Trends and Issues: Roles of School Heads as Instructional Leader, Administrator and

Manager
By: Gilbert M. Forbes
DepEd Quezon, CALABARZON

As the Philippine Public Educational System draws near 2015 which is the deadline of
meeting Education for All goals (EFA), it is also marching towards the most demanding
ages of the 21st century- ‘behooving all educational leaders to reflect, analyze, plan and
take action in order to cope with multifaceted changes in the border-less marketplace’
(Delagoza 1996). This is regardless of the challenges, threats and internal problems
and issues that the educational system is experiencing, and the common orientation
that school managers’ position currently implies.

For this matter, effective school managers are expected to be academically goal
oriented and supervise instructional and co-curricular practices accordingly. They
motivate and support the teachers, encourage the community and other school
stakeholders to be involved in the educational program, and encourage participatory
decision making. They are also faced with the complex task of creating a school wide
vision, being an instructional leader- planning for effective professional development,
guiding teachers, handling discipline, attending important events and needs, and all the
other minute details that come with supervising and managing a school (Richard 2000).
The job of a school principal if not more demanding and difficult than an ordinary
teacher, is expected to be equal, hence “the quality of school principals as school
managers is a factor in improving the quality of education” (EDCOM 1992).

Various studies support the idea that ‘it is the leadership of the school that makes a
difference between mediocrity and excellence (Hugghes 1991). One can always point
to the principal’s leadership as the key to success of a school that is vibrant and has a
reputation of excellence in teaching. Indeed, the school manager is the keystone in the
building of effective schools. (Licuanan 1994) found that the nine positive outliner
schools or outstandingly effective schools in the country do have similarly effective
principals. There is a positively significant correlation between effective principals and
effective schools.

(Clemente 1996) emphasized the need to identify and develop education managers
fit to pilot schools into the 21st Century. In this light he gives the characteristics that
school managers should possess. The first characteristic is the capacity to contribute to
the academic performance, second the capacity to promote culture in a given academic
year, third, the capacity to promote sports, fourth, the capacity to manage limited
resources and the last, the capacity for innovation in academics, culture, sports and
resource management.

Leaders as Learners
 Even when schools are not actively in reform projects, principals and district
administrators find themselves confronting issues for which they have not been trained.
This may include demographic shifts, more rigorous academic standards, various
teacher’s behaviors, integration of special-needs students into regular classrooms, gang
and fraternal trouble, and even sexual harassment and molestation of students.

But no area better illustrates the challenges of unfamiliar ground than technology.
They find themselves being called to decide complex human and technical issues
(Andrew Trotter 1997). For this matter, they are increasingly defining themselves as
learners, not just doers, constantly scanning the environment for new ideas, tools, and
solutions. To do so, they must overcome numerous barriers: lack of time, insufficient
rewards, fear that visibly engaging in learning is an admission of imperfection, and
negative attitudes from previously poorly conceived professional development activities
(Roland Barth 1977). School systems can help overcome these obstacles by creating
learning opportunities that are reflective, collegial, unconventional, and principal
centered.

At the same time, the complexities of change require learning that is more than a solo
activity aimed at individual mastery. Instead, leaders must work to create “learning
communities” in which the entire school works together to solve the problems
confronting it (Shirley Hord 1997). Leaders create and sustain learning by sharing
decisions, nurturing a common vision, and providing support for staff learning. They
operate colegially, “leading from the center,” placing themselves physically and
psychologically among the teachers, stimulating discussion of teaching and learning at
every opportunity.

Manager as a Moral Leader

Leaders require followers, and some observers see signs that school leadership is
slowly losing its following. Administrators seem to get less respect than before. Due
possibly to certain factors as political intervention, leadership styles and practice, level
of intelligence and communication abilities, and the rumors on how and where he is able
to finish his graduate degree. In this way, lesser respect and at the outset no more
respect plus political attacks are becoming more common. Moreover, some thoughtful
critics argue that traditional public support is eroding, and that the public is “halfway out
the schoolhouse door” (David Mathews 1996). Whereas school leaders of long ago
inherited moral authority, today they have to earn it.

In part, moral authority comes from adherence to basic ethical principles such as
honesty, fairness, hard- work and compassion. For example, periodic reports or rumors
of “irregularities” in conducting district and division assessment tests or even national
tests such as NEAT and NSAT, corruption and even elicit affairs have raised questions
about administrative ethics (Bess Keller 1998); even when unproved, the allegations
undermine public faith in education. While there is no evidence that school leaders are
less ethical than other professionals, there is also no reason for complacency. In a
survey of superintendents in the U.S., William Fenstermaker (1996) found that when
given an ethical dilemma with a number of proposed solutions, over half chose a
response that would be considered unethical by their code of ethics. Fenstermaker
concluded that many administrators were either unaware of the ethical issues involved
or did not care. The same could also be true in the Philipppine setting although there’s
no available data or research yet that may disclose this possibility.

However, moral authority requires more than individual ethical excellence. Leaders
must create a consensus on purpose and practice that serves as the moral standard for
everyone in the school (Thomas Sergiovanni 1996) aside from the code of ethics being
implemented to all. By continually raising questions and purpose, institutionalizing
shared values, and motivating others by example, school leader establish a “moral
voice” that infuses the school community. Sergiovanni argues that principals go astray
when they treat their schools as formal organizations rather than as living communities.
Research by Susan Moore Johnson (1998) similarly suggests that educational
leadership be built on virtues such as honesty and respect. She found that new
superintendents established their credibility by initially listening and learning before
making judgments or imposing solutions.

Responding to Challenges and other Issues

So far, school leaders in the first world and in the newly industrialized countries seem
to be responding to the new challenges by simply working harder. Principals in these
countries become enslaved to the job’s daily demands, responding to each crisis as it
occurs, kept off balance by “the constant bombardment of new tasks and the continual
interruptions” (Michael Fullan 1998). As a result, there was a big turn- over. A study of
elementary and middle school principals conducted by the National Association of
School Principals in the U.S. in 1998 found that 42 percent turnover that has existed
during the last ten years is likely to continue into the next decade (Doud and Keller
1998). They point to many factors that make the principalship highly stressful: long
hours of work- for most, a 60 to 80- hour work a week, workload and complexity of job,
supervision of evening activities “unending,” minimal pay difference between the top
teacher and administrator, feeling overwhelmed with very high expectations, state and
district mandates that require “mountains” of paperwork, and increasingly complex
society and social problems. The increasing demands of the position can cause many
principals to feel the stress is not worth it.

The situation in the Philippines is quite different. While it is expected that majority of
the school principals at present are about to leave their positions, it isn’t because of the
stress as a result of increasing demands in their positions as instructional leader and
manager but because they are retiring. At present being a school administrator is still
seen as the easiest way out for teachers especially the master teachers to escape the
demands and stress of being a classroom teacher even when it will mean a decrease
on their monthly pay. Not to include here is the honor and prestige that goes with being
a school leader as well as the unstressful nature of the job as they might think it to be.
This is thereby seen as the motivating factor of the relatively higher number of graduate
students taking up graduate education in school management and administration. The
1994- 95 data on graduate enrollment shows that 43.8% of the total enrollment was in
teacher education. The doctoral level is far higher having a share of 62.6% (Garcia
1996). Thus, it is predicted to increase further encouraging the proliferation of ‘diploma
mill’ type of institutions and unqualified graduates. From this vantage, it appears that
their ability to respond to new challenges is questionable; hence, “it is preposterous to
think of a bureaucracy manned by full-fledged MA’s and Ph.D’s who know little about
their disciplines”(Angel Alcala 1996). Given the fact that the kind of school
management being employed by our school managers is far beyond compare with
those in progressive countries, it is not surprising that there is still much to be desired
when it comes to quality.

In so doing, DepEd has implemented the merit system for those who will be moving
to the administrative and leadership ladder. However, still quiet a big weight is given to
graduate educational qualifications. But at least, it has equalized the opportunity
particularly for those performing school managers viz their not so much performing
counterparts who have already completed their graduate studies.

Along the way there are many efficient leaders who seem to be searching for the right
balance between managing and leading. Cascadden found that, these principals
recognized and accepted both functions as essential but reported that the reform
movement was squeezing them between contradictory demands. On the one hand,
restructuring has pushed more management decisions to the school site; on the other
hand, the current management theories emphasized the importance of empowering
leadership. This creates an obvious time crunch, as well as the challenge of being both
efficient and collaborative- in a system that retains a top-down orientation. In the
country however, the situations mentioned already support the reason why top-down
orientation still remains and quite slow to transform itself on the new principles of
leadership and management through empowerment. But then, it is also good to review
and reform the management functions of the present and future breed of school
managers to make them more productive, dynamic and efficient like their counterparts
in various part of the world. They should be made ready to meet the challenges of this
constantly changing world particularly now in the face of the effective implementation of
School Based Management (SBM).