A Comparative Review of School Leadership Reforms: Actor of Reform or Agent of Improvement?

• In Event: 52.083 - Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: 52.083-2 - Leadership for Educational Change

Abstract

This paper analyses the adoption of school leadership policies across OECD countries to understand factors that can influence their take up. While evidence has demonstrated the positive impact of school leadership on outcomes, policy uptake appears limited across OECD countries. To understand this gap, the paper develops a school leadership reform model grounded on political science and public policy making and school leadership theoretical frameworks. It explores whether school leadership reforms are introduced by themselves or are associated with other contextual and policy factors using mixed methods, complementing statistical analysis on education policy reforms adopted across OECD countries (2008-2014) with more detailed case study analysis. The results show that school leadership reforms do not come alone.

Author

• Beatriz Pont, OECD - Directorate for Education