1. Leadership For Student Learning What It is and How It Works
Ken Leithwood

2. School leadership is second only to classroom instruction as an influence on student learning.

3. THE EVIDENCE . . .
Qualitative case studies of exceptional or “turnaround” schools
very large effects on both school conditions and student learning
Large scale quantitative studies of leadership effects on student learning and on student engagement
5-7% variation across schools : total from all school sources is 12-20%
iii. Leadership succession studies

4. For reviews of this evidence, see, for example….
Hallinger & Heck (1996)
Waters, Marzano & McNulty (2003)
Leithwood & Jantzi (2007)
Robinson, Lloyd & Rowe (2008)

5. Almost all successful (school) leaders draw on the same repertoire of basic leadership practices.

6. P = f (M, A, S) P = teacher’s performance M = teacher’s motivation
A = teacher’s abilities, professional knowledge and skills
S = work settings and features of their school and classroom

7. LEADERSHIP TASKS, FUNTIONS OR PRACTICES
Setting Directions (Motivation)
Developing People (Ability)
Redesigning the Organization (Setting)
Improving the Instructional Program (attending to the “technical core”)

8. Group Goals
Vision
Setting Directions
Communication
Expectations

9. Modeling Developing People Intellectual Stimulation
Individualized Support

10. Redesigning the Organization
Families and Communities
Culture
Redesigning the Organization
Connections
Structures

11. Improving the Instructional Program
Resource Allocation
Staffing
Improving the Instructional Program
Monitoring
Buffering

12. For more on this, see…
Leithwood, K. & Riehl, C. (2005). What we already know about successful school leadership.
In W. A. Firestone & C. Riehl (Eds.), A new agenda: directions for research on educational leadership. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. .

13. It is the enactment of the same basic leadership practices – not the practices themselves – that is responsive to the context.

14. TURNAROUND SCHOOLS AS AN ILLUSTRATION

15. For example, “culture building”, part of Organizational Redesign
Stage 1: teacher isolation; no expectations for collaboration among teachers
Stage 2: model and clarify expectations for collaborative work by teachers
Stage 3: refresh, extend expectations; refine nature of collaborative work to increase effects on quality of instruction
and
from focused to distributed sources of leadership

16. For more on this, see….
Leithwood, K., Harris, A., & Strauss, T. (2010). Leading School Turnaround. San Francisco: Jossey Bass

17. School leaders improve pupil learning indirectly through their influence on “four paths”

18. Four Paths of Leadership Influence on Student Learning
Rational Path (Academic press, Disciplinary climate, TLCPs)
LSA Initiatives
School-wide Experience
Emotions Path (Efficacy, Trust)
Leadership Practices
Student Learning
Organizational Path (Time, PLC)
Family Path (Expectations, Reading
Classroom Experience

19. For more on this, see
Leithwood, K., et al (2010). School leaders’ influence on student learning: The four paths, In T. Bush, L, Bell and D. Middlewood (Eds.),The principles of educational leadership and management. London: Sage publishers
[Leithwood, K., Patten, S., Jantzi, D. (in press). Testing a conception of how school leaders influence student learning, Educational Administration Quarterly]

20. For more about how leadership influences the emotional path, see….
Leithwood, K., Beatty, B. (2008). Leading with teacher emotions in mind. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press

21. School leadership has a greater influence on schools, classrooms and students when it is distributed

22. RATING OF LEADERSHIP SOURCES BY QUINTILES BASED ON STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

23. RATING OF LEADERSHIP SOURCES BY QUINTILES BASED ON STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
Schools in the highest quintile attributed relatively high levels of influence to all sources of leadership
Schools in the lowest quintile attributed relatively low levels of influence to all sources of leadership
Highest quintile schools, as compared to the lowest, differed most in ratings of teams, parents and students
Principals were rated as having highest influence in schools in ALL quintiles

24. But only some patterns of leadership distribution make a positive contribution

25. Patterns of Distributed Leadership
Planful
Alignment
Spontaneous
Misalignment
Anarchic

26. Planful Alignment and Academic Optimism

27. For more on leadership distribution, see
Leithwood, K., Mascall, B., Strauss, T. (Eds.) (2009). Distributed leadership according to the evidence. New York, NY: Routledge.

28. A final observation….
Districts make a big difference to a school’s improvement efforts
The instructional leadership role of district leaders
The importance of building collective school leader efficacy
for more on this see……………….

29. Louis, K. , Leithwood, K. , Wahlstrom, K. , Anderson, S. (2010)
Louis, K., Leithwood, K., Wahlstrom, K., Anderson, S. (2010). Learning from leadership: Investigating the links to improved student learning. New York: Final report of research to the Wallace Foundation.