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 Images of the school administrator have been shaped over the past century by various ideas serving to focus practice. While the behavioral sciences image that influenced preparation curricula after World War II has lost its luster, the earlier managerial perspective that sees the school as a system of production remains, pervading educational reforms. This perspective appears in current pressures to measure and assess performance and in expectations that adjusting instructional strategies will improve learning outcomes. However, this view overlooks the complexity of schools and the nesting of schools within larger institutions. What constitutes effective educational leadership today? This paper explores three arenas to provide a partial answer to this important question: special conditions of the work itself, forces in the school's environment that shape leadership challenges, and recurring dilemmas inherent in leading schools and districts. Public educators have a special respo...

 Contemporary educational leaders function in complex local contexts. They must cope not only with daily challenges within schools but also with problems originating beyond schools, like staffing shortages, problematic school boards, and budgetary constraints. There are some emerging patterns and features of these complex contexts that educational leaders should recognize. Educational leaders face a political terrain marked by contests at all levels over resources and over the direction of public education. The vitality of the national economy has been linked to the educational system, shifting political focus on public education from issues of equity to issues of student achievement. States have increasingly centralized educational policymaking in order to augment governmental influence on curriculum, instruction, and assessment. With the rise of global economic and educational comparisons, most states have emphasized standards, accountability, and improvement on standardized ass...

 Although teacher leadership is an established feature of educational reform, it was only 30 years ago that most literature on school improvement focused on principals and superintendents . Though the idea of teacher leadership is not new, the conception of this role has evolved considerably. The teacher has been considered an organizational leader since the one-room schoolhouse of the 19th century. With the advent of professional school administration in the 21th century, teacher leadership became an issue of workplace democracy. Critics of professional administration argued that schools could not teach democratic principles without functioning democratically . Teacher participation in policymaking was thought to be an important part of democratic school leadership. Efforts to promote teacher leadership were renewed in response to regulatory reforms. These initiatives viewed teacher leadership as an instrument of school improvement that would facilitate problem solving by involvin...