A post by Susan Kardos and Ellen Goldring entitled "What is Effective Educational Leadership in Jewish Day Schools and How can it be Nurtured and Sustained?" that appeared in eJewishPhilanthropy presented recently released findings from the first phase of a study conducted by American Institute of Research (AIR).
They write:
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In Leadership in Context: The Conditions for Success of Jewish Day School Leaders, researchers offer valuable insight about specific leadership practices and the conditions that support them in Jewish day schools. As we discuss below – and as presented in Table 1 that summarizes these findings – the research highlights specific actions school leaders can take to be effective leaders and to have the most positive student outcomes:
1. Vision: The school leader promotes a vision for Jewish living and learning.
2. Staff: The school leader enables teachers’ learning and professional growth.
3. Community: The school leader interacts with the school community to attend to the interests, priorities, and needs of students, teachers, parents, and external organizations.
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They offer links to the findings of Phase 1 of the study, and describe how:
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By the end of Phase 2 of the 3-year study, the study will have produced databases and findings showing relationships between principal practices and student, teacher, and school outcomes. In addition to a set of briefs and a final report, the effort will produce a research-based and standards-aligned evaluation tool that measures the effectiveness of school leaders by providing a detailed assessment of a principal’s performance. This assessment will focus on learning-centered leadership behaviors that influence teachers, staff, and – most importantly – student achievement.
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The full post, including links to the study, can be accessed at
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ejewishphilanthropy.com]
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Two of my colleagues at the Lookstein Center responded to Kardos and Goldring in an essay that appeared last week, which I am reprinting in full, below.
Given that the Lookjed audience is made up mainly of practitioners – school and classroom leaders – I would be interested in hearing whether your perception is that more research on day school leadership is needed, or are we at a point when practical leadership programming should be implemented based on the existing research.
Shalom
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ejewishphilanthropy.com]
By Deborah Court and Stuart Zweiter
We read with interest and considerable frustration the reportby Kardos and Goldring on the first phase results of the CASJE study into effective educational leadership in Jewish day schools. This is an incredibly important area that requires, at this point, less research and more action.
While the context and culture of Jewish day schools are somewhat different than public schools and various kinds of private schools, much of the vast research literature on effective school leadership certainly does apply to Jewish day schools. There is no need to reinvent those wheels through further research.
Notwithstanding this, philanthropic foundation funded research into Jewish school leadership has been quite prolific. For instance, Michal Berger’s report in the Spring 2012 Ravsak journal Hayidion of an AVI CHAI funded study aimed at formulating a theory of Jewish day school leadership listed nine areas that need leadership attention in a Jewish day school: setting visions and priorities; a Jewish lens; understanding context; data driven assessment and accountability; building staff capacities; collaboration; communication; learning and self-reflection; self-management capabilities. The overlap with Kardos’ and Goldring’s categories is clear.
Mark Schnieider, the principle researcher in the CASJE study, is quoted in the CASJE newsletter of Sept. 29, 2016, as saying “This research will help school leaders improve their schools by pointing to specific areas in which they can invest their time and resources that lead to higher levels of student success.â€
The question is, how? How will the knowledge derived from this study and a number of other studies of Jewish educational leadership, as well as hundreds of studies of educational leadership in general, reach these school leaders? Where will they go to find it? And why would most of them even look? They’re pretty busy already.
With all respect for research knowledge – it is extremely important; we have no argument there – we need to do more with this knowledge, now, to get it to school leaders and potential school leaders, in an organized fashion. We already have a lot of research knowledge, including almost all the findings in the CASJE study. The time has come to find effective ways to disseminate this knowledge and translate it into improved practice. We have heard foundations claim that nothing they have tried has been meaningfully effective in addressing the leadership challenge. However they have never really supported anything beyond part time, year-long programs and one on one mentoring. These are both important and potentially effective models but they are local, have limited impact and are essentially band aid responses to an ongoing challenge that demands a much more comprehensive, systemic and holistic approach.
The Lookstein Center has argued for several years already that so much of the foundation money that goes into research could be better spent, right now, after all that we have learned, on building an organizational structure that could house, promote and disseminate to school leaders via a range of program initiatives, what research has told us. We have discussed this idea with some of the most seasoned and outstanding day school leaders in North America and they are in agreement that such a center is the way to develop, help, advance and attract day school leaders.
The center would be a repository of research knowledge, with in-house resources as well as links to practical training and professional development options, to mentoring, and to seasoned, sympathetic ears that hear day school leaders’ challenges and can direct them to concrete, practical help and ongoing professional development. Most importantly it would provide opportunities for ongoing learning and professional growth. The organization, coordination and professionalization of currently diverse, dispersed, parochial and uneven programs and services, as well as the development of new, high quality programs and services for Jewish educational leaders, would be a tremendous contribution to improving day schools and day school leadership. To borrow from Freud, after fifty years of research, we still may not know what educational leaders want. But that does not mean spending another fifty years trying to figure it out. The question is, how can we help them? How can we help the 41% of new leaders to build trust among their faculty? How can we reach the 80% of school leaders who do not see the need for JS related professional development? How can we help leaders articulate and actualize vision in order to build a creative, collaborative, dynamic, trusting, inspiring school program and culture? Not by doing more research. At what point does continuing to conduct overplayed research become navel gazing?
We can do these things by putting more of that research money into help on the ground. This means, in our view, building a day school leadership infrastructure, something that has never been undertaken. Jewish education is in crisis in many places in North America, there is a shrinking pool of excellent educational leaders from which schools can choose, and there is a desperate need for a leadership center, a professional organizing body which would draw on many sources of wisdom and expertise while remaining independent of any particular stream of Judaism or academic institution. Friends, this is an idea whose time has come. Let’s start talking about that.
Deborah Court is a Professor of Education at Bar Ilan University and prior to making Aliya served as a Jewish Day School Principal in North America.
Stuart Zweiter is the Director of The Lookstein Center for Jewish Education and prior to making Aliya served as a Jewish Day School Principal in North America.
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PROF. STEVEN M. COHEN, HUC-JIR says
November 28, 2016 at 1:19 pm
I feel like the rabbi in Fiddler … Well, you’re both right. If the world could learn from a single piece of research, we wouldn’t need additional research. But, the world (and Jewish philanthropists, and educators, and parents, etc., etc.) doesn’t learn that way. I have been impressed with how policy-oriented thought-movements develop key ideas and repeatedly pound away at them year-in, year-out over the decades. Ever notice how the best op-ed writers (think Paul Krugman, Tom Friedman, and so many others) essentially riff off the same basic 3-5 ideas? Essentially, if a message is right, it needs constant confirmation and communication. (Full disclosure: I served as a consultant to the underlying study conducted and led by Dr. Yael Kidron of AIR.) Steven M. Cohen,
steve34nyc@aol.com
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ZIPORA SCHORR says
November 30, 2016 at 11:15 pm
Stuart Zweiter and Deborah Court have got it right. They are not minimizing the importance of research, but are wisely claiming that research without practical application is Ivory Tower self-congratulatory behavior. That is where the idea of a Center for providing training and support comes in. A “comprehensive, systemic, holistic†approach is one that can benefit the field in profound ways.
This is a field I have “tilled†for over forty years—and I have not seen much progress in the area of cultivating and supporting talent. This is an idea that merits exploration and action.
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The original essay, together with the responses that were posted, can be accessed here:
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ejewishphilanthropy.com]
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/06/2016 09:28AM by mlb.
