Teacher Leadership as Tool for Policy Implementation
Lorrae Ward (PhD)
Cognition Consulting Limited
Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, Institute of Education, University of London, 5-8 September 2007
Abstract
This paper considers the enactment of teacher leadership as a tool for policy implementation aimed at instructional reform. Two studies undertaken in New Zealand, which utilised teacher leaders within government funded initiatives aimed at directly at enhancing teacher practice and student outcomes, are described and their findings collated. What this collation suggests is that teacher leadership has the potential to significantly impact on teacher practice but only under certain circumstances. Alone it cannot alter a school culture but it can serve as a powerful catalyst and lever for change when an emergent professional learning culture is already evident. In both studies there were highly successful models of teacher leadership and equally unsuccessful ones. The personal and professional qualities of the teacher leaders were critical but of fundamental importance was a shared understanding and commitment to improvement and change across the communities within which they were working. This shared understanding and commitment provided the teacher leaders with a moral authority to act. Linked to this moral authority was the need for their role to have status and value, something which was normally conferred by the formal leaders of their community. The study, therefore, highlights the importance of both teacher leadership and strategic, formal leadership which can help define the culture within which the teacher leader is working.
Introduction
The 21st century has seen almost unparalleled calls for school reform, and more recently, equally strong calls for a democratic form of distributed leadership. These calls for distributed leadership arise from the recognition that there is a need for strong instructional leadership (that is leadership focussed on teaching and learning) if student outcomes are to improve. Amidst these calls, teacher leadership is increasingly being viewed as an important tool for school reform, as a “sleeping giant” whose time has come (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001). It is a way of distributing instructional leadership across schools and, thereby, providing a sustainable model of leadership which is not dependent solely on senior management.
Within New Zealand a number of policy initiatives aim to utilise teacher leadership through the provision of leadership positions for teachers outside the formal school hierarchy. These include roles such as literacy leaders, curriculum leaders, ICT lead teachers and more recently the Specialist Classroom Teachers in secondary schools. It is important to note that while these are formal positions they sit outside traditional management structures and as such may not have status and/or value within a school.
This paper considers the implementation and enactment of teacher leadership as a tool for policy implementation through a synthesis of findings from two studies undertaken by the author. Both studies were New Zealand Ministry of Education contracts[1] to evaluate/review initiatives which aimed to ultimately improve student outcomes through enhanced teacher practice and utilised teacher leaders in key roles to do so.
The FarNet Evaluation[2]
The first of these was an evaluation of the FarNet project, which involved the development of an online professional learning community across ten schools within one geographic region of New Zealand. The schools were all secondary schools although they did include a number of area schools[3]. The schools were all in what is known as the Far North but were widely dispersed across this relatively isolated region of New Zealand. They were also very different in culture and covered the full range of socio-economic status (SES) from decile one (schools where their communities have a low SES) through to decile ten (the highest SES).
As part of the Digital Opportunities initiative[4], one of the key Ministry of Education initiatives in New Zealand, these schools were provided with hardware, software and increased bandwidth. The intention was to facilitate a “culture of collaboration” across the schools in particular in terms of “curriculum planning and delivery” (Parr & Ward, 2005). This was to be achieved through a web portal which comprised a number of curriculum area pages, a student community section and a teacher community section.
The theory of action was that purposively selected curriculum leaders would be responsible for the curriculum pages. They would co-ordinate and update them and support other teachers to provide resources to the pages. It was hoped that in doing so a professional learning community would develop which would enable both the sharing of best practice and the development of new practice around the use of ICT. These curriculum leaders were chosen from across the schools and while advertisements for the roles were placed in schools many were actually shoulder tapped to take the position.
The Specialist Classroom Teacher pilot review[5].
The second study was a review of the implementation of a pilot scheme which provided for the employment of a specialist classroom teacher (SCT) in each secondary school in New Zealand. Their role was to develop professional practice for improved teaching and learning through the provision of professional support and learning in their school. The role was also seen as providing for an alternative career pathway for classroom teachers who did not want a management role.
Each secondary school was allowed to appoint one teacher to the position (irrespective of size) and were given additional staffing time each week to allow the SCT to fulfill their duties. Any teacher who took up the position was expected to relinquish any other management positions held in the school for the initial pilot year. The focus of the SCT role was to be on mentoring teachers from all departments and subject areas, and on mentoring those teachers seeking assistance (Ministry of Education, PPTA, & NZSTA, 2006 p.1).
Theoretical framework
This paper encompasses a broad range of literature and research. Central to this framework is the notion of the utility of implementing policy in order to change teacher practice and the role of teacher leaders within that implementation. Of relevance, therefore, is the literature considering the implementation of policy, that on changing teacher practice and the teacher leadership literature.
Implementing policy to change practice
Studies considering the implementation of policy (Brian, Reid, & Bayes, 2006; Spillane, 1999; Spillane & Jennings, 1997) suggest that the teacher is a key mediating factor in the extent and success of policy implementation where pedagogical reform is desired. Other, more general, literature focused on changing teaching practice also acknowledges the centrality of the values and beliefs held by individual teachers (Kennedy, 2004; Richardson, 1990)
It would appear from this literature that teachers are the final arbiters of practice and yet it has been suggested that some policy makers may view teachers as no more than “technocratic implementers of policy” (Brian et al., 2006, p 412) That is to say there is an expectation that they will simply implement what they are told to as technicians rather than make decisions based on professional judgement. That this is a flawed argument is best illustrated by the long list of failed reform and innovations that is so dominant in the educational literature and research (Elmore, 2000; Hatch, 1998; Tyack & Cuban, 1995) Spillane (1999) argues that it is only when teachers are able to learn through the implementation of policy rather than to simply implement it that change will occur and this would seem to be a more valid argument.
Teacher leadership
The literature on teacher leadership frequently links it with school reform and the empowerment of other teachers. Wasley (1991) defines teacher leadership as “the ability to encourage colleagues to change, to do things they wouldn’t ordinarily consider without the influence of the leader” (p.23). Such empowerment would seem to be critical for successful reform if one considers the critical role of the teacher as mediator discussed in the preceding section. A key task of teacher leadership would seem to be to motivate other teachers to change their practice and to support the implementation of policy.
The emphasis on teacher leadership within the leadership literature can be directly attributed to the growing realization that there is a need to distribute leadership across schools for it to be both sustainable and sustaining of change (Hargreaves & Fink, 2006). Distributed leadership emphasizes collective responsibility and collaborative working and the idea that leadership can be exercised by anybody within an organization. It suggests that “the essence of leadership lies in the nature of the work, not the position on the organizational chart” (Brooks, Scribner, & Eferakoroho, 2004, p 254). The possibility is, therefore, opened up for “all teachers to become leaders in various ways” (Frost & Harris, 2003, p 487.).
Little (2003) suggests that teacher leadership is now being utilized more systematically by school and district officials who want to effect change and within the literature there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that teacher leaders do have the potential to change practice. Frost and Harris (2003) argues that teacher leadership has the potential to directly impact on school improvement while Childs-Bowen, Moller and Scrivner (2000) further argue that “when motivated teacher leaders can also become leaders of leaders in moving a critical mass of other teachers forward in school improvement efforts” (p.28). Wixson and Yochum (2004) found consistent evidence of improved practice and student outcomes in contexts where there were strong teacher leaders within communities of practice. It has also been found that when schools are highly engaged in reform practices there is generally a highly respected teacher leader who makes sure that other teachers are involved in activities such as analyzing data to inform practice (Taylor, Pearson, Peterson, & Rodriguez, 2002).
Findings from across the two studies
In the following sections of this paper the findings from across the two studies (FarNet and the SCT pilot) are synthesised and comparisons drawn which highlight both the potential of teacher leadership as a tool for policy implementation and the factors constraining this success.
The potential of teacher leadership as evidenced in the studies
There were some remarkable similarities in the findings from each of these studies with regard to the implementation of teacher leadership. Both highlight not only how powerful teacher leadership can be but also how difficult it is to implement. These issues were compounded for the curriculum leaders in the FarNet project by the need for them to lead within a virtual environment which operated across a diverse group of schools. The added complexity included conflict between the good of their own school and that of the community of schools, the distance involved and the lack of face-face communication and a general lack of buy in from other teachers. They had no strong formal structure to support them and were attempting to develop not only a culture of learning but also a community of practice.
The potential for success was most clearly seen in the SCT model where both school leaders and teachers spoke highly of the pilot and were unanimous in their support for the model of internal professional mentoring, support and guidance. In addition, the SCTs spoke frequently of the opportunities they had been presented with as result of their position. In some schools, the SCT role was shown to be hugely successful in focussing on professional practice while in others the focus was more on supporting the individual teacher than on professional practice per se.School culture was shown to be a key determinant of the ability of the SCTs to impact on professional practice across their school. It would appear from this study that the role of teacher leader does not “fit” easily into schools where cultural norms such as siloed curriculum departments, management hierarchies and privatised teaching practice with an emphasis on professional autonomy, but not necessarily on professional accountability, remain entrenched. On the other hand, where there was a strategic focus on professional learning, where practice was at least partially deprivatised and where there was, at least, an emergent professional learning community the SCTs were able to make a difference to professional practice.
Similarly, there were examples of highly successful curriculum pages on the FarNet website. On these pages a number of resources were available for teachers to access and use in their classrooms. In this instance the success could be primarily attributed to the individual concerned and their willingness to act out of a sense of altruism, a desire to help others. Also important to note, was the success of the Te Reo pages on the website. In this case any individual altruistic desire was further strengthened by a collective moral purpose of improving education for all Māori in the Far North. What this suggests is that teacher leadership is strongest where there is a notion of collective good which leads back to the culture of professional learning communities found in the successful SCT cases. Where schools were already focussed on enhancing practice, on working together to meet a shared purpose there was greater success for the SCT role.
The need for authority, value and status
The notion of authority is an interesting one to explore further. The literature suggests there are at least four kinds of authority for leadership (Frost & Harris, 2003). Firstly, authority is traditionally provided through a formal role or title such as Principal or Head of Department. While formally endowed positions with job descriptions and clear responsibilities neither the title of SCT, nor that of curriculum leader, appears to have carried substantial formal authority within the traditional hierarchical model of secondary schools.
In some instances, within the SCT pilot, this formal authority was conferred by the Senior Management team. This was done by ensuring the SCT was seen as a key instructional leader in the school through the explicit linking of the SCT activities with the strategic goals of the school. In addition, in such schools the Senior Managers openly supported the SCT. Other ways of providing value and status to the role included the provision of an office, the addition of the SCT to the Senior Management team and ensuring the SCT had a high profile in staff meetings and staff professional development activities. For the FarNet curriculum leaders the conferment of any widely recognised value or status does not appear to have been achieved. This is probably linked to the issues of working in a virtual environment and highlights the added difficulties of such a role. The reality is that the community within which they were working itself appears to have little had value or status itself and their role was not clearly understood or defined in terms of a set of strategic goals.
Other forms of authority are professional and moral authority. (The fourth, described in Frost and Harris (2003), is that of techno-rationale authority, the ability to write highly effective proposals and other supporting documentation.) Professional authority arises from the reputation of a teacher leader for excellence in the classroom.In both studies many of the teacher leaders appear to have had a high level of professional authority. In such cases their peers and those they reported to generally spoke very highly of the curriculum leaders and the SCTs as teachers whose knowledge, skills and expertise was respected. They also spoke highly of them in terms of their personal and interpersonal qualities. This was more common for the SCTs although there were a core of curriculum leaders with substantial reputations across the Far North as leaders in their fields. Their sites were the most successful. It would seem natural that professional authority is harder to gain across a community of schools than within one school.
Having the right person in each of these teacher leadership jobs was seen as critical to their success.This included personal and interpersonal qualities as well as professional. In both studies there was a recognition that the teacher leaders needed to be enthusiastic, to be good communicators and able to enthuse others. They needed to be able to interact with a range of colleagues and to maintain positive relationships. These personal and interpersonal qualities appear to have been an important part of their professional authority. This suggests that professional authority may be the product of more than recognised teaching expertise. This would seem appropriate if one considers the Wasley (1991) definition earlier in this paper where the role of teacher leaders is to encourage others to change. This raises the idea of professionalism as an umbrella term for the qualities, skills and expertise of an exemplary teacher leader. Pulling all these together there would seem to be a picture of a professional teacher, with a strong classroom background and a high profile within the community they are working who is approachable, trustworthy and empathetic. In this sense professionalism would be defined as having high personal, interpersonal and professional standards.