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doi: 10.1177/1741143204046493pmid: N/A
This article analyses the development of school funding in England between 1988 and2002 from two perspectives. The first perspective is temporal, showing how thehistory of funding has evolved through a number of phases reflecting changing policyemphases and purposes. A major change that is explored in some detail is theincreased use by the post-1997 Labour Government of direct funding tied to specificpolicy objectives. The second perspective is conceptual, exploring how, as thereform agenda has evolved, there have been changes both in the relative prioritygiven to equity as an objective and to the ways in which it has been defined bothexplicitly and implicitly in relation to the funding mechanisms used to achieve it.The main theme that emerges here is the change from a funding regime that focuses onthe transparent achievement of equity in resource inputs to one which focuses muchmore emphasis on an ‘adequacy’ agenda: the targeting of resourceinputs to achieve specific outcomes for particular groups of students.
Marsh, David D.; LeFever, Karen
doi: 10.1177/1741143204046494pmid: N/A
Is it possible for principals/heads to be effective educational leaders? In thisstudy, we compared the work of principals/heads in two policy contexts. In PolicyContext 1, standards for student performance were common and well-established, andauthority was devolved to the school level for reshaping the school to meet thosestandards. In contrast, Policy Context 2 involved attention to more locally definedstandards, and authority was more rule-driven rather than directed by localself-management. Policy Context 1 provided several advantages for educationalleaders. Principals/heads were able to use the formal leadership structure of theschool and to be more focused on actually achieving student results as measuredagainst standards. In contrast, principals in Policy Context 2 often had to spendconsiderable personal energy helping the school define its purpose/mission, andcould not hold the collaborative focus tightly on a specific set of studentstandards or results. Implications for job structuring, principal development, andconnections between policy and practice are discussed.
doi: 10.1177/1741143204046495pmid: N/A
This article examines the relationships that link student experience in schools,student outcomes, the nature of society and school leadership process. Each of theseareas of study has its own literature and this article does no more than indicatewhere some of that may be read. The linking of these phenomena indicates a tightrelationship, which militates against change and explains a very conservative,internally consistent, cycle. The cycle may reinforce characteristics of societythat are unwelcome: for instance, the low turnout at elections and a perceived lackof other citizenship traits. A premise of this article is that we should seek tocreate a society in which citizens feel responsible for the strategic determinationof policy, whether about relations with other states or about the culture within theUK. Change will require actors at some stage in the cycle to break away from thetight relationship with the other phenomena. Those who are responsible for theprofessional development of educational leaders are uniquely situated to put a spokeinto the cycle.
doi: 10.1177/1741143204046496pmid: N/A
Managing organizations in modern societies takes place through persuasion and theseductive use of language rather than, as in past societies, through physicalviolence and repression. In this respect new management discourses imply alinguistic process where actors within education gradually become defined withinother frames of reference. This article sets out to unpack and reconstructperceptions of educational leadership in a report from the Ministry of Education andScience entitled Learning Leaders: Leadership for Today’s andTomorrow’s School. It is inspired by Potter’sunderstanding of discourse. If a democratic, learning and communicative leadershipis the solution — what are the problems and causes? What kind ofproblematic yesterday is the point of departure, and what is the promised futurelike? I will argue that the leader emerges as a function of a changed way toexercise power.
Woods, Philip A.; Bennett, Nigel; Harvey, Janet A.; Wise, Christine
doi: 10.1177/1741143204046497pmid: N/A
This article examines the concept of distributed leadership, drawing from asystematic review of relevant literature commissioned by the National College forSchool Leadership (NCSL) and jointly funded by NCSL and the OpenUniversity’s Centre for Educational Policy, Leadership and LifelongLearning (CEPoLL). The concept attracts a range of meanings and is associated with avariety of practices, with varying implications for organizational processes andvalues. The article highlights key variables that emerged from the literaturereview. It then elaborates one of the emergent themes—the distinctionbetween structure and agency—and seeks to utilize this further as a meansof illuminating the concept and practice of distributed leadership. In conclusion,areas for future research are identified.
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