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Private Schools and the Law: Tips for Private School Administrators

Note: The following guest post was by Anthony Ashton, litigation partner at the law firm of DLA Piper LLP (US) in the Baltimore office. He conducts annual trainings for educators and administrations and regularly advises them on legal matters. He has served on the Boards of multiple schools, and is a former teacher and guidance counselor. Contact information: anthony.ashton@dlapiper.com Whether the job title is Principal, Headmaster, Head of School, or Dean, the top administrator of a private primary or secondary school is effectively the CEO of a company. CEOs of most successful companies are aware of the laws that apply …

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Social Constructivism and Leadership

While most current literature is directed toward the use of social constructivism in educational organizations, it can be used by leaders of organizations both inside and outside of the educational sphere to bring about growth and communication. One example of this is in the use of metaphors to further the understanding of followers, which allows them to build their own knowledge base as individual learners, and adapt to new and expanding concepts. Metaphors are a force through which people create meaning. This is done by using one element of experience to understand another. Metaphors in this sense include anything symbolic …

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The Seven Principles of Sustainable Leadership

The main responsibility that all education leaders have created a learning system that engages students intellectually, emotionally, and socially. Sustainable leadership therefore goes beyond the temporary gains in achievement scores to create long-lasting, meaningful improvements in learning processes. Let us look at the particular principles that define sustainable leadership: 1. Sustainable Leadership Lasts One of the major characteristics of sustainable leadership is that it involves planning and preparing for succession – not just as an afterthought, but from the first day of the school leader’s appointment. Sustainable leadership requires that leaders pay serious attention to leadership succession. This can be …

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Entrepreneurial Leadership: What Schools Can Learn from Business Leaders

The U.S. education system is becoming increasingly modernized. Efforts in the business world to improve leadership were ignored by school administrators for a long time, but this is beginning to change.. Researchers are scrambling to propose models that would steer the education sector to new heights. Most of the efforts to improve leadership have sprung from the fact that now, more than ever, there is increasing pressure on school leaders from the government, communities, and various highly placed observers, all of whom are concerned about the state of education in America. This is especially true in light of reports that …

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Implementing and Sustaining School Reform

It is obviously hard to institute sustainable school reform when much of the reform undertaken in schools is the result of constant policymaking and changes mandated by incoming district administrations or temporary measures. Sustainability does, though, require changes to happen, as a “lack of change” speaks more of conservatism than reform. Essentially, sustainability means that improvements should be ongoing. The evolution of transportation provides an instructive example. Transportation did not stop with the invention of the wheel. In the intervening centuries, transportation mediums were being developed, refined, and improved upon until they evolved into the industry we know today. The …

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Still a Stretch: Why Race to the Top Spending is Stunted

One of the education issues that President Obama has been the most vocal in reforming is America’s need to lead the world in number of college graduates. His administration’s Race to the Top initiative has already earmarked $4 billion for 19 states (serving 22 million K-12 students) to reform public education programs to improve technology, raise teacher accountability and heighten learning standards. Another 34 states have modified their laws to better reach these goals, and 48 states total have developed career and college-ready standards. It all sounds good in a condensed summary, but upon closer review, Race to the Top …

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Enriching history lessons with visualizations

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.** A guest post by Patrick R. Potyondy Let’s face it: Harry Potter is awesome. But my major sticking point, the thing that just nettles me each and every time I revisit the books (and I revisit them more often than I’d like to admit), is when Hermione and the gang visit “History of Magic.” Their “teacher” …

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Elements of Strategic Leadership

To determine the traits in schools that provide short term effectiveness and long term success, we rely on a model of strategic leadership formulated by Davies, Davies, and Ellison. The model identifies two elements that make up strategic leadership: strategic processes and strategic approaches. Strategic processes are a force for change in schools. One saying related to leadership and management that’s relevant here is: “how we undertake an activity is as important as what we do to build long-term success.” Therefore, care and attention should be given to the process of building strategic capability, because “process is policy.” This suggests …

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Who Can Lead in Constructivism?

Leadership represents a possible set of actions for everyone in the school community, and anyone can lead. Constructivism calls for “participantship” because it is through full participation that acts of leadership are done. Intervention and re-intervention help in the building of realities, especially when staff-members emerge into the leadership arena. It is essential that the participation processes form the basis of creating meaning and understanding to gain commitment from followers. While it may not be fitting that students, teachers, parents, and administrators are leaders according to the old adage “too many cooks spoil the broth,” new paradigms of leadership are …

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An Ethical Framework for Leadership Practice

The ethical framework referred to in the title of this column was developed by Shapiro and Stefkovich is based on ethical reasoning in educational leadership. It is aimed at guiding the decision-making of principals, as they confront unfamiliar, complex situations in their schools. They suggest four approaches to the understanding of ethics, which are known to influence school leaders. These include the perspectives of justice, care, critique, and the ethics of the profession. These four aspects reflect the focus of administrators as they make decisions. In order to illustrate them, we will describe each ethical stance, and the problems related …

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