Lisa Nielsen: Wanted: School Leader. No Educational Experience Required.

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Jan 122011
 

Why not have the business expert serve as first in command when it comes to business decisions, and have the educational leader first in charge of education decisions. This would clear up a whole lot of unnecessary political mumbo jumbo and the reality is that the two positions are usually necessary to effectively run schools.

via huffingtonpost.com

I’m so glad to see Lisa Nielsen make this point. Not only every district but every SCHOOL should have both an instructional leader and a business/managerial leader. It is possible for one person to be both of these, but it is very rare and therefore not often a choice.

An analysis of failure

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May 272010
 

"[. . .] people in leadership positions do not have a systemic understanding of the causes of failure, in part because the same dysfunctional social arrangements that do much to cause failure also do a great deal to obscure its origins. The process mystifies itself. This is a sphere in which the truth of the dictum about those failing to understand the past being condemned to repeat it has been amply demonstrated. The best ideas out there are not necessarily proof against systemic pathology unless they are implemented in ways that take those pathologies into account." (p.5)

So – what kind of leaders do we need to see past the dysfunction in which they are so steeped in?

Payne, C. (2008). So much reform, so little change: The persistence of failure in urban schools. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.