2012 UCEA Convention

District Leadership Practices That Matter Greatly: Supporting Sustained Student Achievement. George Jerome Bedard, Faculty of Education, University of Lethbridge; Carmen P. Mombourquette, Faculty of Education, University of Lethbridge
Two Alberta-based university researchers interviewed 45 district-level staff, principals, and trustees in three high-performing Alberta school districts. We asked interviewees to detail the “what and the how” of key leadership practices in their work with school-based educators to promote and sustain student achievement. District leadership practices that mattered greatly centered around a shift in vision
and mission, productive relationships, presence in schools, problem-solving and decision-making, alignment, and leadership preparation and succession.
Transformative Leadership and the Purpose of Schooling in Affluent Communitites. Andrew J. Barrett, Geneva CUSD 304, Geneva, Illinois
This critical phenomenological study utilized a theoretical lens of transformative leadership and explored how principals in affluent communities experience and understand the tensions that exist between private good expectations and public good responsibility for schooling. The findings demonstrate that principals in affluent communities must better understand the public/private tension, the ways that hegemony works to shape beliefs and practices, and the powerful role that transformative leadership can play in addressing such issues.
The Link between Leadership and Student Learning: Continuing to Refine Our Understanding. Abigail Felber-Smith, University of Minnesota; Karen Seashore Louis, University of Minnesota
Teaching and leadership practices influence student outcomes. Less well understood are the relationships between leadership and teaching practices. Using survey data, we explore the relationships between particular leadership practices, as perceived by teachers, and teacher professional community practices. Bivariate correlations reveal moderately strong to strong associations between administrative leadership practices and teacher practices. Preliminary regression analysis suggests instructional leadership is best predicted by district distributed leadership, teachers’ sense of efficacy, shared practice, and collective responsibility.
Collective Leadership Models in Educational Research: Towards a Focus on Theories of Action.
Chase Nordengren, University of Washington
Researchers have called repeatedly for studies that make more explicit the relationship between collective models of leadership and school improvement. This literature review gathers relevant contemporary studies that utilize collective models of educational leadership to ask how studies utilize “theories of action” to connect collective leadership to observable improvements in student outcomes. It finds three general theories of action and three factors of schools in which this relationship is emphasized.