Principal Accomplishments: How School Leaders Succeed (Critical Issues in Educational Leadership Series)

225 Pages·2006·1.1 MB·English

by  G. Thomas Bellamy

Critical Issues in Educational Leadership Series
Joseph Murphy, Series Editor
Principal Accomplishments: How School Leaders Succeed
G. THOMAS BELLAMY, CONNIE L. FULMER, MICHAEL J. MURPHY, AND RODNEY MUTH
Balanced Leadership:
How Effective Principals Manage Their Work
SHERYL BORIS-SCHACTER AND SONDRA LANGER
A New Agenda for Research in Educational Leadership
WILLIAM A. FIRESTONE AND CAROLYN RIEHL, EDS.
The Effective Principal: Instructional Leadership for High-Quality Learning
BARBARA SCOTT NELSON AND ANNETTE SASSI
Redesigning Accountability Systems for Education
SUSAN H. FUHRMAN AND RICHARD F. ELMORE, EDS.
Taking Account of Charter Schools: What’s Happened and What’s Next?
KATRINA E. BULKLEY AND PRISCILLA WOHLSTETTER, EDS.
Learning Together, Leading Together:
Changing Schools through Professional Learning Communities
SHIRLEY M. HORD, ED.
Who Governs Our Schools? Changing Roles and Responsibilities
DAVID T. CONLEY
School Districts and Instructional Renewal
AMY M. HIGHTOWER, MICHAEL S. KNAPP,
JULIE A. MARSH, AND MILBREY W. MCLAUGHLIN, EDS.
Effort and Excellence in Urban Classrooms:
Expecting—and Getting—Success with All Students
DICK CORBETT, BRUCE WILSON, AND BELINDA WILLIAMS
Developing Educational Leaders: A Working Model:
The Learning Community in Action
CYNTHIA J. NORRIS, BRUCE G. BARNETT,
MARGARET R. BASOM, AND DIANE M. YERKES
Understanding and Assessing the Charter School Movement
JOSEPH MURPHY AND CATHERINE DUNN SHIFFMAN
School Choice in Urban America: Magnet Schools and the Pursuit of Equity
CLAIRE SMREKAR AND ELLEN GOLDRING
Lessons from High-Performing Hispanic Schools:
Creating Learning Communities
PEDRO REYES, JAY D. SCRIBNER, AND
ALICIA PAREDES SCRIBNER, EDS.
Schools for Sale: Why Free Market Policies
Won’t Improve America’s Schools, and What Will
ERNEST R. HOUSE
Reclaiming Educational Administration as a Caring Profession
LYNN G. BECK

PRINCIPAL
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
How School
Leaders Succeed
G. Thomas Bellamy
Connie L. Fulmer
Michael J. Murphy
Rodney Muth
Foreword by Robert Donmoyer
Teachers College, Columbia University
New York and London
Published by Teachers College Press, 1234 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027
Copyright © 2007 by Teachers College, Columbia University
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, or any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Principal accomplishments : how school leaders succeed / G. Thomas Bellamy ... [et al.].
p. cm. — (Critical issues in educational leadership series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8077-4743-8 (hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-8077-4743-2 (hardcover)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8077-4742-1 (pbk.)
ISBN-10: 0-8077-4742-4 (pbk.)
1. School principals—United States. 2. Educational leadership—United States.
3. School management and organization—United States. I. Bellamy, G. Thomas.
LB2831.92.P715 2006
371.2'012—dc22
2006021744
ISBN 13: 978-0-8077-4742-1 (paper)
ISBN 13: 978-0-8077-4743-8 (cloth)
Printed on acid-free paper
Manufactured in the United States of America
14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Foreword by Robert Donmoyer ix
Preface xiii
CHAPTER 1 Challenges for the Principalship 1
High Expectations and Difficult Conditions 1
Enduring Leadership Paradoxes 4
Implications for Renewal in the Principalship 8
PART I UNDERSTANDING SCHOOL LEADERSHIP
AS ACCOMPLISHMENT-MINDED PRACTICE 13
CHAPTER 2 Defining Goals for Student Learning
and School Conditions 17
Two Fundamental Goals 17
Competing Purposes for Schools 20
Who Decides Among Competing Priorities? 23
The Principal’s Role in Shaping School Goals 25
School Goals and Accomplishment-Minded Practice 26
Summary 27
CHAPTER 3 Accomplishments for School Goals 28
Linking Lofty Goals to Daily Work 28
Accomplishments as Components of a Theory of Action 29
The Framework for School Leadership Accomplishments 33
Summary 39
CHAPTER 4 Pragmatic Practice for School
Accomplishments 41
The Uncertain Circumstances of School Leadership 41
A Deep Repertoire of Strategies Supported by an Eclectic Knowledge Base 44
The Importance of Feedback 45
Summary 48
v
vi Contents
CHAPTER 5 Social Capital for School Accomplishments 49
Social Capital as a Resource for School Work 50
Elements of a School’s Social Capital 52
Social Capital and the Democratic Purposes of Schools 59
Summary 60
PART II THE PRACTICE OF ACCOMPLISHMENT-MINDED LEADERSHIP 63
CHAPTER 6 Leadership for Sustainable Goals 67
How Sustainable Goals Support Student Learning 67
Strategies for Developing Sustainable Goals 69
Summary 79
CHAPTER 7 Leadership for Strategic Focus 80
How Strategic Focus Supports Student Learning 80
Strategies for Achieving Strategic Focus 81
Summary 92
CHAPTER 8 Leadership for Effective Action 94
How Leadership for Effective Action Supports Student Learning 95
Strategies Supporting Effective Action 96
A Special Focus on Teaching and Learning 101
Summary 103
CHAPTER 9 Leadership for Social Capital 105
How Social Capital Supports Student Learning 106
Strategies for Improving Social Capital 107
Summary 119
PART III KNOWLEDGE FOR SCHOOL LEADERSHIP 121
CHAPTER 10 Organizing Knowledge to Support
Accomplishments 125
Current Knowledge for School Leadership 126
Using Accomplishments to Frame the Profession’s Knowledge 129
Reflections on an Accomplishment Frame for Professional Knowledge 136
CHAPTER 11 Sharing Knowledge Through
Practice Narratives 138
Professional Cases for Building Craft Knowledge 139
The Annual Case of School Leadership 142
Using Annual Cases 156
Contents vii
CHAPTER 12 Developing Individual Knowledge
for School Leadership 158
Individual Knowledge 159
Developing and Structuring Individual Knowledge 160
Helping Principal Candidates Use Their Knowledge 165
Programs for Preparing Accomplishment-Minded Leaders 170
References 173
Index 193
About the Authors 203

Foreword
The possession of a specialized knowledge base is one of the things that make
a profession a profession. The medical profession, for example, has fashioned
such a knowledge base from the results of basic research conducted by physi-
cal scientists and the theories scientists have constructed from these results.
More applied inquiry conducted within the medical field itself (e.g., random-
ized drug trials, epidemiological studies) also contributes to the medical
profession’s storehouse of knowledge. A professional knowledge base, in
short, is both a practical necessity and a source of status for a field and its
members.
Not surprisingly, academics within the field of educational administra-
tion have spent considerable time and energy attempting to construct a knowl-
edge base that could both guide the work of principals and other school
leaders and enhance their status and the status of the educational adminis-
tration field, in general. During the middle of the twentieth century, for exam-
ple, the field’s so-called theory movement focused on developing empirically
based social science theories that could be used by school leaders, much as
engineers and physicians use empirically based theoretical knowledge about
the physical world to direct their professional practice.
Theoretical knowledge was still the coin of the realm in the 1980s when
the University Council of Educational Administration (UCEA) launched its
Knowledge Base Project. The major difference between the theory movement
of the 1960s and UCEA’s Knowledge Base Project in the 1980s and early
1990s was the latter’s more eclectic conception of theory. Charged with ar-
ticulating the profession’s knowledge base about organizations, the UCEA
task force endorsed an array of sometimes contradictory organizational theo-
ries: Positivist, interpretive/constructivist, and critical theory perspectives were
all enthusiastically embraced. Task force members, however, said nothing
about how school leaders could manage the contradictions inherent in their
eclectic approach when using the field’s “big-tent” knowledge base about
organizations to make actual organizational decisions.
Not surprisingly, the eclectic approach is currently out of fashion and once
again the search is on for the sort of empirical knowledge that links adminis-
trators’ decisions and actions with desired outcomes. As this book is going to
ix