Download Title: Working to sustain change: An examination of teacher

Title: Working to sustain change: An examination of teacher leadership and its role in
promoting organizational learning within three urban turnaround schools.
Purpose of the study:
There is growing body of literature recognizing teacher leadership as one of the
key factors to improving schools (Brooks, Scribner, & Eferakorho, 2004; Frost &
Durrant, 2002, 2003; Harris 2003, 2004, 2005a, 2005b, 2007; Smylie, 1995). This study
suggests that the core of school improvement lies within a school’s ability to build
organizational capacity and ultimately thrive as successful learning organizations. This
can be measured through the examination of school culture, in particular through the
work of teacher leaders. This study attempts to discover the ways in which teacher
leadership builds organizational capacity in failing schools. Using both distributed
leadership and organizational learning theories, this study seeks an in-depth
understanding of teacher leaders’ experiences and how they contribute to the
development of turnaround schools as learning organizations and how schools support
the work of teacher leaders in an effort to promote organizational capacity. This study is
supported by the proposition that organizational learning is a sign of successful school
turnaround, and teacher leaders play a key role in creating a climate conducive to such
learning.
This study is guided by one primary research question:
 In what ways, if any, does teacher leadership facilitate the learning of turnaround
schools as organizations?
Theoretical Framework:
To guide this study, both distributed leadership and organizational learning
theories are applied to unpack teacher leadership and its contribution to organizational
learning within turnaround schools. Distributed leadership theory allows researchers to
study the complexity surrounding leadership within schools. Spillane, Diamond, & Jita
(2003) argue that, “school leadership is best understood as a distributed practice,
stretched over the school’s social and situational contexts” (p. 535). Thus, the study of
leadership practice includes understanding the way it is distributed over leaders,
followers, and the situation in which it takes place. Fundamentally, distributed leadership
is the study of the relationship between the individual (agency) and how he/she navigates
within the multiple structures of an organization (Spillane, Halverson, & Diamond,
2004). For teacher leaders within turnaround schools, the extent to which they can exert
agency given the confines of turnaround structures is largely unknown. In this study,
distributed leadership theory will provide a lens to examine the degree to which
turnaround structures allow for teacher leadership agency to emerge within the
organization through the study of a specific leadership task that occurs within each
school.
As mentioned previously, I am proposing that organizational learning is a sign of
successful school turnaround. Organizational learning theory provides a lens to analyze
the ways in which each leadership task is working to promote organizational learning
within schools. Senge (1990) claims that what lies at the heart of understanding
management situations is understanding its “dynamic complexity” (p. 72). This theory
enables one to understand such workings of an organization. Five specific skills common
to organizational learning developed by Garvin (1993) will be used as indicators to
evaluate each of the leadership tasks within three schools in this study: systematic
problem solving, experimentation, learning from past experience, learning from others,
and transferring knowledge.
Methods:
I am using an embedded cross-site case study design as my research method. In
this study, I am looking at specific instances of a single leadership task being enacted by
teacher leaders that may be indicative of organizational learning and signs of overall
school improvement. A case study design allows me to capture the complexity
embedded in my research questions. I am working to understand the school as a complete
organism, one that may or may not show signs of organizational learning. At the same
time I am trying to understand how exactly the people within the organism-- in this case
teachers-- are working on a micro-level to enact such learning through their work. Thus
the case study enables me to study the relationship between the individuals and
organization on multiple levels.
Data Sources:
In-depth interviewing is used in this study. My focus is to gain an understanding
of a “range of settings, situations [and] people,” enabling me to interview a rather large
amount of people in a short amount of time (Taylor & Bogdan, 1998, p. 90).
Additionally document analysis is going to be used “as a means of triangulation”
(Bowen, 2009, p. 28). Document analysis serves “mostly as a complement to other
research methods” (Bowen, 2009, p. 29). Documents collected may include but are not
limited to school goals or plans, organizational documents, meeting agendas and minutes,
school reports and records, newspaper articles, and inquiry projects and will be requested
of the participant and/or administration at each school. Finally, surveys are the
quantitative component to my research and will be used in the initial phase of the
research process to identify teacher leaders in each of the schools.
Results and/or conclusions:
At this point my research is in the preliminary stages of implementation and
results are not available at this point in time.
Educational significance of this study:
This study will contribute to the growing body of literature on school turnarounds.
While there have been successful school turnarounds across the country, many of the
reports merely list the actions taken by the school that contributed to success. This study
utilizes distributed leadership theory and organizational learning theory as lenses to
understand the intricacies involved when teacher leaders work to promote a culture of
organizational learning within schools. For policy makers at the district and state level, it
is my hope that this study evokes an awareness of the significance of analyzing
organizational learning as an indicator of school improvement in the hopes of
encouraging a more comprehensive means to understanding this facet of school culture as
a primary factor in sustained school improvement.
References
Bowen, G.A. (2009). Document Analysis as a Qualitative Research Method. Qualitative
Research Journal, 9(2), 27-40.
Brooks, J., Scribner, J.P., & Eferakorho, J. (2004). Teacher leadership in the Context of
Whole School Reform. Journal of School Leadership, 14, 242-265.
Frost, D. & Durrant, J. (2002). Teachers as Leaders: exploring the impact of teacher-led
development work. School Leadership &Management, 22 (2), 143-161.
Frost, D. & Durrant, J. (2003). Teacher Leadership: rationale, strategy and impact. School
Leadership & Management, 23 (2), 173-186.
Garvin, D. (1993). Building a Learning Organization. Harvard Business Review, 78-91.
Harris, A. (2003). Teacher leadership as distributed leadership: heresy, fantasy or
possibility? School Leadership and Management, 23(3), 313-324.
Harris, A. (2004). Distributed Leadership and School Improvement: Leading or
Misleading? Educational management Administration &Leadership, 32(1), 11-24.
Harris, A. (2005a). Leading or misleading? Distributed leadership and school
improvement. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 37(3), 255-265.
Harris, A. (2005b). Teacher Leadership: More than Just a Feel-Good Factor?
Leadership and Policy in Schools, 4, 201-219.
Harris, A. (2007). Distributed leadership: conceptual confusion and empirical reticence.
International Journal of Leadership in Education, 10(3), 315-325.
Senge, P. M. (1990). The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning
Organization. New York: Doubleday.
Spillane, J.P., Diamond, J. B., & Jita, L. (2003). Leading instruction: the distribution of
leadership for instruction. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 35(5), 533-543.
Spillane, J.P., Halverson, R. & Diamond, J.B. (2004). Towards a theory of leadership
practice: a distributed perspective. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 36(1), 3-34.
Taylor, S.J. & Bogdan, R. (1998). Introduction to Qualitative Research Methods (3rd
Edition). New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.