Session Information
26 SES 13 A, Links Between Educational Leadership and Teachership
Paper Session
Contribution
This study investigates relation between principal’s leadership and teachers’ collaboration in a context of school accountability policies implemented in the state of Ceará in the Northeast of Brazil since 2007. Despite having one of the lowest Gini Index of the Northeast Region of Brazil, the state of Ceará has reached the highest results in the national external evaluations in the last years. In Brazil, studies on the impact of school accountability policies are still rare and in many times inconclusive, especially on how different accountability incentives and pressures influence school practices in different contexts. In the Brazilian federal system, each municipality and state may autonomously develop its own educational assessment system and school accountability policies. This paper analyzes the impact the school-based accountability program implemented in the State of Ceará and provides evidence on the effects of the incentives on school practices, focusing in particular principal’s leadership – as perceived by faculty - and teachers’ collaboration.
The State of Ceará, has adopted, since 2009, school-based accountability and school improvement programs focusing schools that offer the first grades of elementary education. The program intends to bring a results-based incentive by rewarding, every year, the 150 highest performing schools. According to the program design, school higher in the ranking are deemed effective and the targets commonly seen as unfeasible for most schools. On the other hand, the State Government also provides a positive intervention by means of a financial assistance to the 150 lowest performing schools. Those schools also receive technical support from high performing schools. Nonetheless, supported schools are only entitled to receive the second part of financial aid if they increase their performance in standardized tests in the following year.
The paper discusses to what point the school accountability policy of the State of Ceará actually recognizes and rewards the schools that develop and maintain the best management practices or only those that have a higher average SES. For the low performing schools that receive the financial support as an incentive to make changes, the study aims to investigate whether these changes really take place in what refers to leader’s practices, leadership recognition by faculty and teachers’ collaboration practices.
Extensive international literature has been pointing out that educational results are positively related to principals´ leadership and teachers’ collaboration practices. On the other hand, many studies claim that when principals are recognized as leaders by the faculty and staff they may influence teachers’ commitment to collaborative work and to improve students’ results. Nevertheless, not many studies, especially in Brazil, have been carried out on to what extent school accountability policies may influence those internal relations and intra-school factors that affect students’ academic results. On the other hand, several studies on educational leadership, principal-teachers relationship and school organizational climate, repeatedly point out the relevance of principals’ leadership to mediate the policy ‘translation’ into school practices – as teachers’ collaboration for example - that may lead to improve school results targeted by accountability policies.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
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