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.

摘要

改善长期表现不佳的学校对学校领导来说仍然是一项艰巨的挑战。美国最近的政策激励学校领导尝试新的策略来改善结果，越来越多的特许管理组织和其他多学校组织 (MSO) 的学校领导正在开展这项工作。研究表明，MSO 中最成功的学校领导已经建立了健全的教学和专业发展系统。本文基于对新 MSO 的学校领导团队的纵向定性案例研究，并使用认知社区的框架来考虑领导者如何在以问责为中心的方式运作的同时，在学校范围内和跨学校范围内生成、管理和转移知识学校周转背景。鉴于美国教育工作者的不同专业背景，为学校领导和教师培养制定共同行动理论和利用共同工具的能力对于提高学生成绩可能是必要的，但也是复杂和资源密集型工作的必要条件。培养高能力的 MSO 是一个反复的过程，需要在学校领导职位上投入大量时间和资源，以建立共享课程、与教学设计保持一致，并培养领导能力以支持学校内外的教学和学习。