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Copyright © 2005 by Corwin Press
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Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Murphy, Joseph, 1949-
Connecting teacher leadership and school improvement / Joseph Murphy.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7619-3199-6 (cloth) —ISBN 0-7619-8830-0 (pbk.)
1. Teacher participation in administration—United States. 2. School improvement
programs—United States. 3. Educational leadership—United States. I. Title.
LB2806.45.M87 2005
371.1′06—dc22 2004022985
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
05 06 07 08 09 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Acquisitions Editor: Rachel Livsey
Editorial Assistant: Phyllis Cappello
Production Editor: Laureen A. Shea
Copy Editor: Diana Breti
Typesetter: C&M Digitals (P) Ltd.
Proofreader: Penelope Sippel
Indexer: Nara Wood
Cover Designer: Lisa Miller
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Contents
Preface vii
About the Author xi
Part I: Unpacking the Concept 1
1. Introduction to Teacher Leadership 3
The Starting Gate 5
Definitional Issues 8
Conclusion 18
2. Forces Supporting Teacher Leadership 21
Reconceptualizing School Organizations 22
Redefining School Leadership 27
The Changing Calculus of School Improvement 38
Conclusion 45
3. Teacher Leadership: A Theory in Action 46
Some Cautions 47
Embedded Logic 50
Conclusion 63
4. The Skills, Attributes, and Knowledge
of Teacher Leaders 64
Introductory Notes 65
Teacher Leadership Skills 68
Teacher Tasks 73
Conclusion 80
5. Pathways to Teacher Leadership 81
Role-Based Strategies 82
Community-Based Strategies 88
Conclusion 94
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Part II: Overcoming Barriers
and Capturing Opportunities 95
6. Confronting Organizational
and Cultural Barriers 97
Organizational Structure 99
Support Systems 104
Culture 118
Conclusion 127
7. Promoting Teacher Leadership
From the Principal’s Office 128
Developing Relationships in Support
ofTeacher Leadership 129
Working to Promote Teacher Leadership 136
Conclusion 141
8. Developing Teacher Leaders 143
The State of Preparedness 144
Professional Development: A General Framework 146
Professional Development for Teacher Leadership 150
Conclusion 158
9. Conclusion 159
Some Reminders 159
A Skeptical Note 160
A Paradox 161
Gaps in the Landscape 161
Some Caveats and Concerns 162
A Question of Evidence 164
A Note on Research 165
Conclusion 166
References 167
Index 191
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Preface
F
or much of the last quarter century, educators, policy-
makers, and the general citizenry have been engaged in
an unbroken quest to understand the school improvement equa-
tion. That is, there have been ongoing efforts, sometimes system-
atic and often ad hoc, to identify the factors that explain school
performance and student achievement and to deepen our under-
standing of how they work, both as individual components and as
parts of the system of schooling.
Research over these years has consistently underscored
leadership as a critical theme in the school improvement narra-
tive. Indeed, evidence from nearly every realm of investigation—
beginning with effective school studies through the most recent
work on comprehensive school reform—confirms leadership as
an explanatory variable in schools where all students meet ambi-
tious achievement targets.
Over that time, our understanding of leadership has deepened
and become more complex. We have learned about the centrality of
instructionally focused leadership and the importance of transfor-
mationally anchored leadership work. We have also learned that
leadership is as much a property of the school and its culture as it
is a dimension of administrative roles. The central place of teacher
leadership in the school improvement play has been identified.
This book is designed to help the reader fully comprehend
teacher leadership as a pathway to school improvement. We
unpack teacher leadership into its core components and trace
its evolution into a more mature reform concept. We reveal
how teacher leadership fits into the larger array of school reform
initiatives. We examine the ideological and empirical seedbed in
which teacher leadership has been germinated. We investigate
the larger forces underway in education that buttress efforts to
vii
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viii CONNECTING TEACHER LEADERSHIP AND SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT
promote teacher leadership in schools. And we review the engine
or theory in action that powers the growing teacher leadership
movement.
We are not salespersons for teacher leadership. Rather, we
examine the teacher leadership phenomenon and explore how it
can function as one, albeit an important, piece of equipment in
the school improvement toolbox. By necessity, at times we assume
a critical stance, exposing flaws in the formulation of the initiative
and pointing out how, regardless of the health of the reform
model itself, the environment sometimes provides only limited
support for that potential to thrive.
In Chapter 1, we describe how emerging perspectives on teacher
leadership represent a break with prevailing views of leadership
built up around formal administrative roles. We recount how
teacher leadership is both a catalyst for and an outcome of a shift
away from a near-exclusive focus on hierarchical organizational
systems and institutional views of schooling. We also parse the
concept of teacher leadership into its prime elements and provide a
definition. We trace the history of teacher leadership over time.
In Chapter 2, we expose the three major pillars buttressing
the teacher leadership movement. We provide an analysis of the
struggle to rebuild the organizational foundations of schooling,
examining the dysfunctionalities of traditional hierarchical struc-
tures and investigating postindustrial organizational forms that
privilege collective conceptions of leadership. We highlight the
changing nature of leadership in these adaptive organizations,
capturing the general storyline as well as the implications for
those in formal leadership positions. We reveal how teacher
leadership is nourished by reform initiatives that honor profes-
sionalism and by the ongoing struggle to promote high quality
education for all youngsters.
As with all reform movements, teacher leadership is propelled
by a specific power train, one that shares multiple properties with
engines driving other professionally focused reform models, such
as school-based decision making. In Chapter 3, we peel back the
covering on that driveshaft to reveal its inner workings. We review
how teacher leadership is expected to promote professionalization
and to enhance the health of school organizations. We report how
changes in these areas are believed to link with classroom and
school improvements. We also present some caveats to hold onto
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Preface ix
while examining the hypothesized chain of benefits or theory of
action fueling the teacher leadership movement.
In Chapter 4, we provide a brief portrait of teacher leaders.
We offer a few words of caution about any attempt to craft a
generic chronicle of this complex phenomenon. We provide a
review of the limited research on factors motivating educators
to assume the mantle of teacher leader and an overview of the
central role of expertise in the teacher leadership narrative. We
present some of the bedrock principles of teacher leadership. We
provide an overview of the personal qualities that researchers
often find associated with teacher leaders, as well as the essential
skills often displayed by these educators. We also examine the
nature of the tasks performed by teacher leaders.
In Chapter 5, we examine the variety of pathways to teacher
leadership. We group these into two broad clusters: role-based
pathways and community-based approaches. We organize the nar-
rative around a set of variables (e.g., the embedded view of leader-
ship) that allows us to illustrate and define each of the pathways.
In Chapter 6, we examine a collection of organizational condi-
tions and a host of professional and cultural norms that can
retard or promote the creation of a culture of shared leadership
and constrain or enhance the activities of teacher leaders. We
organize that analysis around the three broad topics of structure,
support, and culture.
In Chapter 7, we explore the special role played by the building
principal in locating, planting, and nurturing the seeds of teacher
leadership. We discuss how the development of teacher leadership
in general, and teacher leaders specifically, depends heavily on the
quality of principal-teacher relationships. We emphasize the impor-
tance of principals arriving at new nonhierarchical understandings
of leadership, including the willingness to share power widely
among their teacher colleagues. We describe how recast organiza-
tional structures can be employed in the service of teacher leader-
ship. We outline six key functions in which principals engage to
promote teacher leadership: crafting a vision and delineating expec-
tations for teacher leadership in the school, identifying and selecting
teacher leaders and linking them to leadership opportunities,
legitimizing the work of teacher leaders, providing direct support,
developing the leadership skill set of teacher leaders, and managing
the teacher leadership process at the school level.
