Fostering Tomorrow's Leaders more

Fostering Tomorrow’s Educational Leaders Michelle Stack, David Coulter, Garnet Grosjean, André Mazawi, Graham Smith Fostering Tomorrow’s Educational Leaders by Michelle Stack, David Coulter, Garnet Grosjean, André Mazawi, Graham Smith © The Authors, 2006 Printed in Canada ISBN 0-88865-828-1 Printed on acid-free paper ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We wish to thank the BC Deans of Education for commissioning us to undertake this report and for their guidance and interest. Particularly, we thank Rob Tierney, Dean of Education at the University of British Columbia, for encouraging us to pursue this project. We also thank the BC Educational Leadership Council for providing a grant that made this survey possible and particularly its Executive Director, Lee Southern, for facilitating our work. The 18 faculty members who took time out of their schedules to talk to us about their respective educational leadership/administration/management programs deserve particular recognition. Their input was invaluable to our work. The completion of this report would not have been possible without the competent and dedicated assistance of Simon Blakesley, Dr. John Egan, Sarah Mills, and Dr. John Moss. Ken W. Van Apeldoorn, Director of Evaluation for the Teacher Qualification Service, was generous with his time and provided the research team with data crucial to our survey. Finally, we thank our project editor, Dr. Janet Atkinson-Grosjean, for her contributions to the final manuscript, and Sharon Hu for layout and design. 1 Fostering Educational Leaders EXECUTIVE SUMMARY School leaders are enmeshed in complex, overlapping, and often conflicting webs of relationships from which they must make educational meaning. How do we determine which leadership skills, knowledge and values are required, who decides them, and by what criteria? It is this conceptual vagueness around educational leadership that we believe reveals a fundamental challenge with programs and policies that foster educational leadership. To us, the single most important question in education is, what are valid, defensible educational ends and who gets to decide them? This study - “Fostering Tomorrow’s Educational Leaders”-- is shaped by this core question. It provides the context for our analysis of 12 graduate educational leadership and administration (ELA) programs offered in British Columbia. Researching educational ends is, however, only part of our study: we also report on how universities aim to foster their avowed ends, that is, decide what means they will use to help people become educational leaders. Our findings show that despite much activity to promote leadership, there exists no consensus on what it means or how best to develop it. Nevertheless, our participants were unanimous in distinguishing leadership from management and administration, although they disagreed about the basis for the distinction. Among the programs we studied, we found two major commonalities. First, the “competency” approach to leadership development and assessment is widespread. Second, all programs studied advocate the integration of theory and practice in educational leadership. Our findings also revealed globalization and Americanization have had major impacts on ELA programs in BC. The power of market forces expressed in these movements means that important aspects of education are often left unattended. In our analysis of faculty and student composition, we determined that, in all, only about 70 tenure- track faculty are involved in the 12 programs studied. Programs rely extensively on contract sessional instructors and adjuncts, hired on an ad-hoc basis. The lack of BC- based tenure-track faculty may pose substantial challenges in terms of meeting the needs of BC’s future educational leaders. ELA programs tend to recruit students who are mid-career working professionals with several years of experience, often in positions of leadership. We estimate that between 1,200 and 1,300 BC students attend the programs we surveyed. In terms of equity, many ELA programs remain male-dominated; while women and other equity groups are underrepresented in most faculties. But we noted an increasing representation of women in the student body. And, while none of the programs surveyed has an explicit affirmative action policy in place, many are keen to ensure diversity. Still, many coordinators struggled to articulate just what it might mean to ensure a diverse student body in their programs. 2 Fostering Educational Leaders With regard to aboriginal education, our analysis indicates four general issues associated with ELA programs: (1) little concern about aboriginal leadership as a specific focus; (2) few aboriginal faculty trained in this academic specialty; (3) little indigenous content is systematically taught within general leadership curricula; (4) relatively few aboriginal students take up educational leadership studies in the province. To address the growing demand for leadership programs, traditional methods of on-campus instruction are being complemented by flexible or distance modes of delivery. The drive towards online education is fuelled by several factors, particularly the increasing globalization of the field and the push towards the academization of leadership positions. One of the major impacts of this trend is a retreat from face-to-face interaction and a transformation of the student-instructor relationship into a service provider-customer relationship in which issues of service adequacy and effectiveness often take precedence. Another significant shift in ELA programs is the emergence of the cohort model as the dominant form of program delivery. In some programs there has been a deliberate attempt to go beyond the cohort model and create different dynamics. A major challenge in our survey has been to explore how the various programs construe ELA in terms of course offerings. We found significant diversity in how core, required and elective courses are incorporated into a program. Furthermore, as universities shift towards the cohort model, differences emerge between on and off campus programs. In several universities specialized areas of educational leadership have been identified, resulting in the offering of programs that focus on selected aspects of schooling. The total credit hours for degree completion varies between 18 and 54 credits, though the majority of ELA programs require between 30 to 36 credit hours. 3 The majority of programs offer courses that draw on social science, learning, leadership, administration and research while a few are grounded in philosophy, psychology and policy. Programs differ extensively in their emphasis on research and how research is defined. For some programs, established scientific inquiry is the gold standard, while others incorporate field-based research methods, action research and collaborative models. The relative emphasis on research also differs between magistral and doctoral programs, with the latter emphasizing policy and research courses as part of their offerings. To guide our study, we developed three subquestions, first grappling with conceptions of educational leadership in a democratic context. Second, examining various attempts to foster educational leadership. Third, drawing on these answers to suggest ways that universities might attempt to foster educational leadership. On the first, the nature of educational leadership, we found few attempts to distinguish it from, for example, military or business leadership. As a result, the ends of education can reproduce values that have little regard for the democratic pursuit of multiple, often conflicting, yet equally worthy, ends. Second, on how educational leadership is fostered, we found excessive emphasis on propositional knowledge leading to the (mistaken) conviction that there is one ‘best’ form of practice. Third, in terms of how universities can help foster educational leadership, we call on ELA programs to draw on new critical perspectives and intellectual resources to understand education and educational leadership. Further, we see a need network where people from various ELA programs can engage in constructive debate. To that end, we argue that there is a need to broaden the conversation rather than narrowing it to issues of certification. We further recommend that given the isolation of ELA programs from each other and the wider community, that The Association of British Columbia Deans of Education establish an ongoing educational leadership network (“ELNet”), linking educational leadership Fostering Educational Leaders programs in BC. Facilitated by a secretariat rotated among BC universities, ELNet’s mandate would include responsibility for opening new and promising conversations about educational leadership in a democracy. The addition of new and previously marginalized voices to the conversation about education and educational leadership would be a particular focus. We further recommend that to foster profound, ongoing exchange of perspectives about education and educational leadership, ELA programs should recruit faculty and students, and develop instructional strategies, with diversity in mind in order to grapple with such central questions as what counts as education and educational leadership in a pluralist, democratic society. 4 Fostering Educational Leaders TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 2 3 7 9 9 9 10 10 Acknowledgments Executive Summary Table of Contents Acronyms Used Introduction Educational Leadership: Crisis in Context Our Purpose and Approach Structure of the Report Section Summary 5 11 12 12 14 15 17 18 PART I. EDUCATIONAL ENDS Educational Leadership: The Issues A Day in the Life The Levine Study Perspectives on Education Ends Means to Ends Section Summary 19 19 19 23 27 28 29 30 30 31 Ends in Educational Practice Surveyed Institutions Universities Declare Their Ends Leadership and Ends Leadership and Management Preparing Practitioners: Competencies, Theory and Practice Justifying Ends External Pressures The Americanization of ELA programs in British Columbia The Globalization of ELA programs in British Columbia Fostering Educational Leaders 32 33 33 34 35 39 40 PART II. EDUCATIONAL MEANS People in ELA Who are the Faculty? Who are the Students? Student Diversity and Aboriginal Leadership Enrolments Section Summary 41 41 41 41 43 44 45 6 Learning and Delivery How do Students Learn? Modes of Delivery The Cohort Online Learning What Do Students Learn? Joint Programs and Concentrations Disciplinary Clusters and Credit Hours Requirements Section Summary 45 46 47 48 48 51 51 52 54 55 55 56 PART III. LINKING ENDS AND MEANS Discussion and Analysis What is Educational Leadership? How Might Educational Leadership be Fostered? Educational Leadership as knowledge application Certifying good practice What can University Contribute? Changing the ends conversation Changing the means conversation Connecting conversations: people and publics 58 58 59 59 63 67 Fostering Educational Leaders Summary of Findings and Recommendations Findings Next Steps References Appendix 1: Aboriginal Education and Educational Leadership Appendix 2: The Research Team ACRONYMS USED NIQTSL The National Institute for Quality Teaching and School Leadership (Australia). Now renamed: Teaching Australia: Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. NCSL The National College for School Leadership (UK). PAC Parent Advisory Committee. TOC Teacher on Call. Admin. P.D. Administrator Professional Development. ELA Educational Leadership and Administration TQS Teacher Qualification Service 7 Fostering Educational Leaders Almost no area of inquiry or interest has shown itself to be more elusive, or more controversial, and also more confounding to human understanding, than the notion of leadership. It has been, and remains, a notoriously perplexing, yet tantalizing preoccupation for those who research and/or expound on it, and for those 8 who, more pragmatically, wish to embrace and master it, to effect change or effective organizational performance. (Allix and Gronn, 2005, p.181) Fostering Educational Leaders 01. Introduction INTRODUCTION EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP: CRISIS IN CONTEXT Rising interest in educational leadership has occurred against the backdrop of a perceived crisis in school principal succession. This sense of crisis is fuelled by an aging demographic among principals and high retirement rates. The succession “crisis” has been reported not only in BC and Canada at large, but also in the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. In a review of several national cases where shortages in principals have been reported, McGuinness (2005) observed substantial evidence of a surge in retirements, mainly due to aging, and consequent concern about finding replacements. “While the quality of applicants is frequently mentioned as being poor there is little evidence to support this assertion”. McGuiness found little evidence to support assertions about the poor quality of applicants, and cautions that it is important to consider the source when assessing reports of shortages and their possible causes. He notes that, Sensational reports of shortages frequently feature in the headlines of the popular press and in magazines but are based on sketchy evidence and on short-term trends and presented without any analyses. In other cases, reports of a crisis are based on an unusual increase in the number of vacancies occurring at a particular time, with the inference frequently made that a significant proportion of these arise from early retirements resulting from the stresses and pressures of the job, but no analyses conducted to indicate that this is the case. Similarly, Akiba & Reichardt (2004) argue that “the retirement of the baby boomer generation is not the major factor contributing to the attrition rates of school leaders.” Rather, they suggest, “More principals and assistant principals left their positions because they took other positions in education, rather than because they retired or found non-education related positions.” Many factors besides aging and retirements could explain the decline in numbers of existing and potential school principals, not least of which are the stresses of the job, social problems in schools, and changing occupational structures outside education (Mulford, 2005, p. 30). But whatever the cause of the decline, as Chapman (2005, p. 4) observes “these problems are costly for schools and school system in monetary terms. Moreover, the loss of leadership experience, expertise, knowledge and wisdom has the potential to impact adversely on school quality and student learning.” In BC, about 25% of all administrators are expected to retire within the next few years. At the same time, we estimate about 1,300 students are currently enrolled in the 12 ELA programs we surveyed. This figure amounts to about half of the current population of principals and vice-principals in the province. Not all of these students will become school administrators, but the pool 9 Fostering Educational Leaders inevitably will continue to increase, raising the question of what underpins the ‘succession crisis.’ More research is needed to clarify whether such a crisis exists and, if it does, what policies and programs should be adopted to alleviate it. Relentless focus on the perceived crisis has tended to distort debates on educational policy by disconnecting issues of training from broader considerations of what educational leadership should stand for. As a result, much of the discussion has focused on training new principals as an end in itself, regardless of what we expect these leaders to do and to what ends. Over the last decade, local, national and global dynamics have radically transformed the work of educational leaders around the world. The roles of the school have been recast. Calls for greater accountability for the outcomes of schooling are increasing. Educators must attempt to meet the needs and aspirations of diverse individuals and communities. In the face of these transformations, schools in British Columbia face many challenges in recruiting principals equal to the task of leadership. Given the demands, how do universities in British Columbia prepare future leaders to understand their role within a public education system serving a democratic and diverse society? How should universities foster new cohorts of leaders attuned to the broader aims of public education in British Columbia? OUR PURPOSE AND APPROACH This report —“Fostering Tomorrow’s Educational Leaders”—represents our collaborative efforts to reflect on the dynamics of the broader context and their implications for educational leadership and administration (ELA) programs offered to British Columbians. Recognizing the difficulties of launching such a reflection, we seek to facilitate a conversation about educational leadership that not only recognises the significant constraints but also the varied possibilities for a meaningful transformation of BC schools. to examine implications for the structure and contents of university-based ELA programs. We ask: In what ways can these programs inform the debate on the focus of ELA programs within their universities? Which voices and concerns, if any, do these programs neglect? And, is it desirable to devise programs that adopt standardized models of educational leadership? How can we move forward, and in which direction, to promote our understanding of what it means to foster effective edu- cational leaders? Finally, although studies indicate a crisis in aboriginal education, why is there so little focus in ELA programs on First Nations educational leadership? In pursuit of these questions, we identified a number of ELA programs and, on the basis of a review of attributes, selected 12 to study. In the course of the survey we interviewed 18 faculty, most of them coordinators of ELA programs. We also analyzed websites and printed materials. STRUCTURE OF THE REPORT The report is constructed in three parts that position the discussion on educational leadership within the broader context of the ends-means debate in education. The first part, “Educational Ends”, sets the framework of our study. It problematizes the disconnect between ends and means prevalent in the literature on educational leadership. In Chapter 2, we argue that discussions of educational leadership will be superficial to the extent that they neglect the broader and distinctive ends of education in a democratic and pluralist society. In chapter 3, we draw on our empirical data to examine how ELA programs construct their ends and means and how they position educational leadership within that framework. Part II, Educational Means, examines the ways in which ELA programs are effectively organized and staffed. More specifically, chapter 4 looks at faculty and student composition while chapter 5 examines the curricula of the various programs surveyed. Part III, “Linking ends and means”, builds on the previous two parts and offers insights into how the conversation around educational leadership in BC may be framed. In chapter 6 we explore debates around the fostering of educational leadership. We discuss alternatives to standardization and certification and point out the contributions of universities in this regard. Our discussion concludes in chapter 7 with a set of recommendations that we hope provides a foundation for future dialogue. 10 SECTION SUMMARY This chapter presented the framework and structure of the document. While issues related to school principal retirements are often used to garner support for changes in leadership education, in the present report we argue in favour of an approach that positions the debate against a broader backdrop. Fostering Educational Leaders 02. The Issues PART I: EDUCATIONAL ENDS 11 Education is a particular kind of end, one that involves helping people to improve the quality of their lives Fostering Educational Leaders 2. EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP THE ISSUES A day in the life... 12 Matthew was waiting for me as I walked in from the parking lot at 7:30. No surprise there. He was usually hanging around this doorway whatever time I arrived at school (home is not a happy place for Matthew). We greeted one another and together we walked toward my office. We didn’t talk much today (or most days): what was important for Matthew was that some adult acknowledged him at the beginning of the day. Most times that just meant saying hello and walking together. Then he would go off to find the friends he had made this year. We started this routine last year when he was new to the school, had not made any friends, but had succeeded in making enemies. Now he had friends, but wasn’t yet ready to change the pattern. In some ways, being noticed was not a problem for Matthew. Tall and husky for a fourteen-year-old boy, Matthew often wore clothes that made him seem even larger. Lacking any ability to connect with his peers in his new school (somewhat ironic given we were his sixth new school), Matthew’s strategy for getting noticed was to intimidate others. He succeeded so well that that he spent much of his time in his new school with his new principal. It had taken most of last year for Matthew and I to begin to talk (and several months to get him to look any higher than my shoes), but somehow we connected. Matthew seemed happier and he had even been able to make some friends, but he wasn’t quite ready to abandon our morning routine. As we arrived at the general office, Matthew passed me on to Herb, our new head custodian--a gift from the Board. Not only did Herb make a huge difference in the appearance of both the building and the grounds, he contributed his positive disposition and a talent for gardening. Herb decided that we needed plants in our hallways and offered to supply them; my contribution was to buy the pots and Fostering Educational Leaders hangers. Like a number of other people, I worried about how long the plants would last around 1200 adolescents, but the only incident in the last year involved two grade eights knocking down one plant while wrestling (they were grade eights), but they immediately brought the broken pot to Herb along with their apologies. Everyone loved the difference the plants made in our drably painted corridors. Herb had his usual problem for me: the night custodians had failed to clean the library and maintenance had not returned his calls. My job was to be the intermediary. I made a note on the sheet of paper that I kept folded in my shirt pocket (I learned long ago not to trust my memory), and greeted the office staff. Before opening my office, I checked with Denise, our head secretary to see who might be absent and if we had substitutes: three absent, but one of the TOCs was new to the school. I made another note to welcome the new person and check with them at the end of the day, dropped off my bag and headed to the staff room to get a cup of coffee, and check in with the regulars. There everything seemed normal. The regulars were in their usual seats (some for the last twenty years--woe betide the TOC or student teacher who sat in the wrong place!), having familiar conversations. Others were busy with lesson prep or marking. Amina, who was sitting in the corner, seemed distracted and was pretending to mark student work. I made a mental note to check with her later (I learned last week that her mother was seriously ill), and talked briefly with Phil about rescheduling our agendasetting meeting for the School Planning Council because I had been summoned to the Board Office for an unexpected committee meeting. When I returned to the office Denise was waiting for me with a list of teachers who had not submitted their marks on the requisite computer discs. I listened as she listed the offenders and agreed to check with them that day. I unloaded my briefcase and put the folders into the appropriate places: one for Denise, others for Shirley and Bob our vice-principals, another for the counselors and some for my own files. (I learned long ago that the proper time and place to do paperwork was at home in the evening; school time was people time and anyway, trying to do work without interruption at school was futile.) I opened my agenda book to add my new tasks and glanced at the slips with the phone calls that I needed to return: one from a parent of a student who had had a run-in with her teacher; one from a parent who was school shopping; one from the chair of the PAC about next week’s meeting; and one from a local who wanted me to do something about the kids taking a short cut though his yard. I checked my scheduled appointments for the day. They included meetings with counselors; department heads, individual members of the teaching staff, viceprincipals, the assistant superintendent of schools, and members of a board committee. The day closed with a school concert, at 7pm. My ‘to do’ list contained a variety of tasks: collecting material and drafting next week’s newsletter; calling maintenance about Herb’s problem and our capital requests; checking-in with students and teachers that were having problems; and checking with the Board about a maternity leave replacement. In addition, I had noted to take care of a number of other personnel and administrative matters. Uh Oh. The warning bell signals that it’s time to move into the halls to greet everyone, get a sense of what’s happening (and might happen) today and see if we can get the day off to a good start. I wonder how much (if any) of the tasks on my list I will actually be able to get done today… 13 02. The Issues The above vignette, drawn from actual experience, captures the fast-paced, fragmented, frustrating, exciting, exhausting and exhilarating world of school leadership. School leaders are enmeshed in complex, overlapping, conflicting webs of relationships from which they must make educational meaning. Embedded in the above story are dozens of the dilemmas, some important, some trivial, that educational leaders grapple with daily, including: • To whom should the principal respond first, Matthew or Amina, how and why? (What does the principal know about each of them, whether they may need help and who is able to provide help if needed?) • What do the school counselors need to know about which students? What do the other administrators need to know? • Which paperwork needs attention? (Some paperwork is trivial; other paperwork makes important differences in the lives of people.) Fostering Educational Leaders • What needs to be in the school newsletter? (e.g., what students or program or teachers need to be in the public? What do the various publics need to know about the school at that time for what reasons?) • Why are plants important? (Schools may be the most crowded buildings we have in our society. Most people spend significant portions of their lives in schools.) • How much attention should the social studies teachers pay to the provincial examinations (What, indeed, is the purpose of students learning social studies and how are these examinations consistent with those purposes?) • What is admin p.d. anyway? • Can important educational aims be cast as school goals? What happens if we set goals that we do not attain? People who accept leadership roles assume significant responsibilities. Helping to prepare people for such roles is no less challenging. The Ministry of Education, school districts, provincial and local professional associations, and universities all play a part in preparing new leaders. As part of a comprehensive effort to understand how these various bodies attempt to meet this test, the BC Deans of Education and the British Columbia Educational Leadership Council have asked us to investigate how graduate ELA programs in the province’s universities approach the task of fostering educational leadership. THE LEVINE STUDY We are not the first group to attempt this kind of study. There is no shortage of research on the professional preparation of educational leaders. Recently, however, the field has been galvanized by discussion of the major report released by Arthur Levine (2005), President of Teachers College at Columbia University We contend that both Levine’s study and the responses it generated provide inadequate answers to the challenge of how to foster educational leadership. Indeed, we begin by showing how Levine and his supporters frame their discourse with assumptions that are refuted by much contemporary scholarship. We then go on to describe the various responses provided by universities offering ELA graduate programs in British Columbia1. As an experienced administrator and researcher, Arthur Levine seems well-placed to lead a study of the preparation of school leaders. The study was well funded by the Annenberg, Ford, Kauffman and Wallace foundations, and benefited from the support of dozens of assistants. The project was comprehensive. Levine surveyed the deans of all US schools of education, as well as large numbers of faculty (4,500), alumni (15,000) and school administrators (1,800). Case studies of 28 schools and departments provided depth to the survey data. Levine’s conclusions were unambiguous: “Collectively, educational administration programs are the weakest of all the programs at the nation’s education schools.” (p. 13). He diagnosed the problem to be the result of irrelevant curricula, low admission and graduation standards, weak faculty, inadequate clinical instruction and poor research. He contends: “No consensus exists on whom programs should enrol, what they should prepare their students to do, what they should teach, whom they should hire to teach, what degrees they should offer, and how educational administration relates to teaching and research” (p. 16). Levine’s remedy involves generating nine criteria which might be used to organize and evaluate educational leadership programs, beginning with a focus on the education of practicing school leaders whose success would be tied to “promoting student achievement” (p. 63). With this clear and unambiguous end in mind, other criteria follow: rigorous and coherent curriculum integrating theory and practice; a highly qualified faculty comprised of scholars and practitioners current in their 14 1 A caveat: We should note that we do not claim to report on how universities actually go about accomplishing their avowed aims, that is, we do not investigate their actual practices (such a study is beyond the scope of our current mandate or resources). Fostering Educational Leaders own knowledge; a student body motivated to be school leaders who meet high admissions and graduation standards. Pitched at this high level of abstraction, the Levine Report’s criteria seem difficult to criticize. “Ways of Thinking about Educational Quality,” Burbules (2004) rehearses and updates this conversation. Burbules assumes that education is a particular kind of end, one that involves helping people to improve 02. The Issues “An Anishinabe education, for example, would integrate bimaadziwin (or the good life) with particular concerns for traditional knowledge and spirituality.” Yet nowhere do we find any clarity on what Levine understands by the particular kind of student achievement that would be the core test for educational leadership. What student learning is at stake? the quality of their lives. In other words, the end of education is a good and worthwhile life. The fundamental challenge then becomes “identifying and justifying the specific ideals to which education should aspire: what is it about being educated To be fair, Levine does provide clues. At times that makes us better people?” (p. 4). education seems tightly related to job training in a global economy (p. 11), to be inclu- Burbules divides the debaters into two sive and values driven (p. 54), “active” and camps. One camp would argue that a good “futures-oriented” (p. 54), and involve spe- life depends on strong, clear, easily observcific skills and knowledge (p. 63). Yet Levine able ends based on the acquisition of speavoids determinations about which skills, cific kinds of knowledge or character traits. knowledge and values are required, who de- The other camp would argue for weaker or cides them, and by what criteria. It is this more ambiguous ends that must be asconceptual vagueness that we believe re- sessed across diverse situations embracing veals a fundamental problem in how Levine a range of capacities and dispositions. Draanswers the question of how to foster edu- matically oversimplified, the former group cational leadership.2 In basing his answer on might be considered “traditionalists” and “student achievement” he avoids grappling the latter group “progressivists” in terms with perhaps the most important questions of education. Both groups include advoin education: that is, what are valid, defensi- cates who justify their claims by appeals ble educational ends and who gets to decide to either a transcendent human nature or them? “Fostering Tomorrow’s Educational sociocultural understandings grounded in Leaders” is shaped by these core questions, contingent community values. which provide the context for our descriptions of graduate ELA programs offered in Both traditional and progressive groundBritish Columbia’s universities. ings of educational ends have recently become problematic. As Burbules points PERSPECTIVES ON EDUCATIONAL ENDS out, postmodern critics have undermined meta-narratives about an “essential” huIn Western educational thought, versions man nature; they show how powerof the educational ends conversation begin knowledge complexes can limit human with Plato and Aristotle, run through Rous- action, including the ability to decide what seau and Dewey, and continue in contem- is required to lead a good life. If, as in porary debates among curriculum scholars. Plato’s Republic or Hirsch’s (1988) Cultural In a recent Educational Researcher article, Literacy, human flourishing is deemed to 15 2 Our fundamental concern does not seem to occur to Levine’s critics either. The response from the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) in the US, for example, focuses on the comprehensiveness and methodology of Levine’s research (Young, Crow, Orr, Ogawa & Creighton, 2005). Fostering Educational Leaders “While schools continue to require efficient management, helping people learn to lead good and worthwhile lives is a different kind of enterprise than manufacturing cars” result from the acquisition of certain forms of knowledge, then the problem becomes determining and justifying which forms of knowledge are required to lead a good life: who gets to decide and on what basis? Plato and Hirsch solve the problem by appointing themselves arbiters--a strategy unlikely to meet success in 21st century Canada. Yet the absence of ‘objective’ criteria for determining appropriate knowledge acts as a deterrent. People often refuse to take responsibility for making decisions and fall back on policy to guide action. Current accountability practices, for example, emphasize high-stakes standardized testing. In contemporary debates, one criticism is that the tests not only measure “student achievement,” but also, by default, decide what will count as education. Burbules (2004, p. 5) explains: “[E]ducationally worthwhile ‘knowledge’ is being defined in terms of what standardized tests can measure. If tests cannot measure something, then it is not regarded as an essential part of the curriculum.” In the absence of objective criteria, one alternative is to refer to community standards of what is true and good. This strategy might succeed in small, monocultural, hierarchical communities, such as Plato’s ideal state, where everyone agrees on what counts as a good and worthwhile life. In a complex, pluralist, democratic society such as Canada’s, however, multiple conceptions of the good compete, as do interpretations of what constitutes education. Canada’s many peoples and communities, have distinctly different ideas about such matters. An Anishinabe education, for example, would integrate bimaadziwin (or the good life) with particular concerns for traditional knowledge and spirituality (Toulouse, 2001). An Islamic education might focus on tawhid or oneness “where all aspects of life whether spiritual or temporal are consolidated into a harmonious whole” (Cook, 1999, p. 340). A Confucian education might emphasize respect for practical moral values (Pratt, Kelly & Wong, 1999). These differing value structures can generate conflicts among different cultural frameworks, sometimes exacerbated by conflicts within a particular framework. Egan (1997), for example, shows how dominant Western conceptions of education are based on contradictory ideas. We seek to integrate people into an existing community, while at the same time developing the capacities of the individual and helping them acquire the intellectual tools to critique the status quo. Political philosopher Jean Bethke Elshtain captures the drama: Education is always cast as the means whereby some, or all, citizens of a particular society get their bearings and learn to live with one another. Education always reflects a society’s views of what is excellent, worthy, necessary. The reflections are not cast in concrete, like so many foundation stances; rather they are ongoing refracted and reshaped as definitions, meanings and purposes change. (1993, p. 82) Education thus understood is centrally concerned with conflicts that will end only 16 Fostering Educational Leaders when, in all our diversity, we all agree what constitutes a good life and how to foster it. Such a complex conception of educational discourse stands in stark contrast to Levine’s unproblematized notion of “student achievement”. The contrast is equally blatant when education is juxtaposed to such familiar slogans as “lifelong learning,” “learning communities” and “learning organizations,” all of which beg the question of what is to be learned, by whom, and who gets to decide. We appear to be building a case that a defensible, coherent conception of education is fundamentally impossible. And it may be true that education is an ideal that we attempt to approximate rather than achieve. Even so, the responsibility to strive to be more educational remains. Part of the point is to be humble about our efforts, and in doing so “to undermine the prejudice that there is a single Best Way to go about educating (and that ‘we’--whoever the ‘we’ happen to be--know what it is)” (Burbules, 2004, p. 9). Some approaches to education are more justifiable than others and we can talk about those alternatives. Larry Cuban, professor emeritus at Stanford and former Washington, D.C. area superintendent, captured some of this discussion in his 1997 Vancouver Institute lecture “What are good schools and why are they so hard to get?” Cuban describes different American schools pursuing diverse educational goals. All claim to be ‘good schools’ yet all have different aims and hold different views of what counts as student achievement. Yet Cuban found commonality: “ALL of these schools are ‘good’”, he says, because they all attempt to “inculcate in the next generation democratic attitudes, values and behaviours.” In other words, all of the schools were good— or educational--not only because they publicly justify how they try to be good, but also because they help others prepare to join the conversation about the good life. (In contrast, we note that nowhere in Levine’s 86 page report do the words ‘democracy’ or ‘democratic’ occur.) In Canada, education and democracy are interdependent concepts: deciding what might count as educational is a democratic problem; preparing people to debate such important concerns is an educational problem. Cuban’s understanding of education for democracy is clearly richer and more complex than merely preparing people to vote every four years. He follows Dewey in arguing that democracy is far more complex than majority rule. Dewey (1954, p.207) explains: The means by which a majority becomes a majority [involves] antecedent debates, modification of views to meet the opinions of minorities… . The essential need, in other words, is the improvement of the methods and conditions of debate, discussion, and persuasion. Like Habermas (1996), Cuban and Dewey are describing the development of citizens who talk with one another about how they will live together and prepare the next generation of citizens for various aspects of the human condition. Yet as Cuban concludes his lecture: “We have not examined carefully, deliberately, and in open debate the purposes of schools.” MEANS TO ENDS In our report, we detail how various universities in British Columbia articulate what they mean by educational leadership; that is, how they justify their educational purposes or ends, either in public discourse (on their websites or in the literature), or privately in their discussions with our research team. Researching ends is, however, only part of our study: we also want to report on how universities aim to foster their avowed 17 02. The Issues Fostering Educational Leaders ends, that is, decide what means they will use to help people become educational leaders. Having challenged the Levine report’s notion of educational ends, we will also critique another of its foundational assumptions: that the ends of educational leadership prescribe the means to achieve them. The idea that ends can be easily distinguished from means is a highly contested assumption, one of a number of polarities that characterize instrumental reasoning. Educational administration has been particularly vulnerable to charges of over-reliance on instrumental thinking, particularly in areas where it is inappropriate (e.g. Taylor 1991). Indeed the founding of educational administration as an area of study relied heavily on the importation of business models to manage the mass expansion of public schooling at the beginning of the 20th century (Callahan, 1962). The need for greater efficiency in the running of new business enterprises led to the call for “doing, not mere knowing” (Callahan, 1962, p. 191). Callahan shows the enormous impact of importing this new business-oriented way of thinking into school administration, noting that: “All through the nineteenth century leading administrators …conceived of themselves as scholars…. After 1900, especially after 1910, they tended to identify themselves with the successful business executive” (pp. 7-8). While schools continue to require efficient management, helping people learn to lead good and worthwhile lives is a different kind of enterprise than manufacturing cars. The tension between education and its formal institutionalization in schooling is especially well reflected in nuances of vocabulary. For example, are school principals managers, principal teachers, leaders, or administrative officers? These tensions are also reflected in the uneasy relationship between educational ends and means. Burbules captures the problem succinctly: “[Educational] activities do not simply aim at goals, they partly constitute and reconstitute them. Aims are not conceptually or practically separable from activities” (p. 7). An apocryphal illustration: after listening to a student teacher detail her philosophy of education for more than ten minutes, a high school student interrupted respectfully: “Please, Ma’am, if you teach us for ten minutes, we’ll tell you your philosophy of education.” The vignette at the start of this section describing the beginning of a principal’s day, for example, reveals some of the principal’s general educational values, or ends, including the priority of relationships and a concern for personal as well as professional welfare. Matching those values with the particulars of people, circumstances and relationships is a more complex task than matching ends with means. Also important is learning to perceive or understand the circumstance or relationship as a particular kind of occurrence (e.g. “reading” Matthew’s reactions) and developing the experience and talent to do something with that understanding. Cuban reinforces the point as follows: “How we teach becomes what we teach” (1993, p. 185). So, while we aim to report on how university educational leadership programs define themselves, we are also interested in learning how these means create their own ends. For example, across the various programs studied, how are underlying assumptions about what educational leadership is and how it might be fostered revealed in policies and practices dealing with recruitment and selection of students and faculty, curriculum, instructional strategies and student and program evaluation? 18 SECTION SUMMARY School leaders are enmeshed in complex, overlapping, and often conflicting webs of relationships from which they must make educational meaning. Moreover, people who accept leadership roles assume large responsibilities. Helping to prepare people for such roles is challenging. Yet, how do we determine which leadership skills, knowledge and values are required, who decides them, and by what criteria? It is this conceptual vagueness around educational leadership that we believe reveals a fundamental problem with programs and policies that foster educational leadership. Focusing exclusively on “student achievement” avoids grappling with perhaps the most important question in education: that is, what are valid, defensible educational ends and who gets to decide them? “Fostering Tomorrow’s Educational Leaders” is shaped by these core questions, which provide the context for our descriptions of graduate ELA programs offered in British Columbia’s universities. Researching educational ends is, however, only part of our study: we also want to report on how universities aim to foster their avowed ends, that is, decide what means they will use to help people become educational leaders. Fostering Educational Leaders 3: ENDS IN EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE University programs aimed at fostering leadership are a rapidly growing international phenomenon. Sorenson (2002) identified 900 college or university-level leadership programs (double the number of four years earlier) offering more than 100 specialist degrees and a wide range of related activities. In recent years, centres of excellence in leadership have been established in nearly all parts of the public sector, including health, defence, education and police. British Columbians have access to an impressive array of university-based ELA programs. These programs are available through universities based both within and outside the province. British Columbians are enrolled in graduate ELA programs in universities located as far abroad as Australia and the United Kingdom. SURVEYED INSTITUTIONS In this report, we focus on 12 major ELA programs that capture the bulk of BC students currently enrolled in this field (see Table 1). In addition to BC-based universities – such as the University of British Columbia, University of Northern British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, University of Victoria, Royal Roads University, and Trinity Western University – we included six universities that operate outside of the province: University of Calgary, Gonzaga University, Nova Southeastern University, University of Oregon, University of Phoenix and Western Washington University. For each of the 12 ELA programs we collected two types of data. First, we reviewed the print and electronic information available on each program. This review provided data on course offerings, types of degrees, faculty and student recruitment, and the various delivery formats offered by each program. Second, we interviewed the coordinators of the graduate ELA programs at these universities, offering M.A., M.Ed., Ed.D. and Ph.D. degrees. In our report, when a particular university is referred to by name, we rely on materials derived exclusively from publicly accessible sources. Tables Two and Three, for example, are based on such sources. In contrast, when interview materials are used, we refrain from any identification whether personal or institutional. In these cases, we simply refer to “participants” or to program “coordinator(s)”. UNIVERSITIES DECLARE THEIR ENDS Operationalizing what is meant by educational leadership and management requires each university program to define its aims. In later sections we look at the organization of curriculum and instruction in some detail. But here we attempt to capture program goals in more general terms. The tension between particularity and generality is a familiar one in education and here we uncover it yet again. 03. Educational Ends 19 Fostering Educational Leaders TABLE 1: Major ELA Programs Offered in BC, 2005 University (Location) Institutional Designation and Affiliation Certificate Programs Diploma Programs Magistral Degrees Doctoral Degrees Programs offered by universities located in British Columbia British Columbia (Vancouver) Educational Administration and Leadership Program (Program within the Department of Educational Studies, Faculty of Education) M.A., M.Ed. (Educational Administration & Leadership) Concentrations: M.A. & M.Ed.: (EADM & Curriculum) Ed.D. (Educational Leadership and Policy) Ph.D. (Educational Studies) Northern British Columbia (Prince George) Deanship of Graduate Studies M.Ed. (Multidisciplinary Leadership, focus area in Educational Leadership) M.A., M.Ed. (Educational Leadership) Ed.D. (Educational Leadership) 20 Simon Fraser (Burnaby) Educational Leadership Program (Program within the Faculty of Education) Victoria (Victoria) Department of Educational Psychology & Leadership Studies (Department within the Faculty of Education) Certificate in School Management & Leadership (2005) M.A., M.Ed. (Leadership Studies) Ph.D. [by special arrangement only](b) Royal Roads (Victoria) School of Leadership Studies (School within the Faculty of Social and Applied Sciences) M.A. (Leadership and Training)(c) Trinity Western (Langley) Graduate Program in Leadership (within TWU) M.A. (Leadership) Fostering Educational Leaders University (Location) Institutional Designation and Affiliation Certificate Programs Diploma Programs Magistral Degrees Doctoral Degrees Programs offered by universities located outside British Columbia Calgary (Calgary, AB) Specialization in Educational Leadership (In the Graduate Division of Educational Research) Gonzaga (Spokane, WA) Department of Leadership and Administration (Department within the School of Education) Post-Degree Continuous Learning Certificate(d) Post-Degree Continuous Learning Diploma(d) M.A., M.Ed. (Educational Leadership) (distance delivery) Ed.D. (Educational Leadership)(e) 03. Educational Ends (distance delivery) M.A. (Leadership & Administration) Option 1: School Administration (Canada only) (f) School of Professional Studies(g) Ph.D. (Leadership Studies) 21 Nova Southeastern (Ft Lauderdale, FL) School of Education and Human Services Ed.S. [Educational Specialist] with specialization in Educational Leadership (post-graduate) M.S. in Education (With specialization in Educational Leadership) Ed.D.(h) Oregon (Eugene, OR) Educational Leadership in Canada Program (Program within the College of Education) M.S. (Educational Leadership)(i) See note (j) Phoenix (Tulsa, OK) M.A. (Educational Administration and Supervision) Ed.D. (Educational Leadership) Fostering Educational Leaders Notes: (a) Only the major programs have been included in Table 1. They capture the bulk of programs attended by British Columbians. It should be noted that British Columbians also attend programs offered by Deakin and Flinders universities (Australia), San Diego State University (US) and several other distance education universities not listed in Table 1. For instance, Deakin University (Victoria, Australia) offers an M.A. in Educational Leadership and Administration (largely online) and operates an exchange program in the Okanagan Valley, BC. Flinders University (Adelaide, Australia) offers an M.Ed. in Educational Leadership and Management. (b) University of Victoria: “Leadership Studies presently admits Ph.D. students by Special Arrangements within a standing quota of four students. Identifying a committee supervisor and committee members is an early step in the process. The University is contemplating changes that could regularize all Ph.D. degrees, replacing the Special Arrangements option. Information is available from the Graduate Adviser.” (c) Royal Roads University offers MBAs and a range of M.A. programs. Educational streams in the MA program and their MBA in Educational Administration were collapsed a couple of years ago. Royal Roads University also offers a range of certificate programs not in the area of Educational Administration. A B.A. in Leadership and Management is reportedly under planning. A number of graduate certificates in the area of Leadership are also offered. (d) University of Calgary: “Students in the Graduate Division of Educational Research may progress through a three-stage laddering structure: graduate certificates, graduate diplomas, and the Master of Education. That is, it may be possible for students to “ladder” from a 2 full-course equivalent graduate certificate into a graduate diploma requiring an additional 2 full-course equivalents, and from there into a Master of Education program requiring another two full-course equivalents”. (e) This specialization also offers an Ed.D. in Higher Education Administration, not included in Table 1. (f) This program is offered in Canada only. It is not suitable for certification requirements in the US. The M.A. in Educational Administration was excluded from Table 1 as it does not appear accessible to Canadians unless they move to Gonzaga’s main campus in Spokane. (g) The School of Professional Studies also offers an undergraduate Certificate of Comprehensive Leadership Program and an M.A. in Communication & Leadership Studies which are not included in Table 1. (h) The Ed.D. program (online format) offers specializations in Organizational Leadership, Higher Education Leadership, Educational Leadership, Adult Education Leadership, Community College Leadership, International Education Leadership, Instructional Leadership. In addition, the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences offers a Graduate Certificate in College Student Personnel Administration (Online format). These programs were not included in Table 1. (i) Only the program offered in Canada was included in Table 1. (j) The University of Oregon offers an Ed.D. program in Portland for administrators seeking to meet licensure requirements. There is also a Ph.D. offered to develop research expertise. They are not included in Table 1. (k) The M.Ed. in Educational Administration includes the Residency Principal’s Certificate. Teachers may earn either a master’s degree with residency principal’s certification, or a master’s degree with a concentration in elementary/secondary or instructional technology. In addition, the Department offers a Post-Master’s Residency Principal’s Certificate for teachers who hold a master’s degree from an accredited institution and a Continuing Principal’s Certificate (Principals and associate principals may convert an initial certificate to a continuing certificate). A new Program, the Superintendent’s Certificate, prepares for a school district leadership position. Classes are held evenings and weekends during the academic year at three locations in the State of Washington: Bellingham, Shoreline, and Bremerton. (l) This university department also offers an M.A. and an M.Ed. in Student Affairs Administration in Higher Education, not included in Table 1. 22 Fostering Educational Leaders Some programs are clearer than others about their aims and the kind of leaders they want to foster. A number specify the knowledge, skills and attitudes that their graduates will acquire, while others focus more on general understandings and dispositions. Some programs concentrate on the preparation of practitioners, others emphasize fostering scholar-practitioners (although we should note this division is a matter of emphasis and not a sharp dichotomy). In Tables 2 and 3, we represent the ways ELA programs define their ends and identify their means by focusing on their frames of reference and what they expect their students to learn. As Table 2 shows, ELA programs pursue a wide range of goals identified as worthy. These range from “empowerment and building strong relationships and healthier organizations” at Royal Roads, to upholding a “Christian worldview [through] an effective and innovative servant leadership model” at Trinity Western, or the promotion of “lifelong learning” at the Universities of Victoria and Nova. Not all programs associate their goals exclusively with the school system. Some programs broadly define leadership “in business and the professions” (Nova) or the “corporate” world (Royal Roads). At the University of Calgary, the aim extends beyond schools to “other institutions, and government bodies concerned with public and private education.” Among institutions focusing on educational leadership (UNBC, SFU, UVIC, Gonzaga, Oregon, Phoenix, Western Washington and UBC) it is possible to identify two sets of programmatic goals. In the first set, goals are defined in terms of improving “outcomes”. For instance, the program at the University of Oregon states its ultimate goal as contributing to “the development, implementation and generation of improved outcomes in the organization and management of K-12 education.” The University of Phoenix emphasizes this aim more broadly by connecting “teacher learning directly with student learning.” The program at Western Washington University program directs its aims toward improving “teaching practices [that] are studentcentred and standard driven.” The second set of programmatic goals emphasizes the impact of educational leadership on the educational process. The University of Victoria’s program aims to address “personal or even spiritual development”. Gonzaga wants to provide students with “the knowledge, skills and dispositions required for the practice of effective educational leadership in organizations.” At the University of British Columbia, the program emphasizes “learning that will help [students] understand, critique and thereby improve their practice to better serve children, communities and the wider society”. Table 3 outlines the types of learning to which students in ELA programs are exposed. As well, these programs offer differential means through which students may come to exercise effective leadership in their workplaces. Some universities, such as Trinity Western, emphasize the acquisition of “problem-solving skills”. Graduates of TWU’s program will “learn…to develop high performance organizations [and] a healthy organization culture”. In contrast, Simon Fraser students are expected to develop their scholarly and professional skills. What is clear from the above two tables is that ELA programs have been highly successful at identifying themselves with a variety of societal ends and prescribing a range of educational means through which these ends might be promoted. Some might view this diversity of approaches as indicative of a lack of professionalism. We take the position that legitimate diversity enriches the educational leadership landscape in BC. We detect a vibrant and multivocal community of scholars and practitioners, working towards multiple ends, both within and outside the school system. Our major concern, however, is with the absence of conversation among these programs that leads to a neglect of the wider contexts within which BC educational leaders act. As our interviews suggest this neglect sometimes percolates out in the shape of programs that are isolated from broader conversations concerning the complexity and diversity of education in BC. LEADERSHIP AND ENDS While we found much activity to promote leadership across all surveyed programs, there was no widely accepted definition of leadership and no consensus on how best to develop or foster it. Our participants disagreed substantively about what leadership means and how it is related to management or administration. As one interviewee put it, “I wouldn’t say we have a clear understanding [of leadership], but we are in the process of negotiating a vision on that front” (P1). Broadly speaking, we can divide our participants into two camps: those who advocate an autonomous conception of leadFostering Educational Leaders 03. Educational Ends 23 TABLE 2 Magistral Programs in Educational Administration and Leadership: Frames of Reference (November 2005) University Frame of Reference Programs offered by universities located in British Columbia British Columbia “.. engage students in learning that will help them to understand, critique, and thereby improve their practice to better serve children, communities, and the wider society.” The program “challenges assumptions, offers new perspectives on organizational life, develops thinking skills, and has a distinctive Canadian content. A focus on education rather than training gives it a special character.” “The specific management responsibilities of the school principal and the legal, economic, political and social environment in which educational institutions operate are the central focus. The scope of school leadership is more than managerial in nature and other courses focus on the importance of building professional learning communities, accommodating diversity, the context of northern education, and creating positive learning environments that are central to effective educational leadership.” “Motivating, empowering, and inspiring others to build strong relationships and stronger, healthier organizations has becoming a defining factor in achieving personal and corporate goals.” “… focuses on the development of the sophisticated leadership and problem solving skills necessary for managing the complex learning organizations of the 21st century.” “The program encourages students to view issues and problems they encounter in their workplace in deeper, more complex and educative ways.” “… the Christian worldview is the chosen frame of reference throughout the program …” “Built on the effective and innovative servant leadership model ...” “Learning in this sense is life long. We also are beginning to understand learning as life wide. By life wide we mean that learning happens in different spheres of human activity: in formal educational settings; in our places of work; in our roles as citizens; as part of community or social action; or as part of personal or even spiritual development.” Understand practice Critique practice Improve practice Canadian content Effective Ed. Leadership Management Learning environment Professional learning comminities Diversity, Empowerment Healthy organizations Problem solving Management Views Christian worldview Servant leadership Lifelong learning, Social action, Personal development Spiritual development Keywords Northern British Columbia Royal Roads Simon Fraser Trinity Western Victoria 24 Programs offered by universities located outside British Columbia Calgary “This specialization draws upon the social sciences and humanities to prepare researchers and practitioners for the analysis and resolution of issues and problems related to educational policy and the direction and management of schools, school systems, other institutions, and governmental bodies concerned with public and private education.” “The School of Education upholds the tradition of humanistic, Catholic, and Jesuit education.” “… provides students preparing for an administrative role, the knowledge, skills and dispositions required for the practice of effective educational leadership in organizations.” (Canada only). “Nova Southeastern University prepares students for lifelong learning and leadership roles in business and the professions. …[It] fosters inquiry, research, and creative professional activity, by uniting faculty and students in acquiring and applying knowledge in clinical, community, and professional settings.” “… the development, implementation, and generation of improved outcomes in the organization and management of K-12 education.” “The University’s educational philosophy and operational structure embody participative, collaborative, and applied problem-solving strategies …. [and] help integrate academic theory with current practical application.” “… ‘Impact student learning, one educator at a time’. Our programs are designed to connect teacher learning directly to student learning.” “The Department of Educational Leadership cultivates quality educational leaders for the future by providing a diverse array of undergraduate and graduate degrees and professional programs. Educational transformation requires leaders who can envision a better future and improved practices, and who have leadership qualities and educational skills to facilitate and sustain meaningful learning and change. We collaboratively prepare and empower these highly skilled and knowledgeable leaders to teach adults or children, train adults in the public and private sector, and/or administer superior educational programs. Upto-date curriculum and teaching practices are student-centered and standards driven with an emphasis on the integration of theory and practice.” Analysis Problem resolution Educational policy School Management Skills Disposition Practice Organizations Lifelong learning Creative professional activity Applied knowledge K-12 educational outcomes, Organisation, Development & Management of outcomes Teacher learning, Student learning. Gonzaga Nova Oregon Phoenix Western Washington Transformation, Vision, Improved practice, Leadership qualities, Skills Learning, Change, Empowerment, Administration, Standardsdriven, Theory-practice integration Fostering Educational Leaders TABLE 3 Magistral Programs in Educational Administration and Leadership: Target Population and Contributions to Student Learning (November 2005) University Target Population Contributions to Student Learning Programs offered by universities located in British Columbia British Columbia “… persons who are interested in leadership positions in K-12 education.” “We see education as rapidly evolving - for example, schools are becoming more accountable for their results just as principals’ roles in the community are changing - so we seek candidates who care about the issues, understand the potential of education, and want to influence teaching and learning positively.” Northern British Columbia “… those individuals who want to specialize in school-based leadership …”. “… the scope of school leadership is more than managerial in nature and other courses focus on the importance of building professional learning communities, accommodating diversity, the context of northern education, and creating positive learning environments that are central to effective educational leadership.” “… focus on ‘real world’ problem solving projects grounded in a rigorous theoretical understanding of the nature of modern learning organizations and the changing role of leadership within them.” “Our program aims to engage students in learning that will help them to understand, critique, and thereby improve their practice to better serve children, communities, and the wider society.” 03. Educational Ends Royal Roads “…working professionals …”, “… mid-career professionals ...”. 25 Simon Fraser “… current or prospective leaders engaged in education in a variety of contexts (e.g. schools, colleges, community agencies, health agencies, justice agencies, or arts agencies). (working individuals) “… ensure that our graduate students have the opportunities for scholarly and professional development that will serve them well [in positions of leadership in academic and professional sectors in the future].” Trinity Western You’ll learn: -- How to produce a vision and strategic goals, as a meaningful and dynamic part of your organization; -- How to manage change for results, overcome resistance and build commitment to your strategic; -- How to lead from different organizational position levels; -- How to apply concepts and methods of organizational system analysis; -- When to use different leadership styles and strategies and the interactive dynamics of power, authority and influence -- How to create productive teams for any task or for problem-solving; -- The benefits and limits of responsible risk management; -- How to develop strategic internal and external communications; -- How to communicate effectively and responsibly with the media; -- How to promote and develop a value-based organization that utilizes personal and corporate ethics in decision-making; -- Models of servant leadership that make your organization more effective and the workplace experience more meaningful; -- How to develop high performance organizations; -- How to develop a healthy organization culture. Victoria (1) “professionals already occupying positions of leadership in education and related fields, who wish to consolidate and upgrade their standing”; (2) “aspirants …considering…an administrative career”. “Individual programs of study are designed by candidates in conjunction with a supervisor to reflect areas of interest and career goals.” Continued next page Fostering Educational Leaders Continued from last page University Target Population Contribution to Student Learning Programs offered by universities located outside British Columbia Calgary The programs are suitable for scholars, professionals and researchers including: - teachers in primary and secondary schools - school administrators - post-secondary educators and administrators - community development educators - adult and lifelong-learning educators - health educators - training professionals -educators in public service and government - professionals in community rehabilitation “…Canadian students preparing for the principalship…” “… teachers and administrators …” “… collaborative effort [between SD # 43 and Continuing Education Centre at UO]”; “partnership”. “This specialization positions graduates for administrative and research-related careers with an understanding of organizational change” Gonzaga “[The program] provides students preparing for an administrative role, the knowledge, skills and dispositions required for the practice of effective educational leadership in organizations.” “The program gives practicing educational professionals in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland an opportunity to enhance their skills and knowledge about teaching, learning, and schools and to obtain a degree from an elite American college of education. “… students to articulate and advance their personal and professional goals.” “This degree will prepare students for administrative or other leadership roles at the district or building level. Students will also enhance their capacity to improve their instructional program and that of the school or district.” Nova 26 Oregon Phoenix “… working adult students …” “The … program is designed for educators who are interested in expanding and refining their knowledge of leadership and administration. (teachers) Western Washington “…to prepare thoughtful, knowledgeable, and effective P-12 school leaders for a diverse society. Consistent with national and state standards for P-12 school administrators, the programs emphasize leadership and management related to curriculum, school instruction, personnel, staff/community relations, financial and legal issues, etc.” (Administrative Certification) Fostering Educational Leaders ership and those who argue that leadership is a dependent concept, varying according to purpose. The first group seems to coalesce around the idea that leaders are people who are able to inspire others to define and achieve common purposes. This view of educational leaders is well articulated in an article by Renihan (1999a, p. 212), who writes that; “No matter what the constraints are, effective leaders will find a way to get the job done despite the odds. Furthermore, they will find ways to do it very well.” In our survey, a number of participants shared this view. For example, one coordinator explained that effective leadership is “the only way you’re going to counteract limited budgets.” The scholarly literature contains many examples of this way of describing and defining leadership in autonomous terms, as well as criticism of this approach. Kellerman (2004, p.45) for example, argues that scholars need to be mindful that leaders are not inevitably good: “Leaders are like the rest of us; trustworthy and deceitful, cowardly and brave, greedy and generous. To assume that all leaders are good people is to be wilfully blind to the reality of the human condition.” The second group see leadership as dependent on purposes, rather than autonomous. Differing interpretations of purposes offer grounds for contention, however. Some cast leadership in moral terms: Bennis and Nanus (1985, p. 21, for example, contend that while managers “do things right,” “leaders do the right thing.” Some ELA programs unambiguously linked their ideas about leadership to a specific moral frame, to particular moral values, or to education understood as a moral endeavour. At Trinity Western, for example, “the Christian worldview is the chosen frame of reference throughout the program,” which is “built on the effective and innovative servant leadership model” (P5). Another coordinator explains that “the leaders that we prepare have to take on moral responsibility for guiding schools towards equity and excellence. They have to believe in distributive leadership” (P16). Another program aims to “develop courageous educational leaders” who are “sensitive and active in meeting student needs based on gender, ethnicity, culture, social class, and exceptionalities” (P10). A final example of connecting discussions of leadership to education as a moral endeavour is the participant who is concerned that many conversations about educational leadership neglect “what counts as education.” He explains that, in his institution’s ELA program, education is the central concept. In consequence, “we begin a conversation about education as the way of fostering [a] good and worthwhile life, that we hope imbues everything, or affects everything [else] in the program” (P2). LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT While participants in our study often disagreed about what they meant by leadership, they were unanimous in distinguishing leadership from management or administration. They did, however, disagree about the basis for the distinction. For instance, the UNBC program states that “the scope of school leadership is more than managerial in nature and other courses focus on the importance of building professional learning communities, accommodating diversity and concepts of Northern education, and creating positive learning environments that are central to effective school leadership.” In contrast, at SFU and UBC no explicit distinction is suggested in the program descriptions. There is only a broad statement in the UBC description that mentions “a focus on education rather than training.” At SFU, the program “encourages students to view issues and problems they encounter in their workplace in deeper, more complex and educative ways.” In the interviews, one participant observed: Leadership and management are different skill sets that often have to be mastered by the same person to be effective in an administrative role. People don’t have to be administrators to be leaders. [However], I think administrators have to reclaim some of what I would call the lost leadership ground…It can’t just become a paper shuffling job (P5). 03. Educational Ends 27 Another coordinator defended their program’s approach: We do not equate, nor do we conflate educational leadership with educational management, or with educational administration. We do recognize the different facets involved in exerting leadership, but we don’t reduce leadership to these aspects (P1). One university program is attempting to come to terms with the leadership/management/administration conundrum by deconstructing these terms from critical, feminist, and postmodern perspectives to show the ways management ‘poses’ as leadership. As the program coordinator reflects: “management comes out of the business realm. And that is not necessarily the appropriate strategy in an educational setting” (P18). In this particu- Fostering Educational Leaders lar program, the term educational leadership is preferred, rather than management or administration. We should make clear that participants did not dismiss management as trivial or peripheral to school leadership. Many pointed to the increasingly complex context of schooling in British Columbia. Administrators were under pressure “to deal with the combined forces of the particular issues of the community, and the pressures of globalization” (P3). Because schools focus on these particular forces, people in leadership positions need to understand and manage what is happening within and outside their organizations. As one participant explained the management challenge: Educational leadership operates within educational organizations. And therefore being aware of the intricacies of organizations, how power operates within organizations, and what it means to exercise leadership in organizations is an aspect that we want to put at the front of our endeavour. (P1). In an attempt to downplay the role of management in his program, another suggests “there might be management characteristics involved in leadership as we talk about it in our program, [but] we’re not really looking at trying to control people as much as we are trying to develop people”(P9). PREPARING PRACTITIONERS: COMPETENCIES, THEORY AND PRACTICE We found two major commonalities among the programs we studied. First, the “competency” approach to leadership development and assessment is widespread. In this approach specific competencies are defined; these then become the anchors for curriculum, instruction and evaluation. Students are not expected simply “to learn a bunch of theories, but [to] demonstrate Fostering Educational Leaders particular expertise necessary for successful practice.” In part, the competencies selected seem to vary according to how they are grounded or determined. Most seem based on the general attributes deemed necessary to further the objectives of K-12 schooling. In one program, for example, the students “all come away with some competency in terms of actually being able to improve and change their instructional program” (P15). Other programs develop their list of competencies based on current research. As one participant explains: “We look at seminal authors and theories and research…and build the program around those competencies” (P6). The aim of this approach seems to be the transfer to students of what are considered to be the principal problem-solving skills necessary for managing today’s complex learning organizations. In sum, lists of competencies seem to vary depending on how skills, competencies, and leadership are defined. We found no consensus about which particular knowledges, skills or dispositions are required to be a “successful educational leader,” and no shared understanding of what these terms actually mean. Nevertheless, diverse understandings seem to present no barrier to the drawing up of lists. Listing generalized leadership competencies and attributes is a task many program coordinators approach with confidence. As one explained, defining such a list is “one area that we really feel that we’re able to contribute to any sector:…defining a set of competencies that would both reflect a standard expected of effective leaders and define that standard for a sector” (P6). A second commonality among the programs we studied is that all advocate the integration of theory and practice in educational leadership, although opinions differ on the meanings of “theory,” “practice” and the ways in which they are related. Some programs consider theory and practice to be separate domains, held in tension; for others theory and practice are enmeshed. In the first approach, theory prescribed practice. In the second view, practice and theory are 28 mutually shaped in a dialectical relationship. Some participants seem to understand theory as some general system of ideas-whether formal or informal--that can be employed to guide what would count as appropriate practice. One participant, for example, described his program as emphasizing the “development, implementation and generation of improved outcomes in the organization and management of K12 education.” General outcomes (informal theory) dictate implementation efforts (practice). For other participants, theory and practice are distinguished by the kinds of knowledge involved: One participant observes that in his program a distinction is made between “procedural [how] and propositional [what] knowledge” and adds that “we are designed as a professional program, by the university. A fundamental concern is what you call applied knowledge.” Another coordinator concluded that while “we know that leadership is a moral question with ethical enterprise…at the same time people need to know how to run the thing.” [P3] Using the general to prescribe for the particular is a concern for a number of our participants. One, for example, regretted the current policy climate in BC in which decision-making on the part of the provincial government drives decisions downward into school districts and into schools, noting that “resistance [is] building between teachers and [the] agents who impose policies and conditions upon their practice” (P18). This individual mentioned that some schools in the district had expressed a desire “to focus on issues related to social responsibility and social justice.” But instead, they were forced to adopt “a regime of academic achievement; performance on provincial test measures and the like.” Alternatively, some programs take the relationship between theory and practice to be dialectical. Theory, conceived as a collection of general ideas, can be used to understand particular experiences. In turn, these practical experiences, can be used to test the validity and usefulness of the theory. We find the notion of “practitionerresearcher,” as expressed in one program’s mission statement, to be relevant to this discussion. Practitioner-researchers bridge theory and practice. The mission of the program in question is to foster people who are “capable of continually learning and altering their teaching in line with developments in educational research and theory, as well as reflecting and inquiring into their classroom experience”. One participant argued for a notion of educational leadership as philosophy in practice, explaining that “your world view determines your effectiveness and your approach as a leader.” He suggested that in their program they “try to truly influence people’s worldviews such that they have a broad perspective on the role of leadership in society, the role of leadership in organizations, the role of leadership in terms of quality of life for people.” In his view, such an approach allows students to “reach deep down inside and figure out the contribution they’re going to make and therefore the style and approach of leadership they’re going to employ.” He concluded that “your philosophy is going to determine what you do as a leader and what you do as a leader should inform your philosophy as well. So it becomes an integrated process” (P6). JUSTIFYING ENDS Given our concern for the ends of educational leadership programs in BC, we were interested not only in what goals various programs pursued, but how they determined their ends and for whom. All participants claimed a philosophical foundation for their programs, but they disagreed about what counts as such a foundation and how it might be justified. Further, a closer review of the transcripts indicates that some coordinators understand their program’s “philosophical foundation” to be synonyFostering Educational Leaders 03. Educational Ends 29 1 TQS defines Category VI as the highest category of Teachers’ salary. It is achieved by obtaining a duly accredited graduate degree. 2 mous with a “vision statement,” rather than anything deeper. The “philosophical structure” supporting one program, for example, approaches leadership from three perspectives: personal; organizational, and global: Another participant affirmed that their whole philosophy was to prepare people to take on leadership roles in our schools: “we’re definitely into leadership in the way of a philosophical base, policy-making, being aware of people’s values” (P4). For them, this ‘philosophy’ is operationalized by ensuring that students are aware of a wide range of different approaches to leadership. Other participants attempted to legitimate their programs by anchoring them in various academic disciplines. One program’s approach to leadership is grounded, for example, in “the humanities, from the social sciences, and so we have a lot of philosophy” (P14). Others “look at leadership from philosophy, from the arts, from literature,” (P11) while some “look at leadership from sociology, from anthropology, from psychology and then the sciences in terms of how is it that we know, come to know and improve our thinking” (P9). Finally, in terms of foundations, none of our participants explicitly linked the fostering of educational leadership to public democratic dialogue. (To be fair, that omission may be an artifact of our research strategy.) We note that at least three programs require courses that grapple with the relationship between education and democracy. EXTERNAL PRESSURES So far we have noted the wide diversity of understandings about the appropriate ends for educational leadership programs in British Columbia; the plethora of definitions of leadership, management, education that characterize these programs; disagreement about the role of universities in preparing educational leaders; and a range of justifications that were offered by participants. Given these factors, it seems inevitable that BC programs are vulnerable to definition by external pressures. Here we indicate two: Americanization and Globalization THE AMERICANIZATION OF ELA PROGRAMS IN BRITISH COLUMBIA American universities offer five of the six non-BC-based graduate programs we reviewed. Data provided by the Teachers’ Qualification Service (TQS) further indicate that programs offered by US based universities account for 30-40% of all applicants who upgraded their status to Category VI between 1995 and 2004.1 These are applicants who completed graduate study programs originating in the United States. American universities participate in the education of future BC school leaders to a considerable extent. Gonzaga University, based in Spokane, Washington, operates 13 different cohorts across Western Canada alone. Western Washington University operates a cohort in Bellingham, just across the US border in Washington state, which Canadian students attend. Other US-based institutions, such as the University of Phoenix, offer a combination of distance and cohort-based classes, through small satellite Vancouver campuses. American programs differ from Canadian programs in several major respects. Most importantly American programs are subject to multi-layered accreditation and certification procedures, established at both regional and state levels. Programs are aligned along standard-driven outcomes and are required to ensure that their graduates meet principal or/and superintendent certification upon graduation. In BC, the TQS does not accept state-accredited programs, insisting instead on regionally accredited programs.2 Most American programs offered to BC students adopt the same standards for student performance, academic content, and faculty-student contact that are the norm for graduate courses offered on the home [American] campus. Notwithstanding, Canadian students attending American programs rarely In the US there are seven regional accreditation jurisdictions. 3 30 In this report we do not discuss concerns emanating from the NAFTA agreement and how it may impact educational leadership policy in BC. The NAFTA agreement aims to “eliminate barriers in trade, and facilitate the cross-border movement of, goods and services between the territories of the [signatory] Parties” (Article 102 Section A). NAFTA encourages the signatory Parties “to develop mutually acceptable standards and criteria for licensing and certification of professional service providers and to provide recommendations of mutual recognition” (Annex 1210.5 Section A, Clause 2). The standards and criteria referred to include the “accreditation of schools or academic programs”, examinations for licensing, ethical standards of professional conduct, programs of continuing education and local knowledge requirement (Annex 1210.5 Section A, Clause 3). Within the frame of NAFTA “[p]rofessional services means services, the provision of which requires specialized post-secondary education, or equivalent training or experience, and for which the right to practice is granted or restricted by a Party” (Article 1213, Clause 2). Fostering Educational Leaders get certified for principalship in the States. Some programs (such as Gonzaga’s) are provided only to Canadian students and therefore do not lead to US certification. The matter becomes more complicated and ambiguous in programs delivered in the US, such as that operating at Western Washington University. Canadian students are enrolled in cohorts with American students and the issue of certification is not entirely transparent. Some coordinators expressed their concern about the Americanization of leadership education in British Columbia. One observed: “we’re not America. And we’re not into this big, I hope, big management thing” (P4). Another coordinator was concerned about evaluating credentials from programs such as those from certain external universities where there was concern about whether “individual committee members… are… even aware when they see transcripts [of] what kind of program [applicants are] coming from” (P14). Other program coordinators fear that many BC-based programs will become increasingly similar to their American counterparts, in terms of their offerings and marketing strategies, in order to remain competitive. Even so, there are interesting differences in approach. Some external universities employ: lots of demographics, lots of focus groups [to] find out who is out there. In a sense, one of the things [we are] developing… is the network of people who are taking our courses. We’re trying [to network] rather than going out and doing a lot of marketing research, per se, although we do need to do some of that (P3). THE GLOBALIZATION OF ELA PROGRAMS IN BRITISH COLUMBIA Some participants were less concerned about Americanization than by what they see as the ongoing process of commodification of ELA programs. As one coordinator defined the problem, what is disturbing is “[the] trend of treating the public sector as the private sector. That public institutions are supposed to see each other in competitive terms. That we’re after a market share” (P14). Others were troubled that education is becoming “a means mainly for economic competitiveness and competitivity” (P1). For some, the privatization and marketization of ELA programs mean that other important aspects of education are left unattended. For others, the challenge of globalization is less economic than cultural: the matter is one of preserving the specificity of what they perceive as the Canadian “agenda” and “experience.” One participant observed: “ there is, if you like, a political or a national agenda here of recovering the training of our senior leadership from the American providers” (P3). Australian and other English-speaking universities are starting to find their way into the BC graduate market through distance education programs. At the same time, a few programs are operated by universities in neighbouring provinces, such as the one offered by the University of Calgary. However, the packaging, marketing and dissemination of non-Canadian programs across BC has been more robust than the marketing of programs from other Canadian jurisdictions. Canadian programs that want to remain competitive feel increasing pressure to develop American-style program packages.3 03. Educational Ends SECTION SUMMARY While the number of ELA programs in British Columbia is increasing dramatically, their aims vary greatly. In this section, we unpacked how the various programs define their ends; how they characterize the fostering of those ends; and how they justify what ends are selected. Our findings show that despite much promotional activity, there is no widely accepted definition of leadership and no consensus on how best to develop or foster it. Our participants disagreed substantively about what leadership means and how it is related to management or administration. And, while they were unanimous in distinguishing leadership from management or administration, they disagreed about the basis for the distinction. We found two major commonalities among the programs we studied. First, the “competency” approach to leadership development and assessment is widespread. Second, all programs advocate the integration of theory and practice in educational leadership, although opinions differ on the meanings of “theory,” “practice” and the ways in which they are related. Finally, our findings revealed the impact of globalization and Americanization on ELA programs currently offered in BC. This impact of the market means that important aspects associated with the ends of education are left unattended. 31 Fostering Educational Leaders PART II: EDUCATIONAL MEANS 32 Canada-based programs are more likely to provide opportunities for aboriginal leadership education than US based programs Fostering Educational Leaders 4: People in ELA Who are the Faculty? The faculty members actively participating in the 12 programs surveyed are not a homogeneous group. They are divided between academic faculty, contract sessional instructors and program adjuncts.1 Each group represents a different career path and different experiences with schools and school districts. Members of each group are recruited through different hiring procedures. Academic faculty are in the minority. The data at our disposal suggest that about 70 tenuretrack faculty are involved in all 12 programs surveyed. Of these about 30 work in BC- based universities. It is common to find ELA programs operating with as few as three academic faculty members. Relatively better-staffed programs have up to seven regular faculty. Tenure-track faculty are even less numerous in programs operated by universities outside the province. Under such conditions programs rely extensively on contract sessional instructors and adjuncts, hired on an ad-hoc basis. These estimates suggest that the lack of BCbased tenure-track faculty poses substantial challenges in terms of meeting the needs of B.C.’s future educational leaders. This ‘faculty gap’ helps explain the growing reliance on sessionals and adjuncts to deliver the programs. It is difficult to assess the number of sessionals and adjuncts employed in the programs surveyed. Numbers vary from a few to the majority of instructors teaching in a particular program. One coordinator could not provide an accurate count, but observed that “we have tons of adjuncts”. Another said their program had a “huge number”, while someone else evaluated the number of sessionals and adjuncts at over 100, noting that they “do a lot of the field support when students are out on practicum.” A distinction was sometimes made between adjuncts who return every semester and those who are employed less frequently. The “sessionalization” of many programs, as one coordinator phrased it, is rampant. Certain programs rely almost entirely on adjuncts or sessionals for fieldwork, supervision of practicum or for the teaching of core courses. In some programs adjuncts and sessionals are also employed on a contract basis for the supervision of student research. Most program coordinators recognize that despite their ad-hoc status, adjuncts and sessionals “become pretty much a lynch pin” for the area in which they are hired; one coordinator described them as “babysitters” for particular courses. Sessionals and adjuncts can also assume senior administrative responsibilities within their respective programs, co-supervising a new program or coordinating cohorts. On the one hand, these ‘temporary workers’ can be seen 1 33 04. The People Sessional instructor is a term used in Canada but not the United States. Both countries use the term adjunct. Fostering Educational Leaders Extensive reliance on temporary staff raises many issues regarding the extent to which programs are able to ensure continuity across cohorts and even across courses within a particular cohort. as strengthening Educational Leadership and Administration programs. The majority have had school-based or school districtbased experience, whether as school principals, superintendents or as other senior school district staff. On the other hand, extensive reliance on temporary staff raises many issues regarding the extent to which programs are able to ensure continuity across cohorts and even across courses within a particular cohort. This problem is particularly exacerbated by the high turnover rate of sessionals and the fact that their contract-based employment is for a fixed time. The distinction between tenure-track faculty members and contract sessionals and adjuncts affects ELA programs in many ways. The increasing shifting of universities towards intensive research initiatives complicates this matter further. Field-orientated initiatives which do not lead to refereed publications are not adequately rewarded in an academic economy based on prestige and recognition. Another dimension that raises concerns is gender composition: many ELA programs remain male dominated. Women and other equity groups are underrepresented in most faculties. Many of the sessionals and adjuncts are hired from the ranks of senior-level administration. This practice constitutes a significant disadvantage for women who are already underrepresented among superintendents and other senior school district administrators. Thus, in many ways hiring practices and the reliance on sessionals end up reproducing in ELA programs the male power structures that dominate school district hierarchies.2 2 For instance in 1991 women represented 8% of all B.C. school superintendents. In 2005 they represent 18%. WHO ARE THE STUDENTS? A common feature of all twelve programs surveyed is that they seek to enrol students who are working professionals, or professionals already occupying positions of leadership in education and related fields. Some programs turn more towards teachers who are preparing for the principalship or educators who are interested in expanding and refining their knowledge of leadership and administration. The emphasis on working candidates is greater in, but not restricted to, for-profit institutions, such as the University of Phoenix, which emphasize that candidates should be currently employed. The nexus between work and study suggests that ELA programs target mid-career professionals who posses several years of experience. Presumably, this target group has already developed aspirations and expectations with regard to professional mobility. Given that applicants are already employed, therefore, ELA programs are examples of graduate programs which are directly associated with the workplace without necessarily being associated with employability. As a result these programs are often perceived –particularly by school districts-- as in-service professional development, rather than graduate education. This confusion has led to calls for certification programs that would articulate more clearly the links between the performance of school leaders and the kind of education they get. The Professional Specialization Certificate in School Management and Leadership (CSML) offered at the Faculty of Education, University of Victoria may be considered one such example. 34 Fostering Educational Leaders A review of admissions requirements shows that any qualified BC resident can register in one of the available programs [See Table 4]. More so than at any other time, BC educators have a choice of graduate programs; they are available in a variety of formats, and with a variety of aims. Programs vary significantly in terms of minimum admission requirements and assessment procedures. The minimum Grade Point Average (GPA) required for admission varies from B+ to C. Institutions such as Royal Roads, Gonzaga and Phoenix rely on flexible assessment procedures that give credit for life and work experience as well as academic achievement, while other programs operating outside of the Province mainly require teaching experience. Evidence of a leadership record figures more prominently in the requirements of BC based universities. These differences may be explained in part by the fact that non-BC-based programs tend to focus more on administration, while those based in BC tend to twin the concepts of leadership and administration. Differential admission requirements cluster in ways that overlap with differential levels of achievement by candidates. For example, Gonzaga University does not demand an undergraduate degree but requires “at least 6 credits from a college program that leads to an undergraduate degree. ”A lower GPA than the required B “may be acceptable if other qualifying criteria support admission.” Royal Roads University--which offers generic leadership training rather than an ELA program specific to educators--assesses prior achievement “through work and life experiences, as well as academic qualifications.” Though an undergraduate degree is required, “this may not be an absolute requirement in all cases.” Such disparities also suggest that leadership programs are stratified, offering graduate-level learning opportunities to candidates with a wide range of prior achievement and qualifications. STUDENT DIVERSITY AND ABORIGINAL LEADERSHIP While none of the programs surveyed has an explicit affirmative action policy in place, many, as one coordinator put it, are keen to “ensure diversity and representation of voices among students” (P1). According to another coordinator, his program tries to “encourage people from diverse backgrounds” to enrol, because “the greater diversity you’ve got, the greater skill set you’ve got” (P6). All but one interviewee touched on issues of diversity, usually in the context of cultural diversity and the “special interest” recruitment of students, including those in aboriginal educational leadership. One-third of interviewees observed that diversity is a sensitive issue and one program provides a special cohort for students coming from a particular Asian country. Canada-based programs are more likely to provide opportunities for aboriginal leadership education than US based programs. Several Canadian universities endeavour to build or strengthen ties with aboriginal educational leaders. However, an interviewee based in one Canadian university remarked that the consistent enrolment of aboriginal students has less to do with institutional efforts than those of “a number of our First Nations colleagues [who have] been able to attract a number of First Nations Students”. Otherwise, “not much is being done to offer programs in indigenous education”. Another university program has no aboriginal students enrolled but the coordinator observed that they had “Caucasian folks who have worked with the reserves”. Another coordinator pointed out that while it would be desirable to enrol more First Nations students in the M.Ed program, “we need to first maybe see more in the B.Ed program.” Analysis of our interview transcripts shows that many coordinators struggled to articulate what it means to ensure a diverse student body in their programs. On occasion, we found a troubling lack of sensitiv- 35 04. The People Fostering Educational Leaders TABLE 4: Minimum Requirements and Admission Criteria, ELA Masters Programs (November 2005) University Leadership Record Teaching Experience Statement of Purpose Minimal GPA (& Qualifications) Reference Letters English (International Students) Other Programs offered by universities located in British Columbia British Columbia Yes (in a K-12 setting) “ample evidence” 3 years (minimum) “preferably more” Yes B+ (Undergraduate degree) (calculated for the most recent 30 credits) B (calculate on the basis of the last 60 credit hours of a Recognized Baccalaureate degree) 5 years “key requirement of admission to the programs”. “…assessment of achievements through work and life experiences, as well as academic qualifications”. “… undergraduate degree. However, this may not be an absolute requirement in all cases.” “Flexible assessment”. Yes B (Undergraduate degree) GPA not specified (B.Ed. or equivalent) 3 letters (preferably one from a School District) TOEFL Résumé Northern British Columbia 3 letters A recognized English language proficiency test. Royal Roads 1 “character letter” “from someone who has known you outside the context of your work”. 1 “work” related letter English is a prerequisite. 36 Simon Fraser 3 letters (unspecified) Satisfy a standardized English test. Applicants with a TOEFL score between 620 and 650 (280 computer) may be required to attend a Graduate English Language Support program (GELS). Résumé; Writing sample Trinity Western 3 years “experience in a position of responsibility relevant to [applicant’s] leadership aspirations.” Yes “… the key requirement of successful applicants is that they subscribe to the philosophy and practice of servant leadership.” Yes 1 “character letter” 1 “work” related letter Victoria “Recognition … for experience and for proven success in the field”. B (GPA calculated for last 2 years of Bachelor degree) Certificate in School Management and Leadership Program Résumé Applicants should be “eligible” to Graduate Studies and, in addition, possess a B.Ed., a valid BC Teaching Certificate and “at least five years of successful teaching experience”. Fostering Educational Leaders University Leadership Record Teaching Experience Statement of Purpose Minimal GPA (& Qualifications) Reference Letters English (International Students) Other Programs offered by universities located outside British Columbia Calgary 2 years (minimum) Yes B (Undergraduate degree) (calculated for last 2 years or last 10 credits) Gonzaga Yes B (At least 6 credits from a university or college program that lead to an undergraduate degree. “Lower GPA may be acceptable if other qualifying criteria support admission.” 3.0 Cumulative GPA (last 60 hrs)(b) (Bachelor degree and Teaching Certificate)(c) Yes B (Undergraduate degree) 3 letters (unspecified) TOEFL 2 letters (unspecified) 3 letters TOEFL or IELTS or completion of Level III English Language Foundation Program (ELEP) TOEFL or “Level 108 of Gonzaga University’s English as a Second Language program” with GPA of at least 3.0 and ESL faculty recommendation. 04. The People Nova 2 years (in K-12 setting) GRE or MAT 37 Résumé; Writing sample; GRE(d) Oregon See note (a) Phoenix 3 years minimum of full time work following high school graduation and “currently employed”. 2.5 pts (on a scale of 4) (Undergraduate degree) “Applicants … expelled from previous institutions must appeal for admissibility approval ...” YES (500-word on “Why I Want to Pursue a Career in Administration”) GPA not specified (based on last 90 quarter or 60 semester hours). (“Course background appropriate to level of specialization”) 3 letters “which speak of your potential as administrator” TOEFL or TOEIC or IELTS Western Washington 1 year (instructional experience) preferred: 3 years Miller Analogies Test (MAT) or GRE; Résumé ; Interview Notes: (a) Applicants in the Coquitlam-based cohort are practising teachers with varying years of seniority. (b) “If the applicant does not meet the minimum score requirement for regular admission into Educational Leadership, the applicant may apply for admission under the 10% waiver policy”. (c) “If entering with a temporary or district issued certificate the applicant must submit passing General Knowledge Test (GKT) subset scores or CLAST subset scores”. (d) The GRE is recommended, not required. Fostering Educational Leaders ity. One coordinator, for example, referred to diversity in his program as follows: “the multiculturals like the Chinese and the Turks and everybody else, they just, they keep coming to us”. On the topic of per- Some coordinators perceived the development of educational leadership programs for First Nations schools as “a really interesting field of leadership” but remain non-specific about how issues of indigenous education Many ELA programs remain male dominated. Women and other equity groups are underrepresented in most faculties. sistence of aboriginal students, he goes on to note: “Aboriginals? We’ve had some in our program. It’s a minority. We’ve only graduated one. They do all the coursework, [but] when they hit that research study, even though we can be at their side and provide the same help, they seem to fade away then.…They keep talking to us, but the aboriginals seem to fade away there.” The implication of these remarks, and his further comments, are that aboriginal students are incapable of working without direct supervision. He continues: “we’ve got two at the moment. Promising. A young woman and a young man in my class. Very promising. But the others have [also] been promising but for some reason they’re just not there at the end” (P4). Overall, coordinators did not reflect on possible structural reasons that might account for the lack of representation and persistence of aboriginal students in their programs. In contrast, one professor of education interviewed pointed to the complexity of circumstances that prevent aboriginal students from succeeding in doctoral programs in the field of leadership. He described the typical aboriginal doctoral student as an older woman, of lower socio-economic status, with dependents--either children or relatives that they need to look after. These women make “tremendous sacrifices to come to university…. So there is a need for particular types of support to be put around these students” (P7). and rights should impact educational leadership and administration. They note that “questions of choice and difference and multiculturalism and First Nations… which previously were kept out of the school--school had a very limited mandate—are now coming into school life. So that school leadership has to deal with all of these issues, [while] at the same time, carrying out the traditional mandate of being an education leader”. Schools now have to deal with a broad range of social demands that previously were kept outside the boundaries. As a result “school leaders have to now not just be able to lead, but be able to be articulate about what they lead… the whole development of what you call rights, the rights issues are [sic] now huge” (P3). Finally, our analysis indicates four general trends in terms of aboriginal leadership and ELA programs: First, little is happening in a formal programmatic sense with respect to the development of First Nations students as a specific target group. As a result, this particular area of need is being neglected. Second, few if any First Nations or Métis faculty are specifically trained in educational leadership, or are teaching in any of BC’s ELA programs. Third, little indigenous content is systematically taught within general leadership curricula, yet ELA graduates often find themselves teaching aboriginal students Fourth, relatively few 38 3 This estimate is a rough calculation of students enrolled in 10 of the 12 magistral programs for which we have data. We do not have information for the University of Calgary or Nova. 4 We do not have precise statistics that separate out B.C. students from international students with regard to Canadian programs. Neither do we have precise statistics that separate out B.C. students in the case of non-B.C. based programs. Fostering Educational Leaders aboriginal students take up educational leadership studies in the province (see Appendix 1 for additional analysis) ENROLMENTS Reliable statistics on the total number of students currently enrolled in ELA programs are not readily available. From our data we can roughly estimate that there are between 1,200 and 1,3003 B.C. based students attending the various programs listed in the tables, excluding those attending the Universities of Calgary and Nova for which data are currently unavailable. 4 Approximately 80% of these students are enrolled in M.Ed programs, about 15% in MA programs, and only 5 to 6% in doctoral programs (Ed.D. and Ph.D, combined). There are large variations in the number of BC based students registered in the programs we surveyed, with the number per program ranging from 40 to over 250 students. Our estimates are based on the self-reporting of the universities. What is clear is that the expansion in the number of programs has been affected by the drive towards increasing academization and professionalization of leadership roles in schools. School districts and educational jurisdictions normally require a graduate degree for entry into school administrative positions. The centrality of academic degrees is also important for many teachers who do not plan to move into such positions but wish to upgrade their TQS status to Category VI to benefit from a salary increase. The trend towards graduate degrees in the field of ELA serves a multiplicity of purposes associated with personal career plans. Over the last decade this trend has significantly expanded the pool of applicants who might become administrators at different stages of their educational careers. This generalized expansion may have emphasized student- and teacherbased perspectives on leadership, rather than the former exclusive focus on school principalship. Some critics argue that, as a result, graduate ELA programs do not represent effective tools for the education and training of school administrators, particularly at a time when the issue of an imminent retirement bulge is casting its shadow on principal succession. While recognizing that ELA programs expand the pool of potentially qualified applicants the critics insist on the need for role-specific training programs that directly address the urgent issues at stake. The majority of students in programs we surveyed are in their late twenties and beyond and most are already employed in public, private and independent schools across the province (the average age of those enrolled in doctoral programs tends to be somewhat higher). While we lack precise statistics, our data suggest that a growing number of international students are enrolling in these program. The representation of diverse communities within the student bodies of ELA programs, is an area deserving of further research. Despite variations among provinces, increasing numbers of women have been enrolling in ELA programs since the mid-1980s (Young, 1994; Bell and Chase, 1993; Sherman, 2000; Reynolds, 2002). This trend coincides with a significant increase in the percentage of women holding leadership positions in schools, in BC and elsewhere. The number of women in leadership has risen from about one-quarter of the principals and vice-principals in public B.C. schools in the early 1990s to about onehalf in 2005. And yet, women still experience salary differentials when compared to men. BC Ministry of Education (2004) statistics indicate that women earn on average five and six percent less than male colleagues in the same positions, a trend that persists. Moreover, research undertaken in the US indicates that as alternative occupational opportunities are available outside of school, the top achieving high school graduates, and particularly women, are increasingly less likely to enter the teaching profession (Corcoran, Evans and Schwab, 2004). How these trends play out in Canada – and particularly in BC Fostering Educational Leaders 39 04. The People – remains a matter for urgent research. As the BC education system moves towards significant restructuring of the processes determining access to leadership positions within schools, it becomes imperative to investigate how government policies and labour opportunities affect the entry of men and women into ELA programs and their subsequent induction into school leadership positions. SECTION SUMMARY In the present chapter we analysed the faculty and student composition of ELA programs. The data at our disposal suggest that a total of about 70 tenure- track faculty are involved in the 12 programs surveyed. Of these about 30 work in BC- based universities. Programs rely extensively on contract sessional instructors and adjuncts, hired on an ad-hoc basis. The lack of tenure-track faculty, and heavy reliance on “soft” replacements, may pose substantial challenges in terms of meeting the needs of BC’s future educational leaders. Many ELA programs remain male dominated. Women and other equity groups are underrepresented in most faculties, although an increasing number of women are being enrolled. ELA programs target students who are mid-career professionals, with several years of experience and already occupying positions of leadership in education and related fields.. A review of admissions requirements shows that qualified BC residents can register in any of the available programs. More so than at any other time, BC educators have a choice of graduate programs; available in a variety of formats, and with a variety of aims. Programs vary significantly in terms of minimum admission requirements and assessment procedures. Differential admission requirements cluster in ways that overlap with differential levels of achievement by candidates. We roughly estimate that between 1,200 and 1,300 B.C. based students attend ten out of the twelve ELA programs surveyed (data unavailable on two programs.) While none of the programs surveyed has an explicit affirmative action policy in place, many are keen to “ensure diversity and representation of voices among students”. Canada-based programs are more likely to provide opportunities for aboriginal leadership education than US based programs. Notwithstanding, many coordinators struggled to articulate what it means to ensure a diverse student body in their programs. With regard to aboriginal education, our analysis indicates four general issues associated with ELA programs: (1) little concern about aboriginal leadership as a specific focus; (2) few aboriginal faculty trained in this academic specialty; (3) little indigenous content is systematically taught within general leadership curricula; (4) relatively few aboriginal students take up educational leadership studies in the province. 40 Fostering Educational Leaders 5: Learning and Delivery ELA students can choose from a wide variety of programs and delivery methods, including cohort, online and conventional, university-based models. Some programs offer students the opportunity to engage with all three models of delivery. Other programs offer a choice among different models. HOW DO STUDENTS LEARN? Sharp differences characterize the formats of graduate programs offered across BC. While teachers attending graduate programs within the metropolitan areas of Victoria and the Lower Mainland have a wide choice of ELA programs, their colleagues residing outside major metropolitan areas have fewer options. The latter rely mainly on online delivery formats and cohort-based models with limited face-to-face interactions. These differences in program formats should not be taken to imply a difference in the quality of education. For teachers residing in rural and remote parts of the province, distance education is the major vector of delivery given the geographic factors that determine availability and accessibility to programs. To ensure equal access to a range of ELA graduate programs, however, we suggest that more research should be undertaken into the range of options open to teachers across the province. Modes of Delivery To address the growing demand for leadership programs, traditional methods of on-campus instruction are being complemented by flexible or distance modes of delivery. While use of alternative modes of delivery sometimes raises questions about the content of courses and their relevance to the British Columbia context, such formats also allow the expansion of leadership courses to include students from diverse occupational backgrounds. As one interviewee pointed out, programs include “student nurses, people in social work, people from the private sector, the universities, colleges, and quite a number of foreign students” (P6). This variety of occupational and sectoral contexts carries a range of responses to leadership. One coordinator suggested that alternative modes of delivery are less disruptive to a student’s working life. His institution’s “competency based” ELA program was delivered through “a blended process of some intensive residencies followed by distance learning, which allows the person to operationalize our philosophy of learning leadership at work. So no one in our program is expected to give up their work to learn leadership. They are in fact encouraged to keep working and take our classroom into the workplace” (P6). The Cohort Over the last decade, a significant shift has occurred in ELA programs across BC, and elsewhere in North America in which the cohort model has emerged as a dominant form of program delivery. In the 41 05. Learning & Delivery Fostering Educational Leaders 42 cohort model, students progress through the program as a group, undertaking all the courses together. Among other things, this model means that students experience a different exposure to university life and a greater emphasis on packaged, coursebased and geographically mobile delivery formats. Cohorts are operated by both BC based and non-BC based universities. The shift towards cohort delivery has led to a comprehensive restructuring of academic calendars in many universities. In some cases courses are being offered in up to five terms throughout the year. Moreover, courses are formatted to accommodate the working schedule of teachers and administrators in ways that allow them to attend courses over weekends, or over a condensed period during the summer. The summer months, usually July and August, assumed central importance in many graduate programs. During these two months teachers use their holidays to attend classes, often at their own expense. As more emphasis is placed on the summer months more graduate programs structure their offerings accordingly, accommodating school-life cadence. their intra-district capabilities of leadership. So, we would like to be more present in these contexts, for example, by devising the [cohort] system in terms of outreach programs, and offering the program actually in the school districts. For us, the cohort is not only a marketing device but also a mechanism that we judiciously deploy in terms of our aim to generate positive dynamics of capability building within particular districts, which we think would benefit more from that strategy. (P1). Another coordinator described the cohorts as an opportunity for students to take time off from the pressures of their daily work and attend classes “before they go back to their jobs and get swamped” (P3). Some coordinators see cohorts as a means through which students “hang together as a group…better than those that just come for summers” (P4). A coordinator of an Ed.D. program in leadership perceived the cohorts as a powerful tool through The cohort assumes a variety of formats which dialogue among a diverse group of depending on the university in question. students could occur. Some cohorts are planned in partnership with local school districts or communities. We deliberately select people This is the case of cohorts operated by The for diversity. And that has its University of British Columbia across the particular opportunities and Lower Mainland, and by and Simon Fraser challenges because they do bring University, across the Lower Mainland and different kinds of languages, in the Interior and by Gonzaga University different assumptions, and across Western Canada. The University of different value structures to Oregon, in conjunction with Coquitlam the cohort. And some of these school district, has been operating a cohort cohorts have been better able for about 15 years. Different universities to deal with that diversity than have experimented with various cohort others. And we’ve become, well, models. One coordinator explained how we’re learning about how to do the model is used in his program: that. How to create that kind of dialogue between people in a School districts in remote cohort across differences. But we areas, or school districts with deliberately select for difference declining enrolments and in the cohort structure (P2). budgetary restrictions, face challenges in terms of building Fostering Educational Leaders In some programs there has been a deliberate attempt to go beyond the cohort model and create dynamics that more closely resemble a learning community. One coordinator remarked that in contrast to a cohort model, a community approach allows people to move in and out “as they do in all communities… And so we don’t insist on a cohort going in lock-step… throughout a program. [Its] more [that] you start out in a community and your community may become fluid throughout the program (P6). Despite such variations, the cohort model emerges as a flexible means of adapting different programs to various local requirements. The cohort experience thus differs significantly from the more individualized on-campus programs of study. The trade-off is that cohorts must restrict course choices to those that can be delivered on-site. Online Learning Online learning through distance delivery is rapidly expanding to become a widely used option in the field of ELA programs. Increasingly, both BC- based and non-BC- component to be recognized for Category VI. We take note of increasing efforts to provide doctoral programs online. Calgary offers one example but there are many such as doctoral programs operated by certain Australian universities. The drive towards online education in ELA programs is fuelled by several factors, particularly the increasing globalization of the field and the push towards the academisation of leadership positions. Universities have promoted policies and funding for online initiatives in an attempt to increase student enrolments and create new outlets. That said, additional factors are at play. First, distance education programs within universities are often administered through specialized units that deal with external programs. Distance education has become an important enrolment and income generating mechanism in an increasingly competitive market. This trend represents a broader shift occurring in many areas of study, not just ELA programs, in which universities are increasingly involved in applied programs of study, particularly in areas that are perceived as professional. 43 05. Learning & Delivery Online learning through distance delivery is rapidly expanding to become a widely used option in the field of ELA programs. based universities are delivering modules fully or partly through distance modes such as web-based learning, WebCT interface, and other online learning programs. The trend is particularly noteworthy with regard to university programs operated outside the province. The University of Calgary, for example, offers distance delivery programs for M.A, M.Ed. and Ed.D. programs in the field of education leadership as well as conventional on-campus options. Online learning opportunities are available for almost all aspects of ELA programs. However, the TQS requires programs to have a face-to-face One of the major impacts of this trend is a transformation of studentfaculty relations. The student-instructor relationship has been largely transformed into a service provider-customer relationship in which issues of service adequacy and effectiveness often take precedence. In addition, we see a retreat from face-to-face interaction. While we do not consider these shifts as necessarily problematic, they do have implications for ELA programs. For example, many programs embrace development of “interpersonal skills” and organizational “capabilities” as core values. The question arises to what Fostering Educational Leaders extent online programs, with only limited face-to-face interaction, can contribute to securing these outcomes. As a result, some online programs have shifted their focus towards the “measurable” dimensions students can choose from among several research methods courses to satisfy that requirement. Elective courses are optional and are drawn from a larger pool that students can choose from to complete the Some online programs have shifted their focus towards the “measurable” dimensions of administration thereby limiting the definition and profile of leadership. of administration thereby limiting the definition and profile of leadership. Despite broad acceptance of online delivery, the preparation of online courses is seen as a major challenge in terms of workload. One coordinator described pioneering an online course as “sucking out all of my time and energy”. He mentions a daunting number of organizational challenges, options, and expectations “ the amount of things that have to go into it and if you start looking at camcorders, interactive telephones and so on. And the customers, if you like, are expecting all of this (P4). WHAT DO STUDENTS LEARN? A major challenge in our survey has been to explore how the various programs construe the field of ELA – however defined -- in terms of course offerings. Here, we are interested in clarifying how programs differ in the latitude they provide students in the choice of core, required, and elective courses. Core courses, which all students must take, represent foundational areas. Normally, these courses provide an introductory framework for the program and set the tone for the various theoretical and intellectual traditions that inform it. Examples would include a core course in the philosophy and theories of leadership or administration. In contrast, required courses, while mandatory, could be taken from among a pool of possible courses in the area. For instance, in some programs Fostering Educational Leaders credit-hour requirement for the degree. While elective courses are offered within the area of leadership and administration, some can also be taken in other areas of the students interest, outside the program or even outside the department. It is important therefore, to examine what patterns of choice are available to ELA students in their education. We found significant diversity in how core, required and elective courses are incorporated into a program. In some cases, such as at Royal Roads, Trinity Western, Nova, and Phoenix, programs are structured with a predetermined set of courses that students must complete. Generally this applied to M.Ed. programs which may be almost entirely course based. In contrast, programs offered at SFU, UBC, UNBC and UVIC leave greater latitude for students to construct their elective courses in more flexible ways. As universities shift towards the cohort model, differences emerge between on and off campus programs. Cohort-based programs are characterized by packaged courses and less choice for students. This uniformity might be because cohorts are often negotiated directly with the school district in which the cohort operates. While this strategy accommodates school district, questions often arise regarding the extent to which on-and off-campus programs offer commensurate opportunities to students. 44 Joint Programs and Concentrations In several universities specialized areas of educational leadership have been identified, resulting in the offering of programs that focus on selected aspects of schooling. For instance, UNBC offers a multidisciplinary program on Leadership with a “focus area” in Educational Leadership. In other universities such as UBC, UVIC and SFU joint programs between ELA and curriculum studies or special education are also offered, leading to specializations or concentrations. The shift towards joint programs or concentrations seems to mark a new direction in the development of ELA programs. Increasingly, the fields of leadership and administration are seen as sub-specializations within the bureaucratic framework of schooling. On the one hand, this repositioning may be indicative of the more rapid professionalization of many functions within schools. On the other hand, the trend may be an outcome of the interfaces between schools and other social institutions. The implication is that a distributed conception of leadership must be addressed, if we are to understand the multiplicity of roles that educators may play in shaping school life. Disciplinary Clusters and Credit Hours Requirements M.A. and M.Ed programs differ in total credit hours required for degree completion. Usually, M.A students will attend fewer courses, but undertake a research-based thesis. The total credit hours for degree completion varies between 18 and 54 credits, though the majority of ELA programs require between 30 to 36 credit hours. In our survey we identified eight substantive clusters of core and required courses. Programs offer a different number of courses across clusters, thus emphasizing certain areas while disregarding others. The clusters may be described as follows: Philosophy. Courses in this cluster discuss the intellectual and philosophical underpinnings of education. The aims of education and the meaning of leadership. Courses across institutions may differ with regard to the intellectual traditions they draw upon. Psychology. This cluster’s coursework examines the psychological and social-psychological dynamics associated with motivation. The mobilization of others into action. The psychological factors that affect interpersonal relations. Social Science. Courses include organizational theory, organizational and institutional research, conflict resolution, and community relations. Learning. Courses refer to learning theory, instruction, curriculum planning, program development and may also address issues of instructional leadership. Leadership. Courses on leadership vary extensively in terms of their components. While some programs offer courses exposing students to a variety of leadership models, other programs focus on one or two leadership models. Administration. Courses cover fields such as management, supervision, personnel, human resources, finance and law. This cluster may also include administrative internships of various kinds. Policy. Courses in this cluster focus on the development and implementation of public policy in the field of education and on the local and provincial processes involved in policymaking. Research. Research courses cover various aspects of the conceptual underpinnings associated with qualitative and quantitative methods of inquiry in the field of education. We also included in this cluster the credit hours allocated to a graduating paper or a research thesis. Our findings reveal that only two institutions cover the philosophy, psychology and policy clusters. The majority of programs offer courses that draw on the other clusters: social science, Fostering Educational Leaders 45 05. Learning & Delivery learning, leadership, administration and research. Notwithstanding similarities, differences can be observed between programs. Thus, Royal Roads University offers core and required courses in organizational theory, learning and leadership. These cover more than 50% of the 40 credit hours required for degree completion. In contrast, UBC requires 30 credit hours for degree completion, about 50% of which cover mainly organizational, philosophical and leadership clusters. The balance of courses are electives. Programs differ extensively in their emphasis on research; and how research is defined. For some programs established scientific inquiry is the gold standard, while others incorporate field-based research methods, action research and collaborative models. The relative emphasis on research also differs between magistral and doctoral programs, with the latter emphasizing policy and research courses as part of their offerings. Despite the shift in recent years towards classroom and standard-based assessment in BC, there is a relative scarcity in ELA programs of opportunities for future leaders to develop a critical understanding of their roles as instructional leaders. Instead, the persistence of a heavy emphasis on management acts as a barrier that deters the development of school leaders with the capacity to be meaningful agents of educational and social transformation. At a time when many educational policies target the learning and teaching environment, ELA graduate students remain underserved in terms of learning opportunities that could inform their professional practice. SECTION SUMMARY How do students learn? To address the growing demand for leadership programs, traditional methods of on-campus instruction are being complemented by flexible or distance modes of delivery. Over the last decade, the cohort model has emerged as a dominant form of program delivery. In some programs there has been a deliberate attempt to go beyond the cohort model and create dynamics that more closely resemble a learning community. In addition, online learning is rapidly expanding to become a widely used option in the field of ELA programs. The drive towards online education is fuelled by factors such as the increasing globalization of the field and the push towards the academisation of leadership positions. One of the major impacts of this trend is that the student-instructor relationship has been largely transformed into a service provider-customer relationship, in which issues of service adequacy and effectiveness often take precedence. What do students learn? We found significant diversity in how core, required and elective courses are incorporated into a program. In several universities specialized areas of educational leadership have been identified, resulting in the offering of programs that focus on selected aspects of schooling. The total credit hours for degree completion varies between 18 and 54 credits, though the majority of ELA programs require between 30 to 36 credit hours. The majority of programs offer courses that draw on social science, learning, leadership, administration and research rather than philosophy, psychology, or policy. Programs differ extensively in their emphasis on research; and how research is defined. Finally, ELA graduate students remain underserved in terms of learning opportunities that could inform their professional practice. 46 Fostering Educational Leaders PART III: LINKING ENDS AND MEANS 47 06. Discussion & Analysis At the root of much confusion is the tendency to conceive of leadership as a generic concept, absent concern for purpose Fostering Educational Leaders 6: Discussion and Analysis Our initial research question centred on how British Columbia’s universities understand their responsibility to foster educational leadership. As we quickly discovered, answers to such questions generally default to an ends-means framework. Thus, much of our research involved uncovering the implications of such a framework for how universities identified ends, determined means, and integrated ends and means. In Part III of this report we use our findings to address our research question, divided into three subquestions. First, we grapple with conceptions of educational leadership in a democratic context. Second, we examine various attempts to foster educational leadership. Third, we use our answer to previous subquestions to suggest ways that universities might attempt to contribute to fostering educational leadership. WHAT IS EDUCATION LEADERSHIP? a notoriously perplexing, yet tantalizing preoccupation for those who research and/or expound on it, and for those who, more pragmatically, with to embrace and master it, to effect change or effective organizational performance. 48 The previous sections show the lack of agreement among ELA programs about the concept of educational leadership. This dissensus comes as no surprise given the repeated observations made by many writers that educational leadership is an especially unclear concept. Even focusing on leadership per se generates no clar- At the root of much confusion is the tendency ity. Allix and Gronn (2005, p. 181), for example, to conceive of leadership as a generic concept, absent concern for purpose. Leadership state that, becomes an attribute in and of itself and little distinction is made between educational lead[a]lmost no area of inquiry or inership and, for example, military or business terest has shown itself to be more leadership. The lack of explicit concern for purelusive, or more controversial, and pose leads to conversations about educational also more confounding to human leadership that default to the type of ends that understanding, than the notion of might be defined by CEOs or generals (e.g., Covleadership. It has been, and remains, Fostering Educational Leaders ey’s “Begin with the end in mind”). In this way, the ends of education can reproduce business or military values, with little regard for the distinctive features that, especially in a democracy, incorporate concern for the tacit or indirect concerns for moral purpose. Renihan (1999b), for example, assumes that getting the job done is good (p. 21), as does the participant who contends that leadership is the answer to limited What we failed to uncover was any substantive justification for the ends being pursued. pursuit of multiple, often conflicting, yet equally worthy ends. Perhaps even more problematic is that education itself narrows to become an exclusively private concern, emphasizing economic outcomes while ignoring other aspects which are pivotal to the social development of children and youth. (We are reminded of the slogan on the wall of a high school classroom: “Learn more to earn more”). We are not arguing that education excludes job preparation, but that education includes more than job preparation; making a life involves more than making a living. budgets. Most informants are more direct in their linking of leadership to moral-political purpose, anchoring their program in religious traditions, in virtues such as equity, excellence and courage or in an explicitly democratic agenda. Indeed, the disagreement we uncovered about how to distinguish leadership from management seems to involve linking leadership to moral purpose (however tacit) and management to efficiency (another value, but not necessarily a moral one). 49 What we failed to uncover was any substantive justification for the ends being If educational leadership is grounded in pursued. In contrast, Burbules (2004) arsome defensible conception of educational gues that purpose, however, not only the kind of ends are affected; how those ends are selected a purpose of education is to and justified also becomes an educational learn to question what one’s problem. Earlier, we contended that the “education” has been…. [O]ne most important questions in education are: “aim” of education should be to what are valid, defensible educational ends develop an ongoing capacity to and who gets to determine them? During reflect upon and question the much of our report, we lamented the pausort of education one is receivcity of answers that directly addressed our ing, or that one is providing to question. Indirect answers, however, were others--an aim that involves abundant. All programs and participants alsubjecting our educational aims luded to educational ends, assuming that to relentless scepticism (p. 8). education has something to do with preparing people to live good and worthwhile In a democracy, substantive ends need to lives. While Kellerman (2004), is clear that be justified in public debate in which othgeneric discussions of leadership ignore ers can challenge premises and conclumoral considerations, all of our informants sions. Democratic education, or the forms directly or indirectly alluded to some kind of of life to be fostered in a democratic somoral framework. ciety, should therefore be the subject of ongoing public dialogue with people who Even those who seem to argue for a generic have equal status in the debate and can conception of leadership appear to include produce their own good reasons for supFostering Educational Leaders 06. Discussion & Analysis porting or rejecting various claims to educational aims or ends1. Such dialogue is rare in our institutions precisely because they are (and, to some extent, must be) inhospitable environments for fully democratic dialogue. Democracy depends on equal status, including equal ability to raise questions and pursue issues. In modern hierarchical systems, some people are quite simply more equal than others. They have the resources (and responsibility) to begin and sustain educational policy conversations, and they inevitably bring their status to those con- Of course, public debate outside institutionversations. Power imbues all relationships al constraints is no guarantee that better arand especially institutional relationships: guments will overcome power relationships. tempt to make decisions by argumentative discourse as much as is practical and that invoke claims of sovereignty as rarely possible. The principal aims are three: (a) to assert the merits of the better argument against power; (b) to assert the merits of equality and reciprocity against bureaucratic hierarchy; and (c) to assert the merits of autonomy and solidarity against domination and coercion (1993, p. 266). 50 While “doing the right thing” may be a common mantra in the leadership literature, the “right thing” in a democracy is subject to ongoing, exciting, frustrating, energizing, and often debilitating conflict Ministry officials, superintendents, principals, teachers, (and professors) all speak from particular locations. Indeed, people are often so defined by their positions that sometimes they can only speak from their institutional locations (that is, they speak as what rather than who they are)2. In British Columbia, a frequent question asked about any initiative before attempting a judgment is “Whose idea is this anyway?” A number of democratic theorists are wary about the possibility of authentic democratic dialogue within modern institutions, arguing instead that such conversations must begin outside institutional constraints (Habermas, 1992; Arendt, 2003). While ideal democratic dialogue may be impossible within institutions, some schools and some school districts do attempt to create the possibility for good reasons to trump rank and authority (Levin, 1998). Strike summarizes: The central requirement is that we develop institutions that at(All human communication involves power to some extent.) The democratic challenge is to attempt to be as aware as possible of power imbalances. Advocating democratic dialogue is, of course, no easy solution. The legitimacy of educational ends in Canada may depend on democratic dialogue, but democratic dialogue in a large, complex, multicultural society such as Canada seldom results in unambiguous ends. Indeed, harmony is suspect. Describing the democratic public sphere, Arendt writes: “the reality of the public realm relies on the simultaneous presence of innumerable perspectives and aspects in which the common world presents itself and for which no common measurement or denominator can ever be devised” (1958, p. 57). Clear educational ends would only be possible when all agree about what constitutes a worthwhile life. Not likely. Or desirable. Our argument thus seems paradoxical: the justification of educational ends in a democracy requires democratic dialogue, but such dialogue sel- 1 We should, of course, note that democracy is itself a contested concept, perhaps even more so than “education” or “leadership.” 2 See Wiens & Coulter, 2004. 3 The reverse is, of course, not true: schooling itself does not require the democratic justification of educational ends; indeed, such justification often hinders efficiency. Fostering Educational Leaders dom creates clear ends to guide administrative action. Nonetheless some decisions about ends must be made for schooling to be possible.3 Yet there is some escape from the circle. Following Cuban and Strike, while some ends must be tentatively declared for schooling to be possible, those ends should both reflect contemporary democratic dialogue and be contingent, since democratic ends must be continually “refracted and reshaped as definitions, meanings and purposes change” (Elshtain, 1993, p. 82). Educational leadership in such contexts is very different from the forms of leadership advocated by Arthur Levine (or Stephen Covey). Democratic educational leadership would involve beginning, sustaining and sometimes temporarily closing such conversations, only to reopen or help reopen them later. While “doing the right thing” may be a common mantra in the leadership literature, the “right thing” in a democracy is subject to ongoing, exciting, frustrating, energizing, and often debilitating conflict. Part of the tension is captured in Cuban’s (1988) distinction between administration and leadership: the first as often concerned with solving problems; the second with creating problems. Not an easy act to get right. And certainly not an easy target for those charged with fostering educational leaders. HOW MIGHT EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP BE FOSTERED? Getting things right is even more complicated when context is taken into account, that is, when right ends must be matched with the right means in the right situation involving the right people. The vignette depicting the beginning of a principal’s day in the opening of our report, for example, gives some idea of the varying purposes that educational leaders need to take into account when acting. No mantra of “improving student achievement” can capture the epistemological and ethical complexity of a role that affects the lives of so many people in important ways. Addressing even the first of many dilemmas involves, at a minimum, knowledge of the people involved gained over time, consideration of the different relationships the principal has with students and teachers in general and in particular, the availability and suitability of others to help, and the immediate and long term claims on the principal’s attention. Making these kinds of decisions is not simply a matter of applying a general rule to a particular instance, that is, beginning with ends (however clear or unclear) to determine the requisite means. Moreover, the ends are partially con- stituted by the particular circumstances, the available means and ethical environment: the principal has to discover the ends by acting, by engaging with others and learning with those others what is the best thing to do. Indeed, in Kantian terms, the others must be treated as ends themselves and not means to the principal’s ends. The enmeshing of ends and means in context is generally poorly captured by the ELA literature. In Part II we showed some of the problems in the selection of educational ends. Here, in Part III, we attempt to show the implications when for the preparation of educational leaders are selected without due consideration for context and relationship. The ELA literature and the participants we interviewed both focus on the importance of acquiring and applying generalizable knowledge to action. In other words, fostering educational leadership becomes primarily an epistemological matter, although programs differ both in the specific knowledge and the kinds of knowledge at stake. This strategy is so entrenched that it is being codified into certification and standards programs without regard for concerns about conceptual clarity or empirical warrant. Educational Leadership as knowledge application In prescribing its curriculum, each of the ELA programs surveyed reveals assumptions about how to foster educational leadership. Some programs prescribe a list of courses to be taken by all students in sequence. Others offer both core and elective courses, and students can enter, select courses, and complete programs individually. Some programs include only one research course, others provide several. Most programs rely heavily on social science disciplines with specializations in areas such as organizational theory, policy and administration, but two institutions include courses drawing on philosophy. What all the programs seem to have in common is the supposition that epistemology and action are tightly linked, that is, the way to affect practice is to help people acquire particular forms of knowledge. But the type of knowledge varied. Some programs seem to emphasize the formal propositional knowledge of academic disciplines (“knowing that”), while others focus largely on practical or skills knowledge (“knowing how”) for “managing the complex learning organizations of the 21st century.” Excessive emphasis on propositional knowledge leads to the idea that there is one ‘best’ form of practice. Several writers draw attention to the tensions and contradicFostering Educational Leaders 51 06. Discussion & Analysis tions that underpin this idea. Glatter and Kydd (2003, p. 240), for example, observe that the concept is “often employed far too casually with the potential to mislead.” Others indicate that the concept of best practices contradicts established notions of continual education and learning; it freezes performance around behaviours research strategy). As a consequence, we are not able to say with any certainty how or if propositional, practical and experiential knowledge are integrated. With some evidentiary support from our research, however, we are able to claim that most, if not all, ELA programs focus on the Certification can lead to establishing a one-sizefits-all understanding of what educational leadership stands for, anathema for a democratic society regardless of context and meaning. Overemphasis on the ‘know how’, second form of knowledge, leads to the idea that there are skills sets or ‘toolkits’ that can be applied to any situation to “solve” educational “problems.” In contrast, we contend that becoming a leader involves developing one’s own understanding of what education stands for in a particular place at a particular time with particular people. Notable by their absence in the programs, however, were other forms of knowledge and other considerations that influence practice. Knowledge of the particular, or experience is one form of knowledge valued by practitioners and tacitly endorsed by all the programs. People can, and often do (but not always) learn from experience. Indeed, experience is one of the currencies of teaching and administrative practice: practitioners acquire status, credibility and pay with experience. More experienced practitioners are often presumed to be better practitioners. All ELA programs include some requirement for teaching experience in their application requirements and some attempt to provide structured experience or practica in their programs. We were not able, however, to determine how experience or knowledge of particular contexts was integrated in various programs (again, possibly an artifact of our Fostering Educational Leaders 52 epistemological aspects of practice. Little attention is given to other concerns such as the intellectual and moral dispositions required of educational leaders or how such dispositions might be fostered. While some programs include courses or units on ethical conduct, only three programs devoted courses to education as an inherently moral-political enterprise (and we are uncertain how these courses include concern for particular context). Certifying good practice Given the substantial disagreements about the conceptualizations of leadership and educational leadership, we are concerned about current efforts to standardize the preparation of educational leaders with a view to eventual certification. The problems we have noted with specifying educational ends seem to militate against the detailing means such as standards and certification: instrumental thinking works best when clear ends indicate the appropriate means. Somehow this conceptual impediment has failed to discourage policy makers in the U.S., England, Canada and Australia who seek to formalize the professional preparation of educational leaders. It seems as if proponents are arguing: “Unlike scholars who disagree about what educational leadership is and how to foster it, we are certain what it is and are prepared to certify it.” While any substantial review of the standards and certification movement is beyond the scope of our research, we do wish to point to the connection between this movement and our concern for fostering educational leadership. Consistent with the framework we have been using, we see three areas of concern: (1) identifying ends; (2) selecting means, and (3) linking ends with means. Given our previous focus on educational ends, here we briefly unpack our concerns with (2) and (3). In Part I, we argued that educational “activities do not simply aim at goals, they partly constitute and reconstitute them” (Burbules, 2004, p. 7). In other words, the means employed limit the ends that are possible. The adoption of standards automatically limits the ends they may promote. Gale (2005) captures this problem well: [The] adoption of a standardsguided professional learning approach has the potential to limit professional learning by restricting it to those aspects of leadership explicated in the standards. Avoiding this risk requires the implementation of standards which are sufficiently broad and flexible to incorporate a wide variety of school leadership…local diversity, the breadth of school leadership nationwide, the changing content of that leadership over time, and the distributed nature of much contemporary school leadership. Certification can lead to establishing a onesize-fits-all understanding of what educational leadership stands for, anathema for a democratic society that aims to promote a range of educational values and practices. Standardization can disregard the variety of ways through which leadership is exercised in various educational contexts. Indeed, certification limits educational leaders in the exercise of professional judgment precisely because it narrows the scope of the discourse around effectiveness as represent- ing a particular set of skills. This narrowing gives the state the right to impose what Michael Apple (1996) has called the “selective tradition”, that is: “excluding multiple and equally legitimate points of view about effectiveness and educational leadership while imposing “someone’s selection, some group’s vision of legitimate knowledge.” To this, Michael Marker (in press) adds that preventing the creation of “a critical comparative vocabulary about culture” obscures the diversity of the meanings that education can take. As Chapman (2005, p. 11) observed, “the most controversial area associated with principal recruitment, retention, and development is that concerned with the setting of standards for educational leadership, the selection of candidates for leadership programs and the licensure/certification of leaders”. Equally ironic, however, is that the standardization-certification movement is gathering momentum in the absence of evidence that it is making a difference. Levăić points out that given “the vast literature on educational leadership and management and the presumption of government policy makers – that the quality of educational leadership effects student outcomes, the actual evidence for a causal relationship is relatively sparse” (2005, p. 199). Moreover, many of these policy initiatives are only recent. The ISLLC standards, which date back to the mid -1990s, or newer initiatives, such as the launching of the National College of School Leadership (NCSL) in England in 2000 are cases in point. With regard to the latter, Crow (2004) observed that the NCSL is “a grand experiment in leadership and leadership development” (p. 305), and as such, “it is too soon to assess whether its goals have been met” (p. 296). Further, contrary to expectations, certification may not even generate a pool of qualified and competent leaders. Chapman (2005) summarizes the point stating that, “processes of certification and licensure of school leaders, especially those that are Fostering Educational Leaders 53 06. Discussion & Analysis deemed to be cumbersome, expensive and time consuming, have been found to be problematic”. She further adds, “some approaches to principal selection have been found to discourage people who might otherwise apply” (p. 5). A decade earlier, Evans & Golanda (1994) pointed out that educators who are certified for administration but lack access to such positions “perceived that their administrative skills are wasted on classroom confinement” thus causing job dissatisfaction. Herrington and Wills (2005) go further calling for the “decertifying of the principalship” in favour of adopting “alternative” licensure programs. They further call for more research regarding the effects of certification on the principalship. Bottoms and colleagues (2003) have stated that “certification, as it exists today, is not proof of quality” and that “states and school system have no assurance that those with principal credentials are prepared to develop and lead high-achieving schools” (p. 2). 54 cational leaders into the profession. Nor would the implementation of such reforms necessarily address the concerns associated with principal succession or secure a well articulated and empirically grounded plan for professional development. Rather, the indiscriminate imposition of such measures could perpetuate the current contradictions that underpin ELA programs, this time under the guise of a bureaucratically maintained coherence. Such a policy would regulate educational leadership without facilitating a genuine debate regarding what education stands for and what the role of educational leaders is in this regard. Such policy measures may well catapult the school system into a narrow conception of leadership as the production of standardized performances. This narrowing would also impose on schools and school districts a corporate and business-like approach that would negate the democratic, multifaceted and necessarily competing foundations of public education. Under such circumstances, the regulation of educational leadership would operate as an additional layer of bureaucracy in a complex, multifaceted and elaborate system of surveillance, control and monitoring (Anderson, 2001). A move towards greater regulation of educational leadership positions in schools, therefore, raises important concerns. There is a need for sound research and greater participation of all involved if the issues at stake are to be clarified before a regulatory regime that would close the door on dialogue is instituted. WHAT CAN UNIVERSITIES CONTRIBUTE? Given what seems like a lack of dialogue among ELA programs in British Columbia, we seem to have little ground for optimism, or even hope. Yet we do have hope. In our practices and in our research, we encounter many thoughtful people who care deeply about the future of our schools and the leadership needed to help make them more genuinely educational. They Research undertaken on the supply of school leaders in New York State yielded important insights regarding the complexity of certification. Certification may not necessarily attract the best candidates (Lankford and Wychoff, 2003) or provide equally experienced principals to schools across the socio-economic divides (Papa, Lankford and Wychoff, 2002; see also Baker and Cooper, 2005). These studies suggest that empirical research is still badly needed if educators, administrators and policy makers are to understand the consequences of certification on the future of educational leadership. The above studies suggest that, under certain conditions, certification may actually exacerbate, institutionalize and reproduce class, ethnic and gender inequalities in professional opportunities and undermine the prospects of educational transformation. Without due consideration of the contexts involved in BC, imposition of standards, possibly linked to certification, would not necessarily induct more promising eduFostering Educational Leaders are passionate about developing their own understandings of education and educational leadership, yet are also humble about the status of those understandings. They appreciate that fostering genuinely educational leaders involves the partnership of practitioners with researchers, each contributing substantive knowledge and talent to the conversation. Here we try to connect some of what we learned from various participants to the work of other people who are also grappling with how universities can and do contribute to fostering educational leadership. We believe that they have helped us re-conceive how universities can contribute to understanding the ends of educational leadership, the means that might be used to foster those ends, and how ends and means might be connected. stand education and educational leadership. The dependence of ELA research on relatively narrow, social science frameworks is currently being challenged by those who seek to add new disciplines, with critical new perspectives. These new lenses, we believe, allow us to understand our taken-for-granted realities in new and powerful ways (Greene, 1994). We are especially encouraged, for example, by the expansion of educational scholarship to include concerns for democratic action and practical judgement. In summary, we are advocating that people who seek to understand educational ends need to employ a variety of intellectual traditions to understand education and educational leadership. Changing the means conversation While we need to complicate and destabilize the conversation on the ends of education, Changing the ends conversation we also need to challenge existing ways of framings of means; that is, the way in which We are not alone in challenging the domi- we might foster genuinely educational leadnant ends-means understanding of edu- ers. The relationship between knowledge and cational leadership. Biesta and Mirón, for action is complex and poorly understood, example, explain that: and, to be frank, we still have many more New discourses on educational questions than answers about a debate that leadership are…a result of the has continued for 2400 years. Benhabib, for profound doubt about the adexample, in writing about the puzzle of how equacy and feasibility of the some people are practically wise and others philosophical framework in not, writes: “Cognition and action…are diswhich educational leadership tinct; not only must one know what to do, has commonly been conceived. under what circumstances, in what fashion, The central ‘target’ of this criand the like, but one must have the proper tique is the modern conception motivation to translate them into action.” of rationality as instrumental or means-ends rationality…. The Some people do not know what to do; othfirst task of educational leaders know what to do, but do not or cannot ers--at least those who believe act; some both understand and act wisely. that there is more to their job While we have little understanding of how we than administration and conmight foster more of the third group, some trol--is to make sense of the scholars are researching the area (including a situation, to try to understand few who are interested in educational leaderit, and then to find new direcship). From their work we can develop a short tions, new frameworks, new list of some ways to help people develop the sources of inspiration and mopractical wisdom of expert practitioners. These tivation (2002, p. 102, 104). approaches include helping people acquire a range of appropriate propositional, practical We take seriously the call for new intel- and experiential knowledge relevant to their lectual resources with which to under- field of practice; the requisite intellectual and Fostering Educational Leaders 55 06. Discussion & Analysis moral virtues, whatever they might be, such as openness to others, humility and courage; and the necessary capacity to reason and imagine in context.4 search and service are broadened and more flexibly defined” (1990, p. 16) to include various forms of scholarship such as the scholarships of discovery, integration, application and teaching. In particular we would like to Fostering genuinely educational leaders involves the partnership of practitioners with researchers, each contributing substantive knowledge and talent to the conversation Connecting conversations: people and see more support for the “clinical” role of publics scholar-practitioner; that is, someone who conducts research as well as practice. Initiating, sustaining and engaging in dialogue about educational leadership in Finding people who are at home in both the ways we advocate would, not surpris- universities and schools is no easy task. The ingly, require people with some of the very norms of the two communities vary greatly knowledges, virtues and abilities we seek to and are often antithetical; to succeed in one foster. Finding such people is itself a chal- arena often requires different knowledge, lenge, especially under current conditions. dispositions and talents than those needed A major concern we identified in our survey to thrive in the other. Scholar-practitioners of ELA programs was finding scholars who can play an important role in fostering diaare able to integrate academic rigour and logue that bridges ends and means in the sound professional experience. The discon- ways we advocate, attracting both scholnect between the scholarship of practice ars and practitioners to the conversation. and the practice of scholarship has con- We found little evidence that current ELA tributed to an institutionalized caste-like programs debate the distinctive aspects of system in which tenure-track faculty and educational leadership in a democratic sosessional faculty have specialized roles with ciety. We attribute part of this lacuna to the differential expertise, status and power. disconnect between the worlds of the university and the school; we need more people This situation leads us to reflect on ways who are at home in both worlds. universities may expand their view of scholarship. Current university policies and We need more than people who can begin practices generally narrow the concept of and sustain conversations about educationscholarship. The academic system vali- al ends and means, however. We also need a dates research, usually empirical, published network in which people can actually engage in peer-reviewed journals, peers being de- with one another as equals. This would be a fined as other researchers. Professors are web of relations where good reasons trump rewarded by writing for other researchers, rank and authority, where people appear as not for connecting with other communi- who and not what they are, where they deties, other practices. We agree with Boyer’s bate how they want to live with one another call for “a more comprehensive, more dy- and foster the next generation of people namic understanding of scholarship…in who will join them in a democratic society. which the rigid categories of teaching, re- No such network exists in British Columbia. 56 4 For example, in general scholarship: Arendt 2003, Gadamer 1996, Habermas 1993, Nussbaum 2003; in educational scholarship, Fenstermacher 2002, Dunne 1993, Coulter and Wiens 2002, Halverson 2004. Fostering Educational Leaders Instead we have managed spaces where people appear as what and not who they are: they represent institutions, reflecting institutionalized viewpoints and power relationships. This is not surprising given the ideal character of how we frame our forum. On the other hand, we find the lack of discussion about how to create and maintain such a space deeply disturbing. It confirms much of the historical research about the “darkening” of the public sphere and the “commodification” of public opinion as something that can be counted, managed and manipulated (Habermas, 1989, Calhoun 1992). Following Habermas, we argue instead for understanding the public sphere not as a place or an event, but as “a network for communicating information and points of view,”(Habermas, 1996, p 360) where, as much as possible, people can exchange perspectives without regard for rank or privilege, where the “unforced force of the better argument” might be exercised. Such networks can be face-toface encounters, but they may also be developed in the print and electronic media. Networks should enable everyone concerned with education in Canada—in other words, everyone in Canada--to become involved in the debate. At stake is no less than the fundamental democratic character of our society and the kind of education we hope to provide in our schools. The drive for efficiency and accountability often overrides the messiness of democratic conflict in which people with fundamentally opposed worldviews grapple with how they will live together. In considering how to foster education and educational leadership in a democratic society, we follow Maxine Greene’s (1994, p. 12) call for an affirmation of a social world accepting of tension and conflict. What matters is an affirmation of energy and the passion of reflection in a renewed hope of common action, of faceto-face encounters among friends and strangers, striving for meaning, striving to understand. What matters is a quest for new ways of living together, of generating more and more incisive and inclusive dialogues. SECTION SUMMARY In this section of our report, we used our findings to address three subquestions. First, we grappled with conceptions of educational leadership in a democratic context. Second, we examined various attempts to foster educational leadership. Third, we used our answers to suggest ways that universities might contribute to fostering educational leadership. What is educational leadership? Leadership is approached as an attribute in and of itself. Little distinction is made between educational and other forms of leadership. Lack of explicit concern for the purpose of educational leadership leads, by default, to the type of ends that might be defined by military or corporate leaders, with little regard for the distinctive democratic features that incorporate pursuit of multiple, often conflicting, yet equally worthy ends. Education itself narrows to become exclusively a private concern, emphasizing economic outcomes while ignoring other aspects which are pivotal to the social development of children and youth. How might educational leadership be fostered? Generally, an excessive emphasis on propositional knowledge leads to the idea that there is one ‘best’ form of practice. Moreover, in most, if not all, ELA programs, little attention is given to other concerns such as the intellectual and moral dispositions required of educational leaders or how such dispositions might be fostered. Given the substantial disagreements about the conceptualizations of leadership and educational leadership, we are concerned about current efforts to standardize the preparation of educational leaders with a view to eventual certification. What can universities contribute to educational leadership? We call on ELA programs (1) to draw on new intellectual resources associated with critical perspectives on education with which to understand education and educational leadership; (2) to expand their view of scholarship to include various forms of scholarship such as the scholarships of discovery, integration, application and teaching; (3) to develop a place were people from various ELA programs can debate how they want to live with one another and foster the next generation of people who will join them in a democratic society. 57 06. Discussion & Analysis Fostering Educational Leaders FINDINGS 7: SUMMARY OF FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 2. The Association of British Columbia Deans of Education create a secretariat to facilitate the ELNet. Such a secretariat would be housed at a BC university on a rotating basis. The secretariat’s mandate would include responsibility for opening new and promising conversations about educational leadership in a democracy The addition of new and previously marginalized voices to the conversation about education and educational leadership would be a particular focus. 3. ELA programs in BC recruit new tenure track faculty to ELA programs, particularly people who can add new perspectives to the discussion about what counts as education and educational leadership. To help connect ELA programs to the communities they serve, we recommend that more scholar-practitioners be recruited and supported. 4. ELA programs in BC recruit students from all sectors of the B.C. community, especially those who can add new perspectives from diverse communities across the province. ELA programs need to find ways to engage and serve students in all parts of the province. 5. ELA programs in BC develop instructional strategies and groupings that encourage profound, ongoing exchange of perspectives about education and educational leadership among diverse students, faculty and communities. 6. ELA programs in BC develop curricula that reflect scholarship from a range of perspectives and disciplines, and grapple with central questions such as what counts as education and educational leadership in a pluralist, democratic society. ELA programs need to be mindful of their own substantive expertise and connect with individuals, groups, and organizations that have complementary capabilities. In summary, our research into ELA programs offered by universities in British Columbia demonstrates that there are many committed faculty and sessionals who are offering diverse programs to BC educators. Our research also demonstrates a need for a dialogue that focuses on how these programs might better foster leadership for a pluralist, democratic society. We are concerned that the public purpose of education and educational leadership in a pluralist, democratic society is being lost in efforts to attract and train administrators for the current schooling system. ELA programs grapple with many conflicting imperatives. On one hand, they are charged with preparing people to work within hierarchical administrative systems. To this end they forge consensus, accept power and responsibility, and marshal a range of resources to accomplish organizational ends. On the other hand, ELA programs play a role in sustaining important public conversations about how to help Canada’s youth develop the knowledge, skills, dispositions and attitudes they need to find their way in the world and contribute to society. Such conversations need to include those marginalized by existing arrangements (including the students themselves) and are likely to result in democratic dissensus. We accept that ELA programs must respect both administrative and democratic responsibilities. Our research, however, indicates that the majority of ELA programs in B.C. emphasize the former at the expense of the latter. Accordingly, our recommendations focus on reconnecting leadership to educational purpose in a democratic society. We contend that ELA programs must themselves exemplify the public democratic character of educational leadership. NEXT STEPS Given our findings that ELA programs are isolated from one another (and often from other communities), we strongly recommend that all programs make efforts to connect with one another and the communities they serve. Accordingly, we recommend the following steps: 1. The Association of British Columbia Deans of Education establish an ongoing educational leadership network (“ELNet”) linking educational leadership programs in B.C. 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Bimaaddziwin (The Goodlife,) Unpublished doctoral thesis, The University of British Columbia. Vancouver. 62 Wiens & Coulter (2004). What is an educated Canadian? Education Canada, 45 (1), 21-23. Young, B. (1994). Another perspective on the knowledge base in Canadian Educational Administration Canadian Journal of Education, 19(4):351-367 Young, M.D., Crow, G., Orr, T., Ogawa, R. & Creighton, T. (2005, Spring). An educative look at ‘Educating School Leaders,’ UCEA Review, 1-4. Fostering Educational Leaders APPENDIX 1 Aboriginal Education and Educational Leadership In general, the existing ‘silence’ and indeed, absence of any significant focus on aboriginal aspirations both within and as specific outcomes of educational leadership programs in British Columbia needs to be critically interrogated. In the broader consideration of aboriginal leadership generally, (and which moves beyond a specific focus on ‘educational leadership’), there are a number of concerns that have been raised within various contexts and forums both within British Columbia as well as across Canada more widely. For example the proposed Bill C-71, sponsored by the federal government in 2002 has been a particular source of anxiety and frustration for some aboriginal communities given the intentions of the Bill’s sponsors to legislate changes to aboriginal governance and leadership structures within band and First Nations jurisdictions. Critical issues concerning aboriginal leadership coalesce within two generalized frames of reference. The first cluster of concerns group around issues of identity and status – or more precisely, centre on questions of ‘legitimacy’, ‘authority’ and ‘mandate’ to ‘lead’ and to ‘represent’. The predominant issue here might be summarized in the questions ‘What counts as the basis of individual leadership authority?’ ‘Who does the leader represent? Typically these issues might be raised through a critical examination as to the extent to which individual leaders are able to position themselves with integrity and authority across the different (and often contradictory and competing) sites of indigenous interest. For example there are questions with respect to an individual leader’s ability to mediate authority and influence across the multiple contexts and relationships that emanate from a complexity of identity formations. This complexity is exemplified in such dichotomies as ‘reserve’ versus ‘non-reserve’ status; ‘urban’ versus ‘reserve/ Nation/ tribal’ location; ‘pan’ versus ‘tribal / Nation/ reserve’ political identities; ‘status Indian’ (card carrying) versus ‘nonstatus Indian’; Métis versus First Nations’ interests and so on. A second cluster of critical issues related to aboriginal leadership form around questions related to specific skills, abilities and values that both aboriginal and non-aboriginal critics assume are important leadership attributes. For example, there has been some concerns expressed about the need for a more ‘democratic’ participation of aboriginal community members in band politics and the need to move beyond the narrow, ‘family oriented’ level of leadership politics that have ‘captured’ power in a few situations (such questions being raised both by some groups within First Nations communities themselves and also by external non-aboriginal groups, such as government officials promoting Bill C-7. A particular contradiction here of course, is the fact that aboriginals in Canada have only relatively recently been able to fully participate in public democratic institutions, such as the electoral system). Many of these aforementioned concerns provide an insight into the contextual elements and some of the larger parameters in which discussions about aboriginal educational leadership are being discussed and analyzed. However, for the specific purposes of this study, there is a need to understand the implications for aboriginals in British Columbia of the linkage of the word ‘education’ to ‘leadership’. The dialectal and reciprocal relationship that is implied when linking these two elements invokes a special consideration that is an innovative and potentially transformative pathway to enable aboriginal social, economic and political advancement. In this sense, we would anticipate at least three implications that would derive from a specific enhancement of aboriginal educational leadership. First, a re-development of the potential of education and schooling to ensure increased 63 09. Appendix 1 Bill C-7, The First Nations Governance Act; first introduced into Federal Parliament, 9th October 2002. This Bill has not been reintroduced into the House for its third reading. Fostering Educational Leaders aboriginal learning success in both aboriginal and world knowledge(s); second the development of increased capacity and capability of aboriginal leadership within education and schooling; third, increased development of all forms of aboriginal leadership through education and schooling. The information collected across the various data streams in this study shows clearly that the overwhelming majority of educational leadership programs within British Columbia are significantly underdeveloped in respect of aboriginal needs and aspirations. This situation of persisting educational and schooling underdevelopment and the seeming neglect of these issues by the existing educational leadership programs in British Columbia is somewhat surprising given that there are also very good educational reasons why it might have been an area specifically targeted for development. There are some important reasons why such an emphasis might be important for example the most significant area of crisis in Canadian schooling and education at present is that which relates to aboriginal educational underdevelopment. A further reason why educational leadership programs should be responsive in this area is that most educational leadership programs are taught in ‘public’ institutions, which raises critical questions about what counts as the ‘public’ and what counts as ‘public expenditure’ on 2 the part of University institutions. Lastly, given that other countries with similar issues in respect of indigenous educational crises (most notably the New Zealand Maori example) it does seem unusual that there have been few moves to examine other international indigenous responses and to incorporate ‘good’ ideas as appropriate. With respect to the New Zealand Maori example, Smith (2005)2 has argued that in order for aboriginal communities to redevelop their community and educational contexts to a level that would enable more meaningful access, participation and successful engagement in the knowledge economy, then there would need to be a prior or simultaneous educational and learning revolution that would provide the basis for this. Furthermore, he describes the steps taken in New Zealand to enhance Maori graduate development across all disciplinary fields and the expectation of all doctoral students being prepared for educational leadership. It is also noteworthy that the Maori response has aimed to develop multiple strategies and methodologies and not invest solely in singular, instrumental intervention models or templates – arguing that the ‘one size fits all’ intervention policy approach has not worked very successfully in New Zealand – and that such an approach has failed to produce the desired transformative outcomes. The corollary of the New Zealand example is that aboriginal education leadership (and arguably all leadership programs) need to move beyond ‘template’ models of leadership in order to create graduates who ‘can read the word and the world’.3 That is, aboriginal educational leaders need to be able to think for themselves and to make decisions; they need to be flexible, innovative, responsive, critical thinking, socially conscious and transformative. In this sense there is no set formulaic model of aboriginal educational leadership. That is there is no single definitive list of traits or attributes or even best practice and the graduates of an aboriginal educational leadership program ought to be able to assess different contexts and have an array of skills and understandings (including their own cultural understandings and knowledge) to be able to respond appropriately and effectively to specific situations and contexts. At the moment the overwhelmingly majority of aboriginal communities in British Columbia are significantly underdeveloped to such an extent that they generally have limited capacity and capability to engage, let alone take any advantage of the opportunities that might be afforded within the potential of the knowledge economy or economic development generally. In this respect it is a relatively straightforward deduction to see and understand the necessity for the proactive development of aboriginal educational leadership capacity and capability. Beyond the need to position for the knowledge economy, there is also a need to progress the social and economic revitalization of community contexts. There is a 64 Invited Address to the Canadian Association of Graduate Studies Conference, ‘Challenges to Innovation in Graduate Education’ entitled; ‘The Indigenous Graduate Revolution in New Zealand: The Potential for Aboriginal Advancement in Canada’, November 1st – 4th , 2005. Fairmont Hotel, Toronto, Canada. PP. 3-4. 3 Macedo, D & Freire, P (1972) This quote is taken from the title of the book by these two critical writers and invokes the necessity to not only understand the ‘practice’ but also the ‘theory’ (and vice versa); to not only understand the ‘text’ but also the ‘meaning’(and vice versa); to not only understand the ‘local’ politics but also the wider ‘international’ politics (and vice versa); to not only understand the ‘culturalist’ explanations but also the ‘structuralist’ considerations (and vice versa) Fostering Educational Leaders danger of seeing these two economic thrusts as presenting a ‘chicken and egg’ dilemma, and in order to see the proactive pathway here it is useful not to see these two aims as an ‘either/ or’ option, but that both these elements can be developed simultaneously. If indeed, Indigenous/ aboriginal/ First Nations peoples are to meaningfully participate in and contribute to the knowledge economy there is also need to develop a broad-based, critical mass of intellectual capacity and capability. This need is particularly urgent in British Columbia (and across Canada more widely), as we reflect on the growing gap4 in education between First Nations and non-First Nations communities. There are also opportunities to re-evaluate programming responsiveness to aboriginal needs and aspirations given the shifting shape of University education resulting from increasing global competitiveness and the emergence of the ‘research led’ University structure which is a vital component in developing the knowledge economy. Canada’s potential to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by the knowledge economy is somewhat uneven when there are some sections of the population who remain educationally under-developed. Notwithstanding that the Human Development Index (HDI) indicator for Canada as a whole ranks Canada 8th in the world, Grand Chief Phil Fontaine of the Assembly of First Nations earlier this year, revealed that the First Nations ‘on reserve’ populations collectively rank 63rd in the World.5 This is yet another indication of the gap between aboriginal and nonaboriginal populations in Canada. In this sense, the need for a prior educational revolution amongst First Nations and Indigenous communities is vital. A statistical review6 and analysis of the current state of aboriginal schooling and education in British Columbia does not present a very healthy picture. There are 33 tribes, bands or nations in B.C and some 37 distinctive indigenous languages, and while some may see these particular demographics as totally debilitating in conceptualizing a Provincial wide intervention, it is useful to position these elements are merely a set of variables which need to be taken into account when considering intervention strategies. The point is that such variables are often seen as a reason not to do anything, and it seems that the excuse of band, tribal, and nation diversity is a convenient rationale for not responding to aboriginal issues at all. In most areas of education and schooling crises, statistics related to educational underachievement/ underperformance, show unequivocally that First Nations students (relative to other students) are not enjoying great success at the hands of the present system and structures. Which ever way one breaks up the statistics, whether Métis are included, or whether we distinguish between ‘urban’ and ‘on reserve’ cohorts, the dire circumstances portrayed here largely remains the same. British Columbia has one of the largest aboriginal populations in Canada. As is the case elsewhere in Canada, First Nations are often the worst case scenario in the socio-economic statistics, including education and schooling. Over 17% of Canada’s aboriginal people live in the province, representing 4.4% of British Columbia’s total population. The aboriginal population is also relatively young compared to nonaboriginals, and aboriginal people represent a high proportion of school-aged children. According to Statistics Canada, 7.3% of children under the age of 14 years of age in British Columbia are aboriginal. British Columbia’s Ministry of Education reports that 8.3% of the public school population is aboriginal. Given the high drop out rate that is still characteristic of the aboriginal high school population, it is possible that the school age aboriginal population in British Columbia may be as high as 10%.7 With respect to the tertiary sector, only 8% of aboriginal people aged between, 25 – 64 have a tertiary qualification, compared to 23% of non-aboriginals. Only 1% of Canadians holding a Masters or Doctoral degree are aboriginal 65 Various Reports of the Fraser Institute have tracked this issue out (for example, see Fraser Institute 2004 News letters available on the website) 5 4 Phil Fontaine, Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Comments on the National Accord ; AFN Press Release, June 27th 2005, AFN Website. 09. Appendix 6 Statistics Canada 2002 7 A Response to the Aboriginal Post-Secondary Education and Training Policy Framework; Discussion Paper, February 2004. First Nations House of Learning. Fostering Educational Leaders (642,055 Canadians hold Masters degrees and 128,630 Canadians hold doctoral degrees)8. The Faculty of Education at UBC has taken a proactive lead in engaging with the issues internally to UBC and externally in the Province with respect to aboriginal educational development and advancement and is currently assessing potential responses in its education doctorate programming. In recent years, the Ministry of Education has undertaken research to ascertain and identify specific needs with respect to aboriginal and Indigenous education in British Columbia. The most recent Report being the aboriginal PostSecondary Review Project9, which undertook a major research into the post secondary sector and which made the following key observations about what needs to be done in terms of improving performance. However, most of these reports are saying similar things and there is very little that is absolutely new in terms of scoping the crises that was not signaled in the Royal Commission on aboriginal Peoples Report.10 Moreover, many of these investigations focus significantly on cultural deficit oriented explanations and only make minor critique of the systemic impediments and constraints. However, these previous surveys of aboriginal education do provide a useful overview and are important to reflect on when thinking about some of the issues that this survey might also identify. Moreover, the accent placed in this current survey project, to also engage with the question of ‘What might be done?’ will also, and where appropriate, utilize the findings in these other reports when considering the development of intervention and transformative strategies of aboriginal educational leadership development. Some comments from previous research that also coincides with this survey suggest a number of strategies: • a Strategic Approach in planning across and within different sections of the tertiary sector. • raise the interest in and develop a priority concern for aboriginal post-secondary education. • more research to understand aboriginal education and experience. • collect accurate data about aboriginal students and performance. • develop quantity, quality and diversity of aboriginal programming and curriculum. • identify programming gaps in programs, courses and curriculum content. • more community involvement and participation • • • • • identify barriers and constraints to aboriginal participation and success in post-secondary education address the high incidence of reports from aboriginals about feeling alienated and excluded with education institutions understand more profoundly the implications of the demographic trends in the Province develop transition programs from High School to post-secondary options increase support services for aboriginal students. 66 There are some quite specific gaps in provincial program offerings. At the very least, some response by all programs and in some areas more specialized and targeted courses might be useful. In other words, a horizontal inclusion of aboriginal issues is indicated across all programming generally in addition to the development of some vertical options of specific aboriginal cohort development. However, the overall picture of educational leadership programs is that much more can and needs to be done to proactively and positively support aboriginal advancement. Ultimately we would argue that a proactive response is needed across all programming which in the long run will not only be of benefit to the Province of British Columbia, but to Canada as a whole. With respect to UBC, there is no official tracking Aboriginal students at UBC and no data related to graduate performance. The First Nations House of Learning estimated in 2004, that there were around 550 Aboriginal students enrolled at UBC (in contrast the UBC Policy and Institutional Research Office estimated that around 2% of the total UBC population were Aboriginal); that there were around 34 Aboriginal students studying for doctoral degrees at UBC and of which 24 were in the Faculty of Education. Last year the Faculty of Education graduated four First Nations PhDs and two International PhDs who were all connected with the Ts’Kel program. In 2006, doctoral enrollments will increase quite significantly due to the impact of the SAGE program and will potentially double the numbers of Aboriginal doctoral students in the Faculty of Education in three years (from 24 – to around 50). 9 8 Review of Aboriginal Post Secondary Education (Final Report); Ministry of Advanced Education, June 30th 2005. 10 The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples was a royal commission established in 1991 to address many issues of Aboriginal status that had come to light with recent events such as the Oka Crisis and the Meech Lake Accord. The Commission culminated in a final report published in 1996. Fostering Educational Leaders APPENDIX 2 The Research Team Michelle Stack is an Assistant professor of Educational Administration and Leadership in the department of Educational Studies at UBC. She is interested in issues around certification of administrators. Her primary areas of study are student voice through participatory action research and media production and the role of media in defining “good” and “bad” educational leadership and policy. David Coulter is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Studies in the Faculty of Education, UBC. He came to UBC in 1995 after working in Quebec and Manitoba schools for 25 years as a classroom teacher in both elementary and secondary schools, a high school department head, a consultant, a principal and a superintendent. He teaches in the masters program in educational leadership and administration and the EdD in Educational Leadership and Policy and is Co-director of the Centre for the Study of Teacher Education. His research interests focus on understanding and fostering educational judgment with particular concerns for democratic dialogue and the imagination. His writing has been published in both scholarly journals (e.g., Educational Researcher and Handbook of Research on Teaching) and professional publications (e.g., Education Canada). Studies, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies in Higher Education & Training, and Academic Coordinator for the Doctor of Education in Leadership and Policy Program at The University of British Columbia. He is also Coordinator of an online Intercontinental Master of Education program which concentrates on Adult Learning and Global Change. He has developed courses and taught in the program since its inception. His research and writing focuses on issues surrounding higher education and the changing economy; the role of the university in preparing the labour force; accountability and performance models; education and work in a market-driven economy; the social organization of learning; and policy and practice implications of experiential learning programs. transformation within indigenous education contexts in B.C. across Canada and selected sites in international contexts. Simon Blakesley is a school administrator with the Yukon Department of Education for the past 10 years. He has been a faculty advisor with the Yukon Native Teacher Education Program at Yukon College. His varied work experiences also include 6 years in the Canadian Air Force. Simon’s research interests revolve around leadership development for teachers and school administrators, succession planning, and adult learning. He is currently a PhD student at UBC. John P. Egan is an educational sociologist who has published widely on HIV prevention, LGBT issues in education, and social justice. He is currently a research fellow in the Institute of Health Promotion Research at the University of British Columbia. André Elias Mazawi is an associate professor, Department of Educational Studies, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia. 67 Graham Hingangaroa Smith is a Distinguished Professor at the Department of Educational Studies in the Faculty of Education, UBC and a New Zealand Maori scholar whose disciplinary interests are in Indigenous education and schooling. Professor Smith was the former Pro Vice Chancellor (Maori) at The University of Auckland, foundational Chair of the Council of Te Whare Wananga o Awanuirangi: Tribal University; former Deputy Chair of the Council of the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER); a former Primary school teacher and Principal. He contributes to the Educational Leadership Programs at The University of British Columbia and is involved in seeding innovation and Sarah Anne Mills has her M.A. in Educational Studies from the University of British Columbia. The focus of her work is on democratic education and alternatives to standardization; particular emphasis is placed around how space is used and how power is expressed through practice. She has worked in a wide range of educational projects with adults, youth and children. John Moss is a retired superintendent of schools with over 35 years experience as a teacher and educational leader in the UK, Manitoba and British Columbia. Dr Moss completed his doctorate in educational leadership and policy at UBC in 2001. He is currently Executive Director of the Charter for Public Education network. Garnet Grosjean holds a Ph.D. in Adult & Higher Education from the University of British Columbia. He is a Lecturer in the Department of Educational 09. Appendix Fostering Educational Leaders