Educ 618 Leadership in Education
Leadership of Educational Institutions – Educ. 618
Spring 2009 [Thursdays, 4:30 – 6:45], Room 400
James H. Lytle, Practice Professor
GSE, 3700 Walnut, Room 401
215-573-3549; jhlytle@gse.upenn.edu
In this course class members will simultaneously engage in an academic study of
educational leadership focusing on Pre-K–12 schools and school districts, and in a
continuing leadership development laboratory experience designed to increase
one’s personal efficacy as leader. A basic assumption for the course is that
leadership is a central component of schooling; teaching is considered as foremost a
leadership activity, whether with five year olds or high school seniors, and
successful schools and districts are assumed to have capable leaders. The course
will give particular attention to the recent shift in role expectations for school
leaders - from competent manager to accountable instructional leader - and what
this shift means in relation to the day-to-day work of educational leaders. We will
also draw on the large leadership literature from the corporate, government and
not-for-profit sector (and perhaps the Humanities). Each class meeting will include
attention to the topics listed on the syllabus and a variety of leadership development
activities which draw on the research on leadership development.
As the professor for this course, I bring several perspectives. For thirty-six years I
was an urban public school administrator: an elementary, middle and high school
principal, head of a large research and planning office, regional and assistant
superintendent, and superintendent. I have also taught organizational theory for
twenty years, read broadly in the leadership and change literature, and had the good
fortune to work closely with a number of outstanding consultants in the areas of
leadership and organizational improvement. Finally, I have been deeply involved in
the work of the Wallace Foundation’s Leadership Counts initiative, the largest and
most significant educational leadership research and development project
undertaken in the United States. The syllabus represents my sense of what it means
to provide leadership for schools and districts, whether public or private, in the
current climate of accountability and market-based reform.
The texts for the course are available at the Penn Bookstore (36th & Walnut) and
include:
Jim Collins. Good to Great and the Social Sectors: A Monograph to Accompany Good
to Great. Boulder, CO: Jim Collins, 2005.
Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linsky. Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through
the Dangers of Leading. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School, 2002.
Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey. How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work.
San Francisco: Wiley, 2001.
Robert J. Marzano, Timothy Waters and Brian A. McNulty. School Leadership that
Works: from Research to Results. Alexandria, VA and Aurora, CO: ASCD & McREL,
2005.
A bulkpack for the course is also required and is available at Campus Copy Center at
39Th and Walnut.
Preliminary outline:
Jan. 15 Introduction;
Bulkpack: Sparks - What It Means to be an Outside-the- Box Leader
Senge – The Leader’s New World: Building Learning Organizations
Hargreaves & Fink – Chapter 1 from Sustainable Leadership
Jan. 22 Leadership Autobiographies (to be posted and/or booked)
Bulkpack: Bennis – Why Leaders Can’t Lead
Gardner – from Leading Minds
Guber, P. - Four truths of the storyteller. Harvard Business Review.
Jan. 29 Teaching Point of View; the corporate CEO; translating to the social sector
Texts: Jim Collins. Good to Great and the Social Sectors: A Monograph to Accompany
Good to Great. Boulder, CO: Jim Collins, 2005.
Bulkpack: Excerpts from Noel M. Tichy with Nancy Cardwell. The Cycle of
Leadership: How Great Leaders Teach Their Companies to Win.
Gabor: Leadership Principles for Public School Principals
Feb. 5 Personal Dimensions of Leadership:
Bulkpack: Bryk and Schneider – Relational Trust
Goleman – Leadership that Gets Results
Collins – Level 5 Leadership
The Economist – Mao and the art of management
Feb. 12 Personal Dimensions of Leadership – continued
Texts: Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linsky. Leadership on the line: Staying alive
through the dangers of leading. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School, 2002.
Bulkpack: Murphy - Embracing the Enemy: Moving Beyond the Pain of Leadership
Jentz, B.C. and Murphy, J.T. (Jan. 2005). Embracing confusion: What leaders do when
they don’t know what to do. Phi Delta Kappan (86:5). (pp. 358 – 366).
Feb. 19 Instructional Leadership – Defining (educational) leadership; the
educational leadership standards - ISLLC, SLA, Praxis, UCEA,
Learning to Lead – a framework, and the talent shortage.
Text: Robert J. Marzano, Timothy Waters and Brian A. McNulty. School Leadership
that Works: from Research to Results. Alexandria, VA and Aurora, CO: ASCD &
McREL, 2005.
Bulkpack: Levin, H.M. (Nov., 2006). Can research improve educational leadership?
Educational Researcher (pp. 38 – 43).
Council of Chief State School Officers. (1996). Interstate School Licensure Leaders
Licensure Consortium: Standards for school leaders. [revision forthcoming]
Feb. 26 Wallace Foundation: Leaders Count; Leadership for Learning;
Leadership Issues Groups [Spring Break NOT observed]
Bulkpack: Knapp, M.S. et al. (April, 2006). Building coherent leadership systems in
education: Roles, resources, information, and authority to act. (paper presented at
AERA Annual Meeting).
Black, S. (Sept. 2000). Finding time to lead. American School Board Journal. (pp. 4648).
Wallace Foundation. (2006). Leadership for learning: Making the connections
among
state, district and school policies and practices.
Mar. 5 Teacher Leadership/Distributed Leadership
Bulkpack: excerpts from Educational Leadership, September 2007 entire issue
(65:1) –
Teachers as Leaders [below]
Donaldson, Jr., G.A. (Sept. (2007). What do teachers bring to leadership? Educational
Leadership (66:1). (pp. 26 – 29).
Johnson, S.M. and Donaldson, M.L. (Sept. 2007). Overcoming the obstacles to
leadership. Educational Leadership (66:1). (pp. 8 -13).
[see also – Spillane, J.P. Distributed Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006]
Mar. 12 SPRING BREAK (No Class)
Mar. 19 Federal/State/Local/District Policies on School and District Leadership:
School Boards(trustees), Superintendents, Principals, other administrators.
(qualifications; duties and responsibilities; development) [AERA/NYC]
Mar. 26 Re-inventing Leadership Development: The National College for School
Leadership, NYC Leadership Academy, New Leaders for New Schools, KIPP, NISL,
UVA Turnaround Specialist program, GSE Mid-Career doctorate; GSE Higher
Education Executive Doctorate, & etc.
Bulkpack: Rand Corporation. (2005). Research brief: New approaches to developing
the Air Force’s senior leader workforce.
Apr. 2 Leading Change
Texts: Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey. How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We
Work. San Francisco: Wiley, 2001.
Bulkpack: Lytle, J.H. (June, 1996). The inquiring manager: Developing new
leadership
structures to support reform,” Phi Delta Kappan (Volume 77).
Copland, M.A. (2003). Leadership of inquiry: Building and sustaining capacity for
school improvement. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis (25:4). (pp. 375 –
295)
Apr. 9 (?) Educational Entrepreneurship – implications for leading
Bulkpack: Smith, K. and Petersen, J.L. (2006). What is educational entrepreneurship?
in F.M. Hess (ed.) Educational entrepreneurship: Realities, challenges, possibilities.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education.
The Economist. (Dec. 24, 2005). Jesus, CEO.
Apr. 16 School and District Leaders: Case studies
Apr. 23 Leadership Transition:
Bulkpack: Jentz, B.C. and Murphy, J.T. (June, 2005). Starting confused: How leaders
start when they don’t know where to start. Phi Delta Kappan (86:10). (pp. 736 744).
[see also]
Gilmore, T.N. Making a leadership change: How organizations and leaders can
handle leadership transitions successfully. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1988.
Hart, A.W. (1993). Principal succession: Establishing leadership in schools. Albany,
NY: SUNY.
Apr. 30 Case(s) from the group, or the literature, or the ms.
Assignments:
Autobiographies: 1 page due Monday, Feb. 4, 8:00 AM
Teaching Point of View – 1-2 pages, due Monday, Feb. 11
Study Group Reports due
Weekly participation on the 618 Discussion board [Blackboard]
Final paper: Implications/Where does this take you? 8-10 pages (due April 30)
And as may be determined:
“Case-in-Point” presentations
Small papers related to the week’s topic
Applying for a leadership position ?
“Small” research assignments for class use (e.g. principal certification requirements
in various states)
Leading class discussions
Case study – profile and analysis of a principal, head, or superintendent
Syllabus for a leadership course you plan to teach
Grades for the course will be based on performance on the various assignments and
class participation (60%) and the final paper (40%).
Depending on the interests and experience of those in the course, the syllabus will
be modified to address the groups’ needs.
Illustrative Bibliography: (still being developed)
Warren Bennis. Why Leaders Can’t Lead: The Unconscious Conspiracy Continues.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1989.
Black, S. (Sept. 2000). Finding time to lead. American School Board Journal. (pp. 4648).
Anthony S. Bryk and Barbara Schneider. Trust in Schools: A Core Resource for
Improvement. New York: Sage, 2002.
Nelda Cambron-McCabe, Luvern Cunningham, James Harvey and Robert Koff. The
Superintendent’s Fieldbook: A Guide for Leaders of Learning. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Corwin, 2005.
Jim Collins. Good to Great. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.
Jim Collins. Good to Great and the Social Sectors: A Monograph to Accompany Good
to Great. Boulder, CO: Jim Collins, 2005.
Max DePree. Leadership is an Art. New York: Dell, 1989.
Gordon A. Donaldson. Cultivating Leadership in Schools: Connecting People,
Purpose, and Practice. New York: Teachers College, 2001.
Educational Leadership. May 2002 entire issue (59:8) – Beyond Instructional
Leadership
September 2007 entire issue (65:1) - Teachers as Leaders
Robert Evans. The Human Side of School Change: Reform, Resistance, and the RealLife Problems of Innovation. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 1996.
Michael Fullan. Change Forces: Probing the Depths of Educational Reform. London:
Falmer, 1993.
Michael Fullan. Leading in a Culture of Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001.
Howard Gardner. Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership. New York: Basic
Books, 1995.
Atul Gawande. Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance. New York: Metropolitan,
2007.
Carl D. Glickman. Leadership for Learning: How to Help Teachers Succeed.
Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2002.
Daniel Goleman. Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can matter More Than IQ. New
York: Bantam Books, 1997.
Andy Hargreaves and Dean Fink. Sustainable Leadership. San Francisco: JosseyBass, 2006.
Ann Weaver Hart. Principal Succession: Establishing Leadership in Schools. Albany,
NY: SUNY, 1993.
Ronald A. Heifetz. Leadership without Easy Answers. Cambridge, MA: Belknap
Harvard, 1994.
Ronald A. Heifetz and Marty Linsky. Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through
the Dangers of Leading. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School, 2002.
Frederick Hess. Education Entrepreneurship: Realities, Challenges, Possibilities.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2006.
Paul D. Houston, Alan M. Blankstein, and Robert W. Cole (ed.). Out of the Box
Leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2007.
Jentz, B. (2006). “Making our own minds the object of our learning: Three reasons to
seek self-knowledge.” in Keller, P. and Van der Bogert, R. (Ed.) (2006). Voices for
democracy: Struggles and celebrations of transformational leaders. Malden, MA:
NSSE. pp. 230-238.
Jentz, B. (2007). Talk sense: Communicating to lead and learn. Acton, MA: Research
for Better Teaching
Jentz, B. with Wofford, J. (2008). The EntryPlan approach: How to begin a leadership
position successfully. (Education Edition). Available from Leadership and Learning,
Inc. www.entrybook.com
Susan Moore Johnson. Leading to Change: The Challenge of the New
Superintendency. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996.
Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey. How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way
We Work: Seven Languages for Transformation. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001.
Keller, P. and Van der Bogert, R. (Ed.) (2006). Voices for democracy:
Struggles and celebrations of transformational leaders. Malden, MA: NSSE.
Kenneth Leithwood, Doris Jantzi and Rosanne Steinbach. Changing Leadership for
Changing Times. Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1999.
Robert J. Marzano, Timothy Waters and Brian A. McNulty. School Leadership that
Works: from Research to Results. Alexandria, VA and Aurora, CO: ASCD & McREL,
2005.
Van Cleve Morris et al. Principals in Action: The Reality of Managing Schools.
Columbus, OH: Merrill, 1984. [out of print?]
Joseph Murphy (Ed.). The Educational Leadership Challenge: Redefining Leadership
for the 21st Century. Chicago: NSSE University of Chicago, 2002.
Joseph Murphy. Connecting Teacher Leadership and School Improvement.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2005.
Joseph Murphy and Karen Seashore Lewis. Handbook of Research on Educational
Administration: A Project of the American Educational Research Association. 2nd
ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999.
Joseph Murphy and Amanda Datnow (Ed.). Leadership Lessons from Comprehensive
School Reform. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2003.
Sharon Daloz Parks. Leadership Can Be Taught. Boston: Harvard Business School,
2005.
Mike Schmoker. Results Now: How We Can Achieve Unprecedented Improvements
in Teaching and Learning. Alexandria, VA: 2006.
Peter M. Senge. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning
Organization. New York: Doubleday, 1990.
Dennis Sparks. Leading for Results: Transforming Teaching, Learning, and
Relationships in Schools. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, 2005.
Jon A. Supovitz. The Case for District-Based Reform: Leading, Building, and
Sustaining School Improvement. Cambridge: Harvard Education, 2006.
Noel M. Tichy with Nancy Cardwell. The Cycle of Leadership: How Great Leaders
Teach Their Companies to Win. New York: HarperCollins, 2004.
Tony Wagner, Robert Kegan et al. Change Leadership: A Practical Guide to
Transforming Our Schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006.
Karl E. Weick & Kathleen M. Sutcliffe. Managing the Unexpected: Assuring High
Performance in an Age of Complexity. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001.
Useful web sites:
State and district sites (easily found on Google)
Wallace Foundation (www.wallacefoundation.org/leadership)
Center for Creative Leadership (ccl.org)
Center for Public Leadership, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard
(ksg.harvard.edu/leadership)
Center for Reinventing Public Education – University of Washington
Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy – University of Washington
Schools of Education and related centers at Harvard, Vanderbilt, Stanford and
Virginia
University Council for Educational Administration (ucea.org)
Journals deserving of regular perusal:
Education Week
Phi Delta Kappan
Educational Leadership (ASCD)
Educational Administration Quarterly
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis (AERA)
Harvard Business Review (in particular the special issues on leadership – Dec. 2001,
Jan. 2004, Jan. 2007, and Jan. 2008)
American School Board Journal
School Administrator (for a sense of what superintendents are thinking)
NASSP and NAEP Bulletins (for a sense of what principals are thinking)
Independent School (published by NAIS, for the private school perspective)
The Chronicle of Higher Education