School Turnaround in 10 Schools in Germany: School Leadership and Coordinated System Efforts as a Key to School Development

• In Event: 18.066 - Leadership and Coaching for School Turnaround

Abstract

This paper explores change processes in ten schools in difficult circumstances in a large city in Germany. All the schools take part in a school turnaround project initiated as a public-private partnership between the school authority and a well-established private foundation. The analysis is based on interviews and survey data from teachers, school leaders and support staff as well as interviews with the project leaders, local authorities, representatives from the central school authority and the Foundation. Findings show that well-functioning school leadership is a key for improvement in those schools. Moreover, problems connected to decision making and coordination of actions between different stakeholders are evident, which means that the problems do not only lie with the schools.

Authors

• Stephan Gerhard Huber, University of Teacher Education Zug

• Guri Skedsmo, University of Oslo