Leading in complex environments: the role of leadership in multi-school organization improvement

ABSTRACT

School improvement in chronically under-performing schools remains a formidable challenge for school leaders. Recent policies in the U.S. have created incentives for school leaders to attempt new strategies to improve outcomes, and increasingly, school leaders of charter management organizations and other multi-school organizations (MSOs) are taking on this work. Research suggests that the most successful school leaders of MSOs have established robust systems of instruction and professional development. This article is based on a longitudinal qualitative case study of a school leadership team at a new MSO and uses the framework of epistemic communities to consider how leaders can generate, manage, and transfer knowledge within and across school boundaries while operating within an accountability-focused school turnaround context. Given the diverse professional backgrounds of U.S. educators, creating the capacity for school leaders and teachers to develop a common theory of action and leverage common tools may both be necessary for improvement in student outcomes but also complex and resource-intensive work. Developing highly capable MSOs is an iterative process that requires significant time and resources in school leadership positions to build a shared curriculum, align on instructional design, and develop leadership capacity to support teaching and learning within and across schools.

KEYWORDS:

• Leadership
• Educational Change
• School improvement

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Walton Family Foundation: [grant number 2014-764].

Notes on contributors

Matthew R. Malone

Matthew R. Malone is an instructional leadership specialist and research lead at Gradient Learning. He has over 15 years of experience in K-12 education as a teacher, instructional coach and school leadership consultant. He earned his doctorate in Educational Administration and Policy Studies at The George Washington University and his current research focuses on charter schools operating in turnaround environments.

Laura M. Groth

Laura M. Groth, Senior Partner at Lumen Impact Group, has 10+ years of experience working in K-12 and higher education research, technical assistance, and project management. Her current research focuses on identifying promising practices for school improvement among charter management organizations engaged in expansion and replication. Recently, she led publications at a resource center for a U.S. Department of Education grantees, writing reports and toolkits to identify evidence-based and promising practices related to school improvement, school quality, family engagement, charter school facilities, and grants-management topics.

Joshua L. Glazer

Joshua L. Glazer is an associate professor of education policy at the George Washington University. His research and teaching examine multiple approaches to improving under performing schools in high-poverty, urban environments; the political dynamics of state takeovers; and the design of research practice partnerships. He is a coeditor of Choosing Charters: Better Schools or More Segregation? and co-author of Improvement by Design: The Promise of Better Schools.