Internationally Recognized Educator Calls for School Reform
Posted on July 21, 2010
School leadership and structures must be changed to reflect the needs of students in the 21st century, Dr. David Hargreaves said during a lecture on July 12 sponsored by the doctoral program in educational leadership at the College of Saint Elizabeth.
Dr. Hargreaves, associate director for Development and Research, Specialist Schools and Academies Trust and Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge, England, is known internationally for his work on transforming schools. Dr. Hargreaves said that we need new insight into leadership to better serve students who function in a world of instant communication, internet access and the web environment.
“Structures created during the industrial age just don’t work today,” he said. Students’ current needs, combined with the severe budget cuts seen in the United Kingdom and New Jersey for education, will prompt interesting changes.
“Our situations are very much alike,” he told the audience. “We in the United Kingdom have funding cuts of 25 to 40 percent, which has never happened before. We are thinking hard about the costs of education.”
Some changes underway appear to be producing results. In the UK, he has seen a movement toward more empowerment and responsibility for principals; more accountability for teachers with implementation of merit pay and dissolution of seniority; and, more cooperation between schools in family-type structures.
It is the family-type structures comprised of chains or clusters of schools that seem to best serve students’ needs. Dr. Hargreaves explained that schools have begun to align themselves in family-like systems to better serve students needs, encourage cooperation as opposed to competition, and offer more course diversity and professional satisfaction for teachers. Those family-like alliances can be based on location, similar interests, parallel grade levels or philosophy.
“I don’t believe any one school can meet all students’ needs,” Hargreaves explained. Family-type alliances have a better chance to educate students since they allow movement within the families, both for students and staff; promote shared resources, innovation and support; discourage competition; and protect school members. The goal is success for all family members, not competition.
Previous years’ speakers for the doctoral program include Dr. Margaret Wheatley and Dr. Kent Keith, both supporters of servant leadership and well-known authors on the topic.
The three-year doctoral program in educational leadership began at CSE in August 2007. A new cohort, or learning group, for the program started this month.
