Educational Leaders of the Future: Inquiry and Action for Democratizing Schools From the Inside Out

• In Event: Democracy as the Aim of Education: Critical Issues of Leadership, Voice, Equity, and Schooling

Abstract

This presentation will focus on the theory, practice, and research on leadership for democratizing schools from the inside out (Glickman and Mette 2020) .
In ebbs and flows, the ideals of a democracy have served as a template for awareness, protests, and actions towards a more inclusive, open, and participatory democracy. After this current pandemic ends, disruptive innovation theory (Christensen, 1997) will click in and there will be a vast opportunity for rethinking our entire educational system of public schools . The challenge to both academic researchers and school leaders will be to seize the moment. It will be both exhilarating and frustrating but most of all vital to reframe the ultimate purpose of public education. If a truer democracy is to be attained, schooling that supports students as active , engaged, contributing members of society will be essential.
Explanations will be given of
1)needed teaching and learning practices in k to 12 classrooms,
2)participatory school and community decision making
3) a new way of delegating authority from state and federal and district agents to local schools in key issues of resources, staffing, time, and assessments.
The idea of public schools as laboratories of democracy is not new. Each generations of educators have lived through at least one major societal disruption that lead to a resurgence of new curricula involving inquiry and project based learning throughout the schools , i.e., the progressive schools of the mid-20th century (Cremin, 1964), open education of the late 1960s (Barth, 1972), restructuring schools of the 1980’s (Newmann and Wehlage,1995), school renewal networks and reconstituted small and personalized schools of the turn of the 21st century (Sizer, 2004, Comer,2004, Meier,1995). As Cremin (1964), Sarason (1990), Tyack and Cuban (1997) have noted , all of these school reform movements never moved into the mainstream of school practices and eventually were marginalized in part due to a lack robust research agenda and examination of the long term effects of such schooling on the later lives of students .
In this presentation a theory in action will be presented as to how leaders of schools might democratize their institution from the inside out. Theoretical and practical sets of constructs with real-world examples will be provided as to how teachers, principals, students, parents, central office personnel, school boards, and community members can remake their schools for the betterment of a democratic society.

Author

• Ian Mette, University of Maine