School Leader's Role

The changing landscape of a culturally diverse society frames the complex dynamics now taking place in schools. Schools, as we know them today, require new leaders who are more amenable to change than their predecessors and able to manage the many adjustments required in staffing, curriculum, and instruction. The roles of school leaders, especially those of school principals, are being transformed as the effects of complex education policies are felt.

One critical organizational challenge facing school leaders today is bilingual education. Administrators who lead schools that serve large numbers of English language learners (ELLs) face a multitude of complex tasks. These tasks become especially complex where several languages other than English are present in the school. School administrators and their leadership teams bear much of the responsibility for managing diverse resources and encouraging others to adopt new avenues to school success. They must help select and implement new programs that work better than those of yesterday. Although schools are notoriously conservative institutions, the challenge of implementing a variety of new programs has given unprecedented importance to the idea of leading in a culture of change.

Professional organizations, practitioners, and experts on school leadership have examined the requirements these leaders must meet. This entry summarizes one such effort to pinpoint the characteristics of the new and more competent school leader. Members of the School Leadership Learning Community (a study group) held a meeting at the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) in Washington, D.C. Their objective was to address critical issues surrounding the preparation of school leaders and to identify concepts and practices that highlight new ideas about school leadership. At the close of their deliberations, five major themes emerged, encapsulating the most important topics discussed.

The participants agreed that, among the issues discussed, cultural competence deserved overriding [Page 729]concern and that not much difference exists between an effective leader and a culturally competent leader. They also agreed that without cultural competence, one cannot become an effective leader. The consensus was that school leaders increasingly need to be grounded in the issues, both overt and covert, related to race, culture, and the social differences that affect student learning, in all contexts—rural, urban, suburban—and in all settings, regardless of whether the populations are homogeneous or diverse.