School Leadership And Educational Effectiveness: Lithuanian Case In Comparative Perspective

Abstract

This paper examines the links betweenstudent learning and school leadership focusingon Lithuania in comparative perspective.Different aspects of school leadership areas arebeing outlined, but after a more thorough analysisof the educational effectiveness perspective, itseems that the direct link between principal andstudent achievement is not that clear. In order toexplain this, we further analysed the role whichschool autonomy plays in effective leadershipand found that different countries chose differentlevels of power distribution. After revealingdiversity in meta-analyses and reviews about theexisting effect sizes of school decentralization welooked into different tasks on which school headsspend their time, and noticed that instructionalleadership is most effective in adding value tostudent achievement. What exactly counts as instructionalleadership is debated and may changedepending on context. The presumption thatleadership and school effectiveness are related,could be valid only if school accountability andautonomy particularities are taken into account,therefore the reforms in selection, recruitmentand training of school heads could be expectedto drive effectiveness of education systems onlyas far as the right balance of the three (accountability,autonomy, leadership) are found.