Contemporary
accountability frameworks position school leaders as being essential to
improving school performance and driving innovation. Simultaneously,
new accountability demands have forced the restructuring of school
leadership, both in terms of form and function.
This paper looked at the growing trend of distributed leadership among teachers who are tasked to assume leadership roles while maintaining their (sometimes reduced) teaching responsibilities. In the US, federally backed programs have incentivized schools to bolster teacher leadership opportunities, often predicated on claims of teacher empowerment and leadership democratization.
Given the rise in distributed leadership as a prescribed local governance structure, the authors examined one popular distributed leadership model in the US to better understand how the teacher leaders are experiencing their dual roles and responsibilities.
Drawing on focus group interviews with mentor teachers, they found tension between the teachers’ expectations with regard to increased collegiality and mentoring opportunities, and their actual experiences of bureaucratic control and finding that their expectations were unrealistic. Prescribed, incentive-driven forms of distributed leadership can place teacher leaders in precarious positions that demand more of their time, while limiting their capacities to participate in the leadership practices they deem most valuable.
This paper looked at the growing trend of distributed leadership among teachers who are tasked to assume leadership roles while maintaining their (sometimes reduced) teaching responsibilities. In the US, federally backed programs have incentivized schools to bolster teacher leadership opportunities, often predicated on claims of teacher empowerment and leadership democratization.
Given the rise in distributed leadership as a prescribed local governance structure, the authors examined one popular distributed leadership model in the US to better understand how the teacher leaders are experiencing their dual roles and responsibilities.
Drawing on focus group interviews with mentor teachers, they found tension between the teachers’ expectations with regard to increased collegiality and mentoring opportunities, and their actual experiences of bureaucratic control and finding that their expectations were unrealistic. Prescribed, incentive-driven forms of distributed leadership can place teacher leaders in precarious positions that demand more of their time, while limiting their capacities to participate in the leadership practices they deem most valuable.
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