Leadership During Change

Abstract

The national education system, similar to the Kansas education system, has seen little change since the 1800s(Throckmorton, 1967). In fact, over 50 years later, there have been few changes. Children come to school around the age of five to enter kindergarten and then move through the current system by age and grade level. These children sit in rows, are addressed by the expert teacher, are given information, and are expected to memorize and regurgitate the material in a standardized testing process. Schools in Kansas predominately open their doors in August and close in May (KSDE, 2018), perpetuating the long history of an educational system that spans almost 200 years. Moving a school system away from that dynamic is hard, and it is wrought with human challenges. What change needs to occur to meet the economic needs of the future? One major challenge to creating new learning environments is the lack of leadership at the individual school and district levels to help teachers feel safe and confident in making crucial classroom instructional changes (Bush, 2008).