Leading From the Middle and Self-Improving School Systems: The Role of the Middle Tier

• In Event: Roundtable Session 56
  In Roundtable Session: Leading From the Middle: Coherence, Cohesion, and Circulation in System-Wide Educational Change

Abstract

Purpose:

The creation of a system for improvement that is driven by schools themselves begs questions regarding the roles of local school districts. Indeed, it raises the possibility that the involvement of a middle level administrative structure may no longer be necessary. This paper will draw on data collected during two large-scale system change initiatives in the United Kingdom to explore this issue.

Perspective:

The change approach used is based on the idea of a “self-improving school system” (Hargreaves, D., 2010), which involves four guiding propositions:

1) Education systems have untapped potential to improve themselves.
2) School partnerships are the most powerful means of fostering improvements, particularly in challenging circumstances.
3) Networking is a means of sharing expertise and stimulating experimentation with new ways of working.
4) In order for education systems to become self-improving, leadership has to come from within schools.

What connects these propositions in a way that makes them coherent are processes of collaborative inquiry that focus attention on various forms of evidence (Ainscow et al., 2012). This helps to make the familiar unfamiliar in ways that challenge the expectations of what is possible, whilst, at the same time, drawing attention to examples of different practices that can be transferrable. Where this works effectively, it also stimulates collective efforts to explore new possibilities for addressing old problems.

Modes of Inquiry / Data Sources:

The first project involved 1,150 schools in a city in Northern England over three years; the second is an ongoing national improvement initiative in Wales, involving 40 secondary schools and their partner primary schools. The paper will draw on evidence collected through the author’s close involvement in both projects, as well as statistical and qualitative data generated through independent evaluations (Hutchings et al., 2012; Hutchings & Mansaray, 2013).

Conclusions:

Evidence from these two large-scale projects suggests that school district staff can have an important role to play in the developing of a self-improving system. In particular, they can act as the conscience of the system – ensuring that all children and young people receive a fair deal within an increasingly competitive system of education. In order to do this, they need to know the big picture about what is happening in their communities, identifying priorities for action and brokering collaboration. This requires significant structural and cultural change, with local authorities moving away from a command, control, and compete perspective, towards one of enabling and facilitating collaborative action.

Significance:

The paper will go on to explain that there were many situations where school district staff found such changes to be challenging during a time of new school governance arrangement and reducing budgets. There were also tensions with national policy makers, who tended to see local authorities as the problem rather than as part of the solution. Nevertheless, the paper will argue that local coordination and collaboration – the presence of an effective mediating layer – is essential. This has implications for those in other contexts where greater school autonomy is being encouraged.

Author

• Mel Ainscow, University of Manchester