Can Instructional Leaders Be Facilitative Leaders?
The article entitled can instructional leaders be facilitative leaders? Gave a detailed explanation of the concept behind instructional leadership. The article discussed if instructional leaders can coexist with collaboration. The article was informative and answered things in a point form. The article was able to understand how instructional leadership and facilitative leadership can be used in schools. Both the control of the organization and the design of the education product are very different in public and private schools. In public schools, control is vested in democratically controlled bodies-state legislatures, state departments of public instruction, school district boards, and school district appointed officials and administrators. It is the responsibility of those bodies to design and alter the organizational arrangements in schools and to determine the form of education they produce. In the main, for private schools these tasks are highly decentralized (Duke 2002). Public and private schools differ considerably in terms of accountability-both to whom they are accountable and by what means. Public schools-created, regulated, and designed by democratically selected officials-are accountable to the public, which both uses the schools and pays for them McGhee 2003).
Political authorities outside the school establish the methods and measures of accountability. These may include minimal reporting of student progress to parents via report cards and achievement testing, or it may include elaborate measures of pupil success reported at the individual, school, district, or state level. In the last decade, public schools have certainly moved from the former to the latter in many states. Private schools may use many of the same accountability measures, but they differ in crucial ways. Private schools are primarily accountable to their clients and only their clients; and second, they develop and control the accountability systems internally. Most schools had formal boards of directors, including parents, community members, and often patrons or their representatives. They also usually had formal by-laws, ranging from detailed constitutional handbooks to smaller sets of procedures and lists of responsibilities. In most schools, parents were well represented on boards and key committees. In all of the schools except two alternative programs, there were also formal parent organizations. In several schools, elaborate and well-functioning committees were also utilized. The most common were finance, fund-raising, and personnel. But some schools also had committees for student admission and expulsion, curriculum, buildings, and even marketing (Sallis 2002). Schools varied considerably in terms of their financial accountability procedures. The majority employed some variant of accounting and outside auditing procedures legislated for nonprofit organizations. The customers and clients of the education service such as students, parents and the community deserve the best possible quality of education. This is the moral high ground in education and one of the few areas of educational discussion where there is little dissent (Witte 2000).
It is the duty of educational professionals and administrators to have an overriding concern to provide the very best possible educational opportunities. Closely linked to the moral imperative is the professional imperative. Professionalism implies a commitment to the needs of students and an obligation to meet their needs by employing the most appropriate pedagogic practices. Educators have a professional duty to improve the quality of education and this, of course, places a considerable burden on teachers and administrators to ensure that both classroom practice and the management of the institution are operating to the highest possible standards. Competition is a reality in the world of education. Falling enrolments can lead to staff redundancies and ultimately the viability of the institution can be under threat (Lick & Mullen 1999). Educationalists can meet the challenge of competition by working to improve the quality of their service and of their curriculum delivery mechanisms. The importance of total quality management (TQM) to survival is that it is a customer-driven process, focusing on the needs of clients and providing mechanisms to respond to their needs and wants. Competition requires strategies that clearly differentiate institutions from their competitors. Quality may sometimes be the only differentiating factor for an institution. Focusing on the needs of the customer, which is at the heart of quality, is one of the most effective means of facing the competition and surviving. Schools and colleges are part of their communities and as such they must meet the political demands for education to be more accountable and publicly demonstrate the high standards. TQM supports the accountability imperative by promoting objective and measurable outcomes of the educational process and provides mechanisms for quality improvement. Quality improvement becomes increasingly important as institutions achieve greater control over their own affairs. Greater freedom has to be matched by greater accountability. Institutions have to demonstrate that they are able to deliver what is required of them (Blechman & Goonen 1999). The article proves to be a good help in running private and public schools at a better level.
References
Blechman, RS & Goonen, NM 1999, Higher education administration:
A guide to legal, ethical, and practical issues, Greenwood
Press, Westport, CT.
Duke, C 2002, Managing the learning university, Open University
Press, Philadelphia.
Lick, DW & Mullen, CA 1999, New directions in mentoring:
Creating a culture of synergy, Falmer Press, London.
McGhee, P 2003, The academic quality handbook: Enhancing higher
education in universities and further education colleges, Kogan
Page, London.
Sallis, E 2002, Total quality management in education, Kogan
Page, London.
Witte, JF 2000, The market approach to education: An analysis of
America’s first voucher program, Princeton University Press,
Princeton, NJ.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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