Summary
Contents
Subject index
Written by leading academics, this volume provides an overview of key contemporary themes in educational leadership. It focuses on developing professional capacity, organizational improvement and the implementation of change, looking at theoretical frameworks and concepts, recent research studies, and case examples of effective practice.
Divided into three parts, the book covers: Leading learning and learner leadership, including the relationship between leadership and student learning, international research and notions of student voice; Change processes, considering distributed leadership, resources to support learning, and the links between accountability and organizational improvement; Leading professional development for educational contexts including: concepts of professional identities; formal, informal and alternative forms of professional learning and development; and professional communities of practice
Designed to encourage critical analysis and debate, this volume will be a useful resource for graduate and professional development courses in educational leadership and for practitioners. It is a companion to Educational Leadership: Context, Strategy and Collaboration, also published by Sage.
Managing Resources to Support Learning
Managing Resources to Support Learning
This chapter concerns the management of resources within educational institutions in order to obtain the best feasible student learning outcomes. Given this stance, the chapter adopts the rational perspective that the purpose of educational resource management is to maximise student learning within given resource constraints. It is, of course, acknowledged that other management and organisational models, such as natural systems, collegial, political and ambiguity (see Bush, 2000), often explain actual management practice better than the rational model. However, as the purpose of this chapter is to inform educational leaders who wish to act rationally in using resources efficiently and equitably, this normative perspective is adopted. The chapter aims to introduce educational leaders/managers to what is known from research evidence about the relationship between resources and student learning. The evidence of only a weak relationship between resources and learning in practice, and of variability in the efficiency of educational institutions, points to the importance of many other factors than the quantity or mix of resources in determining student attainment.
The chapter starts by defining key terms. In section 2 the context–input–process–output model of how resources are linked to student learning is outlined. Many factors mediate the relationship between resources and student learning. One is the degree of decentralisation of educational decision-making which, having started in developed countries (Caldwell, 2005), has continued to spread globally since the late 1990s, being advocated by the World Bank for transition and developing countries (World Bank, 2003). Decentralisation is a prerequisite for educational leaders at institutional level being empowered to manage resources. The third section sets out the main criteria for judging the allocation of resources for public services – efficiency, equity and adequacy. Evidence on the relationship between the amount and mix of resources and student learning is summarised in section 4. Finally, given what we know about the resource-learning relationship, section 5 examines how resource allocation decisions can be made in order best to support learning.
Source – An edited version of Levačić, R. (2010) ‘Managing resources to support learning’.
1 Resources in Education: Defining Terms
Resources are both ‘real’ and ‘monetary’. Real resources are the actual inputs into the education process and are subdivided into human resources and material resources. The main categories of human resources are teachers, and non-teaching staff, subdivided into management and administration, student support staff and technical staff (such as those maintaining building services). Other personnel-related resources are expenditures on services, such as payroll and recruitment, and the professional development of staff. Material resources are subdivided into those used directly in learning – materials, stationery, books, equipment, software, communication charges and extension activities such as school trips – and those used indirectly to support learning. This second group of material resources is required to sustain the physical environment in which teaching and learning occurs, mainly the cost of buildings and servicing them. A further distinction is between recurrent resources and capital. In principle, recurrent resources are those which need replacing at least annually, such as the services of staff, cleaning, and stationery, and capital resources are those that last longer than a year. In practice such a clear distinction is not drawn, as expenditures on books and equipment, which last longer than a year, are usually classified as recurrent. So is expenditure on professional development, even though it is really an investment in the stock of knowledge and skills possessed by staff.
...
- Loading...
Get a 30 day FREE TRIAL
-
Watch videos from a variety of sources bringing classroom topics to life -
Read modern, diverse business cases
-
Explore hundreds of books and reference titles
Read next
More like this
Sage Recommends
We found other relevant content for you on other Sage platforms.
Have you created a personal profile? Login or create a profile so that you can save clips, playlists and searches