While administrators' visions tend to focus on district- or school-
wide instructional issues, teachers' visions tend to address teacher
roles and student outcomes
Teachers' vision
also included school changes that would result in more participatory
and decision- making roles for teachers.
Vision, a critical leadership characteristic, is also a trait
of successful executive educators
"leadership requires a vision. Without a vision to challenge
followers with, there's no possibility of a principal being a leader"
The relationship between the teachers' and administrators' vision
is important.
Administrators' vision tends to encompass the whole
system or as described by Manasse (1986) their vision is an organizational
vision. Teachers' vision appear to focus primarily on the individual
or personal actions for school change
vision is "based on personal or personalized
professional values"
"visionary leadership
demands a clear sense of personal and organizational values"
The
first value Aplin identified was that the instructional programs
were "the highest priority of the system and decisions were assessed
as to whether they enhanced or threatened it"
The second
value this superintendent had was "equity in person relationships
and instructional decisions
"Practices of delegation,
teaming, flexibility of process and incremental planning with extensive
communication" (p. 11) was the third valu
"The
fourth value held was the need to retain a high level of local control
.The fifth value disclosed was his belief that the quality of
decision is improved if there has been free and honest disclosure
among interested parties"
"the
specific value that each superintendent seemed to exemplify was
simply 'the children come first'"
This loyalty includes
a keen understanding of the community's values as well as consistent
participation in community activities.
while there was little difference between the
activities of effective and ineffective principals, the meanings
they attributed to their activities were significantly different.
They found
that personal background factors, such as type of education, and
organizational factors, such as school size, were more important
than values.
"Principals in the high-SES effective schools expected
an academic emphasis and task orientations in classrooms but encouraged
teachers to implement a broad curriculum. Their counterparts in
the low-SES effective schools implemented a more narrowly defined
curriculum and allocated more time for basic skill instruction"
"The primary rewards for most
teachers come from students' academic accomplishments -- from feeling
certain about their own capacity to affect student development"
Hallinger and Murphy (1986) reported
that even when the low wealth schools were achieving, teachers'
expectations were lower than those for students at wealthier schools;
they believed they had minimal parental support and therefore assigned
less homework and stressed the basic curriculum.
Differences in
curricular and instructional practices suggest that the manner in
which staff implement curriculum and instruction is filtered through
their perceptions, beliefs and expectations concerning student ability
and community background
Effective superintendents believe that
students come first; effective principals believe in meeting the
instructional needs of the students. Teachers value working with
students and believe that they have an impact on their achievement.
They have the shared belief that students' learning is of primary
importance. The literature revealed that these individuals' also
shared a common value. They valued the human resources -- the contributions,
talents, and efforts -- of others in their organization.
