Leading From the Middle: Coherence, Cohesion, and Circulation in System-Wide Educational Change

• In Event: Roundtable Session 56

Session Type: Roundtable Session

Abstract

One promising school improvement strategy is professional collaboration as a middle-tier of influence between the system and the individual teacher. In addition to research on within-school interactions among teachers, emerging work also reveals the existence and impact of networked relationships among schools, within and beyond school districts, including how districts can collaborate to improve together. These middle tiers of influence are not merely mediating layers for top-down implementation, but ways to drive improvement themselves. Against the global trend to denude the role of local democratic public authorities, this session articulates and exemplifies how Leading from the Middle (LfM) establishes coherence of strategy, cohesion of effort, and circulation of ideas and practices that produce improved equity and excellence in results.

Sub Unit

• Division A - Administration / Division A - Section 3: School Improvement

Chair

• Santiago Rincon-Gallardo, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education

Papers

• Leading From the Middle: How Districts Take Collective Responsibility for Improvement - Andy Hargreaves, Boston College

• Leading From the Middle and Achieving Coherence Between the Central Office and the Schools - Susan M. Johnson, Harvard University

• Leading From the Middle and Self-Improving School Systems: The Role of the Middle Tier - Mel Ainscow, University of Manchester

• Leading From the Middle in a U.S. Rural School Network - Michael T. O'Connor, Boston College