Learning from School Leadership in Chile

Abstract

In many educational jurisdictions across a range of national boundaries policymakers consider the principalship to be a crucial lever for school reform and improvement. Focused attention on school leadership across the globe exists adjacent to and simultaneous with trends towards greater school based accountability, typically measured by test score results. But since different jurisdictions structure the principalship in the different ways a comparison across countries can help provide insight into the ways policymakers use investments in school leadership to promote certain policy goals and not others. In this paper I focus on the experience of Chile, first describing the peculiar structure of school leadership in Chile, namely a de facto co-principalship model that has concentrated instructional leadership responsibilities in the position of a “pedagogical chief” in the school. Next I analyze this administrative model in light of North American attempts to understand and balance “leadership” and “management” in schools. Finally, I conclude by suggesting a comparative research agenda focused on school leadership that could assist policymakers and practitioners alike seeking to make wise decisions about using scarce public resources to promote school improvement