The Educational Leadership Program Coordinator in Alabama

• In Event: 35.026 - From Coordination to Compliance: The Principal Preparation Program Coordinator's Changing Role

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the educational leadership program coordinator in Alabama. This case study employed as a conceptual framework Habermas’s (1971) three orientations to knowledge formation: technical interest, practical interest and emancipatory interest. Habermas proposed that everyone’s reality is unique and that individuals conceptualize their reality by using one of these cognitive approaches. Educational researchers have used this framework to study curriculum (Fraser & Bosanquet, 2006; Grundy, 1987; Schubert, 1985), educational change (Smyth, 2004), and educational policy and leadership (Kochan, 2002; Rebore & Stollenwerk, 2001; Sergiovanni, 2007. Following Schubert’s (1985) interpretation, we align the technical view with the empirical analytical science paradigm in which the principal/teacher directs and controls and the teachers/students receive direction; practical interest with the hermeneutic paradigm in which understanding and meaning-making are emphasized; and emancipatory interest with critical praxis in which the focus is on ethical and moral issues related to compassion, equity, and social justice.
This paper focuses on one of three qualitative state case studies that used a common semi-structured interview guide protocol to collect perceptions of educational leadership principal program coordinators about the impact of state-mandated program redesign. The interview protocol included 10-15 open-ended questions that were aligned with the four research questions. The Alabama case data (n=13) were collected via focus group and follow-up interviews; the Illinois (n=14) and North Carolina case data (n=13) were collected via telephone interviews. All coordinators were faculty in state-approved programs. Interview data were audio and/or field-note recorded and analyzed with the Habermas framework.
The researcher identified numerous innovations in the state’s educational leadership programs and that coordinators saw these changes as beneficial. For example, admissions were very time consuming and required oversight from the program coordinator at a much deeper level than in the past. Other themes that emerged was the significant increase in resources needed to implement the new programs while at the same time having to deal with critical economic recession issues of 2008. Much that had been promised in terms of state support disappeared in the economic downturn and, thus, universities were forced to implement their educational leadership programs with a lack of external state support. In general, program coordinators agreed that their workloads for program related activities had increased dramatically. Additionally, the coordinators realized that the redesign reflected an increasing difference between educational leadership program coordinators and coordinators from disciplines not requiring approval from the ALSDE. Positives included the creative process involved in designing new programs, collaboration with K-12 partner school districts and the establishment of advisory councils.
This paper is significant because it illuminates issues and challenges addressed by educational leadership program coordinators in one of three states selected for this study. This study also documents a changing role of program coordinators, shifting away from merely facilitating the work of their leadership preparation programs and assuming more focused duties, which involve close oversight of state rules and regulations, enhanced efforts at statewide policy advocacy, and reaching across institutions to collaborate and coordinate shared duties.

Author

• Ellen H. Reames, Auburn University