The Alberta Teachers’ Association

Creating A Great School for All

The term leadership has often been the shaky ladder leaned against the wall of school reform. The reason for this instability is that much of what passes for research on leadership is driven by those who hold positions of influence and power far removed from schools.

Sahlberg (2011) coined the name global educational reform movement, or GERM, to describe the current concepts of leadership that prevent governments from undertaking meaningful educational reforms. Promoted by elite policymakers (professional school reform bureaucrats and corporate leaders), this neoliberal movement promotes an agenda with which Albertans are all too familiar: a narrow focus on basic knowledge and skills tied to core subjects (now ambiguously described as “competencies”); the implementation of universal standards for teaching practice and school leadership; and a fixation on emerging technologies as a way to improve schools.

Fuelled by powerful organizations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), GERM compels schools and nations to compete for scarce resources and seek vaguely described competitive advantages rather than working together and learning from one another. To show accountability, GERM typically requires a large bureaucratic infrastructure that generates a seemingly endless stream of standards, benchmarks and performance indicators.[1] The prevalence of GERM ideology has prevented governments from tackling curriculum redesign, addressing family poverty, increasing children’s readiness to learn and allowing teachers to take the lead on reform. More important, the GERM movement distracts policymakers from considering the complex intersection of social, economic and political forces that inhibit schools from achieving the goals of social justice and equity (Theoharis 2009).

As signalled by many of the articles in this issue of the ATA Magazine and other research initiatives (Couture and Murgatroyd 2012), the Alberta Teachers’ Association’s support of transformation is focused on the growing body of evidence that educational development is most effectively achieved through innovations undertaken by networks of schools, rather than by system edicts or policy pronouncements (Hargreaves and Fullan 2012; Hargreaves and Shirley 2012). Buoyed by this evidence, the Finland–Alberta partnership (FINAL) believes that transformation should promote local leadership supported by a system that provides infrastructure and capital. In Finland, which uses this approach, the locus of control is at the school-community level, which provides the infrastructure to support innovation.

Sahlberg (2011), a FINAL collaborator who has studied schools around the world, concludes that high-performing jurisdictions share three characteristics:

1. They have internal conditions of practice that respect the professional intuition of teachers, which allows them to build the knowledge and skills they need to craft the best learning environments for their students.
2. They exist in communities that have the social capital to provide encouraging and supportive conditions for students.
3. They encourage teachers to engage in reflective practice and to undertake research to improve student learning.

Alberta is already building on the professional capital of its teaching force (Hargreaves and Fullan 2012). The Alberta Initiative for School Improvement (AISI) reinforces the idea that transformation cannot happen unless teachers have the support to undertake ongoing school-based research that pushes the limits of sound teaching practice, curriculum design and school development. Alberta needs to develop a coherent policy framework, something that it can learn by studying Finland’s Development Plan for Education and Research 2007–12. Although developed by Finland’s national government, this strategy for supporting innovation in all sectors is tied to initiatives at the community level. For example, in some cases, public and private partnerships provide public health and education services.

Paradoxically, establishing international partnerships fosters innovation and creativity at the school level by emphasizing that school reform is part of the internationalization of education. A globally recognized consulting firm, Booz and Company (2012), in consultation with Sahlberg, has developed a framework for transformational leadership that includes the following three strategies:

1. Thinking ahead: Being bold, visionary and forward-thinking in aspiring to create a great school for all students.
2. Delivering within: Materially supporting and committing to the goals one sets while avoiding the distractions of “doing business as usual.”
3. Leading across: Principals, teachers and students cross school and jurisdictional boundaries to learn from each other.

The illustration, “Teachers Leading Transformation” (ATA Magazine, pages 8 and 9), demonstrates how these three strategies, brought together through networks of schools, foster transformation. Not only is the Finland–Alberta partnership modelled on this approach, it is a model that education partners worldwide are embracing. Building on the strengths of high-performing schools involves trusting principals, teachers and students to lead the way to transformation.

The implications for rethinking leadership in educational transformation in Alberta are clear. The government’s current complicated architecture of system-level reforms will likely have little influence on an already-high-performing jurisdiction like Alberta. More than a decade ago, Levin (1998) predicted that the “epidemic” of centrally managed policy reforms already evident would ultimately prove more of a barrier than an asset to educational transformation.

Rethinking leadership by thinking ahead, delivering within and leading across can be a catalyst for transformation. Such leadership strategies, illustrated by many of the examples in this theme issue, demonstrate that future changes will be most effectively led by teachers connected and committed to enhancing their teaching practice to better meet the learning needs of Alberta students.  

References

Booz and Company. 2012. “Transformational Leadership in Education: Three Imperatives for Lasting Change.” A paper presented at the Transforming Education Summit, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, May 2012. Available at www.booz.com/media/uploads/BoozCo_Transformation-Leadership-in-Education.pdf.

Couture, J.-C., and S. Murgatroyd. 2012. Rethinking Leadership—Creating Great Schools for All Students. Edmonton, Alta.: Future Think Press.

Hargreaves, A., and M. Fullan. 2012. Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School. New York: Teachers College Press.

Hargreaves, A., and D. Shirley. 2012. The Global Fourth Way—The Quest for Educational Excellence. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin. 

Levin, B. 1998. “An Epidemic of Education Policy: (what) can we learn from each other?” Comparative Education 34, no. 2: 131–141.

Sahlberg, P. 2011. Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland? New York: Teachers College Press.

Theoharis, G. 2009. The School Leaders Our Children Deserve. New York: Teachers College Press.

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Dr. J-C Couture is the ATA’s associate coordinator, research.

[1] Different jurisdictions can have very different bureaucratic structures. Alberta Education, for example, employs 640 full-time staff, 100 of whom make decisions about curriculum and student assessment for the entire province. Alberta’s Ministry of Enterprise and Advanced Education also employs a large staff. By contrast, Finland’s National Board of Education employs 250 people and its Ministry of Education and Culture employs 300. Because most programming decisions about Finland’s basic and postsecondary education curriculum take place at the community level, Finland needs fewer government bureaucrats.