroneous conclusion that measuring the quality of school leadership and management is impossible.

Events

Student Well-Being Webinar After-School Learning Top Priority: Academics or Fun?
Join our expert panel to discuss how after-school programs and schools can work together to help students recover from pandemic-related learning loss.
Budget & Finance Webinar Leverage New Funding Sources with Data-Informed Practices
Address the whole child using data-informed practices, gain valuable insights, and learn strategies that can benefit your district.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Classroom Technology Webinar
ChatGPT & Education: 8 Ways AI Improves Student Outcomes
Revolutionize student success! Don't miss our expert-led webinar demonstrating practical ways AI tools will elevate learning experiences.
Content provided by Inzata

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

School & District Management Women of Color Bring Special Strengths to the Superintendency, New Research Suggests
They have deep expertise in instructional leadership and a facility for working with stakeholders and managing thorny social issues.
4 min read
Image of diverse faces.
iStock/Getty
School & District Management 3 Principles to Help School and District Leaders Build Better Relationships With Teachers
Communication, capacity building, and a willingness to fail are key tenants of relationship-building, school and district leaders say.
2 min read
051223 Lead Sym Alyson 2 jb BS
Chris Ferenzi for Education Week
School & District Management This Principal Says It's Critical to Infuse Students' and Teachers' Days With Joy
Part of a school leader's role is to guard against outside distractions so teachers can focus on kids, says Salome Thomas-EL.
2 min read
051223 Lead Sym Caitlynn jb BS
Chris Ferenzi for Education Week
School & District Management Data Data: How Schools Respond to Student Hunger Over the Summer
The end of pandemic-era flexibility for schools and community organizations has translated into fewer students receiving free summer meals.
1 min read
Children enjoy lunches provided by the Brownsville Independent School District on June 8, 2016, at the Olivera Park gymnasium in Brownsville, Texas. The local school district provides free lunches to any child under 18 who needs a meal, regardless of their status as a student with the school district.
Children enjoy lunches provided by the Brownsville Independent School District on June 8, 2016, at the Olivera Park gymnasium in Brownsville, Texas. School districts and other organizations can sign up as summer meal sites to continue providing meals to students once school is out of session.
Jason Hoekema/The Brownsville Herald via AP