Conference Agenda

This symposium aims to explore the contemporary evidence and insights surrounding the improvement of underperforming schools and those facing challenging circumstances, with a particular focus on the critical role of leadership and the effectiveness of interventions.

Underperforming schools and those facing challenging circumstances often require local or national interventions due to difficulties in meeting acceptable performance levels, managing school development processes and facing scrutiny.

Due to their location and the composition of the student body, schools in challenging circumstances face more difficult conditions and are particularly challenged. Serving a high proportion of students from non-privileged family situations (usually measured by the educational attainment and financial circumstances of the parents), these poorer socio-economic circumstances are often associated with special compensatory services provided by the school. In addition, schools in challenging circumstances have different organizational quality characteristics (e.g., Author, 2020).

When quality characteristics differ, schools need external support. To be able to face these different problem and stress constellations of particularly challenged schools, it is therefore necessary to take a differentiated view of the stress characteristics as well as different school development and support approaches, which are based on the specific needs of the schools (e.g., Author, 2017).

The necessary additional support from the system can be provided within the framework of professionalization and advisory services. The range of support measures can vary, including leadership development through training and further education, process consulting and coaching offers, and providing additional resources in the form of time, equipment, and funding.

The symposium addresses this complex issue through four papers from the UK, the USA and Germany.

The first paper examines the importance of school leadership in the turnaround process of underperforming schools and explores its influence on school improvement through a review of evidence from 2010-2020. The paper provides insights on current research and generates seven key themes based on the selected evidence, that related specifically to the leadership in the improvement of underperforming schools.

The second paper examines school improvement planning in the context of underperforming schools in the United States. It investigates the mechanisms and effectiveness of the University Leadership Development Program (ULDP) which is an in-service program that partners with school districts to provide both district-level leaders and school principals of underperforming schools with joint professional learning services.

The third paper investigates the development and implementation of leadership pipelines in the United States which operate to identify and prepare candidates for school leadership positions to address shortages in the education profession, especially hard to staff schools. The mixed methods study provides insights on the effectiveness and the relevancy of leadership pipelines.

The fourth paper presents a mixed methods longitudinal study assessing the quality and benefits of a support program for schools facing challenging circumstances. The study assesses the impact of interventions on school leadership, development, and overall quality and highlights the importance of coherent and persistent interventions which also consider the school context for successful changes in the school quality.

The symposium will discuss the role of leadership for school turnaround, the effectiveness of school development programs, necessary conditions for successful implementation, and practical implications with the plenary.

Overall, this symposium seeks to contribute valuable insights into enhancing school improvement efforts in underperforming schools and those facing challenging circumstances. By focusing on effective leadership and evidence-based interventions, attendees will gain a deeper understanding of the strategies and approaches necessary to drive positive change and foster educational success in challenging contexts.

The international evidence base concerning the improvement of schools considered to be underperforming is diverse and wide-ranging. Schools that fail to meet acceptable levels of performance, often measured in standardised ways, regularly fall under scrutiny and frequently are in receipt of local or national interventions (Brown & Malin, 2022). This paper reviews the contemporary evidence (2010-2020) to ascertain how far leadership remains a critical factor in the turnaround process. This paper draws upon a selected evidence base to explore the influence of leadership on the improvement of underperforming schools. The review process involved identifying, screening, and selecting 19 articles, 16 books, and 10 reports related to the topic. The findings emphasise the critical role of leadership in addressing the complex issues faced by underperforming schools as the key resource for improvement. The paper offers a current lens on leading the improvement of underperforming schools and adds to the knowledge base by providing seven new themes based on the evidence considered. Collectively, these seven themes reflect the way that leadership is understood and enacted within schools that are underperforming. Based on the evidence, implications for policy, research, and leadership practice are derived and discussed.

Brown, C., & Malin, J. R. (Eds.). (2022). The Emerald Handbook of Evidence-Informed Practice in Education: Learning from International Contexts. Emerald Publishing Limited.

School turnaround and related policy in the United States have emphasized school improvement planning as a key mechanism for the leaders of underperforming schools to radically improve their organizations and increase student performance (Mintrop et al., 2001). Principals have developed school improvement plans (SIPs), however, mostly to comply with federal and local policy (Author, 2022), resulting in satisficing behaviors (Simon, 1957) in which they do enough to meet reporting expectations but not to engage in authentic efforts to change (Author, 2019). The University Leadership Development Program (ULDP) is an in-service program that partners with school districts to provide both district-level leaders and school principals of underperforming schools with joint professional learning services spanning approximately 2.5 years. Despite evidence of impact on student achievement (Herman et al., 2019; Player & Katz, 2016), the mechanisms of ULDP remain understudied. Combining multiple strands of research on ULDP, I draw on more than 300 SIPs, 50 interviews, and 100 hours of observations of district leaders and school principals to report on how successfully partnering district and school leaders effectively leverage SIPs together to build cohesion across levels; strategically identify, garner, and leverage resources and supports for underperforming schools; and incorporate leader coaching and guidance through a shared focus on achieving SIP goals. I conclude that for SIPs to be a lever to improve underperforming schools, district leaders and school principals must intentionally and collaboratively develop SIPs and maintain focused, ongoing coaching relationships centred on completing them and making necessary, ongoing adjustments to them.

Author. (2019). Author. (2022). Herman R., Gates, S. M., Arifkhanova, A., et al. (2019). School leadership interventions under the every student succeeds act: Evidence review. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1550-3.html Mintrop, H., MacLellan, A. M., & Quintero, M. F. (2001). School improvement plans in schools on probation: a comparative content analysis across three accountability systems. Educational Administration Quarterly, 37(2), 197-218. https://doi.org/10.1177/00131610121969299 Player, D., & Katz, V. (2016). Assessing school turnaround: Evidence from Ohio. The Elementary School Journal, 116(4), 675–698. https://doi.org/10.1086/686467 Simon, H.A. (1957), Models of man, Wiley.

Teacher shortages, exacerbated and heightened by the pandemic, not only impact classrooms but have implications for the future of school leadership as well. Leadership pipelines operate to systematically identify and prepare candidates who are equipped to step into the principalship (Gates, et al, 2019). The objective of this paper is to examine the development and implementation of leadership pipelines to address shortages in the education profession, especially hard to staff schools. Leadership pipelines typically work towards alignment among seven domains: leader standards, high quality pre-service principal preparation, selective hiring and placement, on the job evaluation and support, principal supervision, leader tracking data systems, and systems and capacity to support and sustain principal pipelines. The paper is rooted in the literature on distract capacity for complex change that articulates the capacity for ongoing learning in central office settings, staffing expertise, and strategic leadership (Russell & Sabina, 2014, Farrell & Coburn, 2017; Honig, 2018). Mixed methods are used to analyze the development of leadership pipelines in a sample 60 districts across the United States who participated in an initiative to plan, develop and implement principal pipelines. We collected and analyzed survey data from 376 central office and interview data from 86 central office leaders. Findings suggest that district leaders viewed pipelines as critical for school effectiveness and school improvement, providing districts with multiple avenues to identify, hire, develop, and support future leaders. Pipelines not only included pathways for future principals, but assistant principals, teacher leaders, and others. Second, we found that many district leaders noted the importance of using pipelines as a strategy to address equity and diversity, through the recruitment and retention of leaders of color. Third, we found that a range of factors inhibited or supported the development and sustainability of leadership pipelines, such as superintendent support and stability, central office culture and structures, communication and collaboration across departments, and the larger context of a district.

Farrell, C. C., Coburn, C. E., & Chong, S. (2019). Under what conditions do school districts learn from external partners? The role of absorptive capacity. American Educational Research Journal, 56(3), 955–994. Gates, S. M., Baird, M. D., Master, B. K., & Chavez-Herrerias, E. R. (2019). Principal pipelines: A feasible, affordable, and effective way for districts to improve schools. (RR-2666-WF). ERIC. Honig, M. I., & Hatch, T. C. (2004). Crafting coherence: How schools strategically manage multiple, external demands. Educational Researcher, 33(8), 16–30. Russell, J. L., & Sabina, L. L. (2014). Planning for principal succession: A conceptual framework for research and practice. Journal of School Leadership, 24(4), 599-639.

This paper examines the quality and benefits of a support program for schools offering various interventions and their impact on school leadership, school development and school quality in schools in challenging circumstances. This five-year longitudinal mixed methods study is based on a sample of around 150 schools in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Over a period of three years, half of the schools experienced further measures to professionalize school leadership (e.g., coaching of school leaders, continuous professional development program) and support school development (additional financial resources, school development consultancy). The analyses are built on two different surveys of staff and school leaders on the work situation and on the interventions assessed each program year. In addition to a descriptive evaluation of the quality assessments of staff and school leaders, regression analyses are conducted to examine the impact of specific program components on selected school quality characteristics during the program period. Since the program was implemented at the school level, the analyses were conducted accordingly. Using a comparison group design, it is possible to compare the changes in project schools and comparison schools and relate them to the program components. To capture changes in schools based on questionnaire data, the effect size Cohen's d (Cohen, 1988) was calculated, which relates to the practical relevance of the results. The results of the study show the very positive assessment of the program’s quality and benefits and its positive consequences on the organization’s quality. The regression analyses demonstrate that positively perceived outcome qualities of the interventions are associated with improvements in numerous dimensions of school quality, such as cooperative leadership. For example: The school members’ positive perception of the benefits (β = .26**) and achieved goals (β = .28**) as well as their perception of an increase in competence development (β = .25**), behavioral (β = .27**) and organizational (β = .15*) change through the school’s work with a process consultancy for school development is associated with an improved coordination of action of the steering group as perceived by the employees. Furthermore, the effect sizes indicate that most schools involved in the program showed better development over time than the comparison schools. Overall, the findings provide evidence for the effectiveness of school development programs on school leadership and school improvement. Based on these results, the interventions will be discussed in terms of their effects and the necessary conditions for successful implementation, along with their practical implications.

Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203771587