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Find more Kappan articles in the Subscribe today to access complete current issues online! Elephants or Dinosaurs? A Call to Action for Ed Schools To conclude this special section, guest editor Murphy examines why Ed Schools should redesign their leadership education programs, explores what it will take to foster change, and presents a model program to stimulate debate and action. IN THIS SPECIAL section of the Kappan, 14 scholars and practitioners have taken a fresh look at the education of principals, superintendents, and other educational leaders, with a special focus on redesigning leadership programs at universities. These articles offer an exciting array of ideas for reforming leadership education as Ed Schools feel the pinch of recent critiques and new competitors. New ideas clearly matter, but will they be enough of a catalyst for change? Are Ed Schools open to fresh thinking? And do their denizens feel the sense of urgency typically required to propel organizational change? Frankly, I am not sanguine about widespread reform. I don't believe that the external pressure for change is sufficiently intense to force action, particularly in universities where the introduction of rigorous programs would mean fewer students and less money. These disincentives -- combined with the absence of a public outcry for stronger leaders and of powerful constituencies pressing for quality -- suggest that most Ed Schools will sit out the dance. They have done so before. Ed Schools resemble elephants -- slow stepping and hard to budge. In the absence of overwhelming external pressure, is it possible to get these elephants to dance in new ways?1 What will it take to rouse them to action? What might their new steps look like? What's at stake? I address these questions below and present a more optimistic viewpoint about the possibility of at least some Ed Schools instituting significant change. Even though the current ferment might not be enough to force action, I argue that an opportunity exists for forward-looking Ed Schools to overhaul their offerings and, more important, to address their declining influence. I suggest new ways to dance by offering a template for a leadership program that synthesizes some of the best thinking to be found in this special section and elsewhere. I certainly do not intend to present the way to prepare leaders -- context always matters, and different programs are required for different stages in leaders' careers. I also recognize that some of the ideas presented here are controversial; they may fit some universities but be ill suited for others. I present a possible model in order to stimulate debate and encourage action, especially in those research-oriented universities that are inclined to self-examination and reform. Finally, I contend that substantial reform depends heavily on the organizational capacity of Ed Schools to "learn" their way to reform and, most of all, on their exercising leadership to make it all happen. What's at Stake? In my view, the current ferment in leadership education is symptomatic of a deeper and bigger problem that deserves serious attention: namely, the declining influence of many Ed Schools. If they don't seize the moment, they risk becoming marginalized and irrelevant. Indeed, if these slow-stepping elephants fail to dance in new ways, they may just morph into dinosaurs. The decline in the influence of Ed Schools has its roots in three enduring difficulties that have recently become more troublesome. First, Ed Schools have long been burdened by low status within the academy,2 but things have gotten worse lately. As school reform continues to sputter and as frustration grows, Ed Schools are increasingly blamed for not making much of a dent. Fairly or not, critics now regularly ask, "If Ed Schools are so good, why are the public schools so bad?" Second, Ed Schools are very much isolated within the universities. Going it alone worked fine when public education was a back-burner issue, but school reform has become a hot topic on campus today, and faculty members across the university are engaged in the debate. Ignorant of the good work of many Ed Schools, it is easy for newcomers to blame them for the unsolved problems facing so many public schools. Lacking bonds of colleagueship, it's easy for collaborations that pursue new interdisciplinary approaches to fail. And absent evidence that Ed Schools are doing something special, it's easy for eager beavers from other, higher-prestige graduate schools to conclude that the simplest thing to do would be to take over the work. The most important factor in the decline of Ed School influence is the tenuous connection between "Ed School priorities" and the real world of educational practice. Instead of enhancing their expertise in staffing and improving the schools, many Ed Schools have sought academic respectability by emphasizing the preparation of researchers and by promoting discipline-based research that has little to do directly with the improvement of practice. It is hardly surprising that Ed Schools are increasingly attacked for irrelevance. The challenge for Ed Schools is to establish and sustain three things: 1) a carefully balanced dual teaching mission of preparing researchers and practitioners in redesigned programs that reflect the demands of the times; 2) a research agenda that is truly designed to inform and improve practice;3 and 3) open lines of communication between their discipline-oriented and profession-oriented faculty members -- a change that Herbert Simon advocated and likened to the challenge of mixing oil and water.4 In this context, a high-profile, interdisciplinary leadership program would not only offer a response to the leadership problem, but it could also enhance Ed School influence by:
In short, the stakes are high, and good reasons abound for Ed Schools to develop new models of leadership education that respond to the demands of the times. Administrative Leaders for Learning What might one such model program look like? Let us imagine the features of a hypothetical initiative called Administrative Leaders for Learning -- ALL for short. ALL's mission would be to develop a corps of exceptional leaders for tomorrow's schools, with a special focus on serving youths in underserved school systems. ALL would seek to educate leaders who can mobilize others and bring out their best, not lone-wolf saviors who provide top-down answers. The program would be built on high expectations for all students, a deep commitment to dramatically improving their learning, and a laser-like focus on the improvement of instruction. This emphasis on learning and instruction would be pursued in the context of connecting the work of schools with the broader communities they serve.6 The ALL program would work to attract talented, committed, and creative participants -- the best and the brightest -- to administrative leadership; it would immerse them in a unique educational experience and forge a network of influential graduates. ALL would also attempt to influence the development of leadership education at other research-oriented universities. ALL's defining characteristics would be:
Participants. ALL's participants would have several things in common: a record of noteworthy administrative accomplishment and a commitment to the purposes, core values, and beliefs of the program. They would envision careers as top administrative leaders in education, as distinct from leadership roles as researchers, analysts, or educational specialists. The participants would also differ in important ways. Some would be educators, while others would be career-switchers. (I believe that prior experience as a teacher should be required of principals, though managers from business or the military can be effective in other positions -- if they first develop a deep understanding of the education sector.) Some would seek established positions (e.g., as public school superintendents), while others would aspire to nontraditional positions (e.g., starting charter schools). Some would be seeking a new job in education, while others would be looking for new skills to apply in their current positions. While most participants would be from the U.S., some would be welcomed from overseas. A special effort would be made to ensure that participants differ in gender, ethnicity, race, culture, and national origin. This focus on attracting an unusually diverse and experienced student body stems from pragmatic reasons: the pool of candidates for administrative positions in education needs to be significantly enlarged to address the demand for exceptional leaders; a rich variety of interesting classmates helps attract nontraditional candidates into administration; an eclectic mix of participants promotes learning that goes beyond what is common in narrower programs aimed at specialized positions;7 and experienced administrators are more likely than greenhorns to profit from leadership education because they can build on and share their craft knowledge.8 Curriculum and classroom. A set of core activities would spotlight -- and connect -- three overlapping domains of knowledge: instructional practice and learning theory (with a particular focus on high achievement for all students), the education sector (with a particular focus on schooling in context), and matters of leadership and management. The curriculum for the third domain would recognize that effective management today demands a focus on improving instruction; however, improving instruction requires a focus on five basic tasks: managing oneself, managing relationships, managing organizations, managing context, and managing change.9 In this context, classes would be designed to help ALL participants:
Class activities would be problem- and case-driven, focusing on the day-to-day reality of leading in today's turbulent world. Participants would be immersed in the daily work of administrative leadership in two ways. First, roughly half the time would be participant-driven, with activities focused on problems of practice brought to the table by class members. They would discuss their ongoing administrative dilemmas, present cases, and seek advice from their colleagues. They would reflect on important experiences and share their hard-won practical wisdom.10 Classroom activities would also rely heavily on the case method of teaching, on simulations, on role-playing, and on videotaping, with the participants repeatedly placed "in the shoes" of top administrative leaders facing a variety of difficult situations in a wide range of settings. Knowledge of instruction and of the education sector, as well as theory, would be brought into the discussion to facilitate solving the concrete problem on the table.11 To support these methods, the curricular materials -- and the faculty members (both academics and practitioners) -- would be drawn not only from education but also from the business, government, and nonprofit sectors. This multidisciplinary approach is desirable for four reasons: 1) the work of educators necessarily spans all these sectors, 2) some of the best curricular materials and faculty members lie outside of education, 3) many enduring administrative issues are similar across sectors, and 4) the best insights can often be gained by examining analogous situations that have nothing to do directly with education.12 ALL participants would learn in much the same way that cyclists learn the nuances of their craft. It is not enough just to read and talk about the function of bicycle parts or the theory of bicycle riding. Learning comes from mounting bikes, negotiating tricky terrain, falling off, making sense of misadventures, and getting back up to head forward again. In other words, in the ALL program, learning would come through doing, systematic reflection on the resulting experiences -- and lots of practice aimed ultimately at the improvement of instruction. Structure and degrees. ALL would be a collaborative offering of its sponsoring university's schools of education, business, and public policy. While a far cry from the oft-heard rhetoric "public schools should be run just like businesses," this broad participation would greatly enhance the development of a new program, and this approach would be a frank acknowledgment that there is a lot to learn from other sectors. The ALL program would be two academic years in length and structured mainly around regular on-campus activities. These might take the form of monthly weekend sessions -- as is typical in many executive education programs at business schools and even some Ed Schools. Or the activities might be built around less frequent but longer modules, as is more common in European management programs. In either case, the sessions during the academic year would be supplemented by summer activities. Between on-campus sessions, participants would maintain contact through consulting and site visits and use the Internet to stay connected -- to the program, to one another, to their academic advisors, and to virtual meetings of affinity groups (e.g., those focused on the superintendency).13 The degree offered to graduates would be a new master's degree, perhaps called a Master of Educational Leadership -- MEL, for short. This new degree would do two things: replace the Ed.D. as the degree of choice for aspiring top-level administrators and free up curricular thinking to focus on problems of practice. Replacing the Ed.D. with a master's degree for superintendents has been discussed for at least 15 years, but today it is being widely debated because Arthur Levine's report, Educating School Leaders, recommends the elimination of the Ed.D. In my view, the Ed.D. is not appropriate for general managers (e.g., superintendents), but a "practitioner doctorate" does make sense for future specialists (e.g., experts on curriculum, pedagogy, or policy) or for future Ed School professors. Instead of the Ed.D., one could imagine a renamed doctoral degree, as suggested by Lee Shulman, that addresses today's muddled distinction between the Ph.D. and Ed.D. The appropriate terminal degree is a knotty issue, but it is worth noting that the conventional doctoral program baffles leadership experts from outside education. Why, they ask, does a leader need a doctorate to head a school system but not to run a large company or a government agency or a nonprofit enterprise? They see little educational justification for this requirement, while acknowledging that school boards, for status reasons, often want leaders who are "doctors." In addition, a doctoral requirement often distorts the curriculum by giving more weight to research than to management. Indeed, the tail often wags the dog, with undue emphasis given to research methods and dissertations that bear little direct relationship to the work of leaders.14 All too often good practitioners slap together bad dissertations to meet the pointless requirements of a doctorate that their administrative work doesn't require. Creating an entirely new master's degree such as the MEL would make the most sense because it would have the cachet of something special. Without that incentive, fewer potential participants would choose ALL when they could get a fast-track doctorate elsewhere, and fewer school boards would choose to hire a graduate with a master's degree if certified "doctors" were widely available. Gaining this cachet would be a challenge and would probably require endorsement by leading educators and adoption by a number of leading universities. Winning support for this idea would be an uphill battle. Most faculty members in research universities are so committed to the doctorate and to their methodology courses that they would probably oppose the idea. Furthermore, today's intense pressures for almost-instant credentials might swamp a program that promised greater rigor -- and a lower-prestige degree.15 To be sure, a new degree would be frowned upon within the academy. But so too was the MBA when it was first proposed and later adopted. Before and after. Administrator preparation programs assume that their influence comes chiefly through their curricular offerings -- as if training determined the Kentucky Derby winner. But we need to take a fresh look both at the recruitment and selection of program participants and at their networking after they graduate. If we are to break out of the current norm, these activities require new thinking -- and staff to implement new practices. In recruiting and selecting students, relatively little attention has been given to demonstrated leadership capacity or to personal attitudes, qualities, and values.16 To be sure, universities can help develop crucial skills and knowledge and even character. But to ensure exceptional leadership by program graduates, a record of past leadership and personal qualities (e.g., integrity, passion, persistence, and courage) may well be more important than curricular offerings.17 Recruiting for ALL would be modeled after the practices of the best search firms, which are in the business of identifying, recruiting, and landing candidates for important positions. This requires a clear sense of the qualities desired and the systematic application of proven recruitment techniques -- advertising, use of recruiters and nominators, interviews, reference checkers, and careful screening. The best candidates often don't come from traditional pools and often don't apply without someone urging them to do so. As to networking, graduates would stay in contact with one another to enhance their own careers and to recruit new ALL participants. More important, a network of talented, committed, and trusting colleagues would be a catalyst for spreading innovation. While I am mindful of the bad old days, marked by networks of good ol' boys who were exclusively white males promoting and protecting their own, I believe the times are ripe for reemphasizing the value of diverse networks. What It Will Take It's one thing to present a hypothetical program like ALL. It is quite another to imagine Ed Schools pulling off such a significant shift, particularly in the absence of a crisis. If these elephants are to dance to the steps of a new program, they will require a high level of motivation, the organizational capacity to learn, and the internal leadership to make it all happen. I discussed above why Ed Schools should be motivated to address these issues. Here I turn to matters of organizational learning and leadership. Built to learn. While I have presented a basic template for ALL, there would necessarily be considerable variation in how such a program or any similar program would develop over time in a particular university. And that is a good thing. Each Ed School would have to "learn" its way forward, spending time building its organizational capacity to innovate as a way of responding to the changing demands of a tumultuous environment. In thinking about the components of this capacity to learn, I have been particularly influenced by David Hargreaves, who argues that transformation requires innovation and that organizations that are adept at generating innovative solutions to complex problems are marked by high levels of intellectual, social, and organizational capital.18 Intellectual capital consists of the cumulative knowledge and know-how of an entire organization, including its tacit knowledge and the institutional memory embedded in its ongoing relationships, routines, processes, and practices. Intellectual capital is the source of new ideas and innovative approaches. Social capital consists of networks of individuals and groups that work together with a high degree of trust and mutual respect and with a willingness to share their mistakes as well as their ideas.19 Social capital is the glue that binds an organization together and the grease that makes innovation possible. Organizational capital consists of the knowledge and skill needed to mobilize the intellectual and social capital in the pursuit of learning, innovation, and high performance. Organizational capital is the catalyst that causes things to happen. To strengthen their capacity to learn, Ed Schools would take steps to:
In short, Ed Schools would be built to learn. Leadership matters. Motivation, opportunity, and capacity are important. But a program like ALL won't come to fruition without leadership within universities, including leadership by university presidents, by the planning-committee chairs who pull together proposals, and by faculty members who are engaged in the change process. It would also require the leadership of seasoned practitioners who would be involved in the planning, and, of course, significant change would require the leadership of Ed School deans.20 University presidents would need to stick their necks out and agree to make the rethinking of leadership education a top priority by supporting the idea of universitywide planning committees and by putting up money to fund planning efforts. Most important, the presidents need to make a commitment to raise money for new programs, perhaps through internal transfers and fund-raising efforts. Presidential support would make it possible to focus heightened attention from all units of a university on the development of leaders. Planning-committee chairs could also be important in developing a new program, and three images come to mind when I imagine a good chair: a troublemaker, a builder, and a scavenger. A good chair makes trouble for those unwilling to challenge accepted practices and orthodoxies -- and is willing to tear things down in order to build something better. A good chair scavenges everywhere for ideas, with creative talent used not to invent an original program from scratch -- the parts of ALL are intentionally not original -- but rather to synthesize best thinking and combine best practices into a unique mixture that works for a particular Ed School. A good chair would proudly declare that ALL was "not invented here." The leadership of Ed School deans would be crucial in several ways. First, deans can help key faculty members understand the enduring difficulties facing Ed Schools, as well as recognize the opportunity to strengthen both leadership education and the schools' overall influence. In the absence of these insights, faculty members would no doubt resist major transformations. Second, deans can focus attention on building the organizational capacity required to learn and adapt in our volatile times. In the process, they can help faculty members see organizational innovation in a new light -- not as an imposition to endure, but rather as a necessity to embrace with pride. And deans can make it possible for faculty members to innovate by freeing time in their schedules, rewarding creative organizational activity, and not overloading them with demands for innovation. Third, deans are central to tackling the toughest problem: fundamentally changing the incentive structure. With the backing of the president, the dean would lead an effort to restructure personnel policies so as to recruit, promote, and reward faculty members whose research, teaching, service, and work experiences are much more directly connected to the improvement of practice.21 Perhaps most important, the overall approach of deans would be crucial to the development of new programs. Deans would need to be both top-down leaders who prod the faculty and exercise authority and bottom-up leaders who are active listeners and learners and depend heavily on the leadership -- and ownership -- of others to make innovation possible. While the conventional wisdom says that radical change requires a leader who is God on a good day, deans would believe that the last thing needed is a savior who has all the answers. Educational problems are so complex and the demands change so fast that no single person ever has all the answers. Time to Dance Widespread reform of leadership education seems unlikely in the absence of greater external demands, but that political pressure may well be coming as dissatisfaction with leadership education continues to grow. In the meantime, I believe the only hope for a dramatic rethinking of leadership education is for some forward-looking Ed Schools to muster the courage to step up and lead. In this article and throughout this special section, ideas have been presented -- dancing lessons for elephants -- that could form the basis of action. Now is the time for Ed Schools to experiment with bold new approaches, drawing on research and practical wisdom. Now is the time to challenge the stifling insularity that marks this field and to think in novel new ways about leadership education. Now is the time for Ed Schools to capitalize on this moment of discontent. Those Ed Schools that fail to dance to today's new tune risk irrelevancy and court the fate of dinosaurs. For Ed Schools that do heed this call to action, however, taking part in the dance could be a defining moment -- not just for leadership education but for the Ed Schools themselves. 1. The "dancing elephants" metaphor is not new. See James A. Belasco, Teaching the Elephant to Dance: The Manager's Guide to Empowering Change (New York: Penguin, 1990). 2. David F. Labaree, The Trouble with Ed Schools (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004). 3. For a discussion of maintaining allegiance to both the academy and the schools, see Labaree, op. cit. For an excellent critique of educational research, see Patricia Albjerg Graham, Schooling America: How the Public Schools Meet the Nation's Changing Needs (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), especially pp. 194-200. 4. Herbert A. Simon, "The Business School: A Problem in Organizational Design," Journal of Management Studies, February 1967, p. 16. 5. Labaree, op.cit., especially pp. 199-203. 6. Mark R. Warren, "Communities and Schools: A New Vision of Urban Education Reform," Harvard Educational Review, Summer 2005, pp. 133-73. 7. Educating principals and superintendents in the same program is controversial because their jobs are quite different. However, business schools educate aspiring single-unit managers and multiple-unit managers in the same programs. The matter needs to be debated. 8. See my interview with Henry Mintzberg (p. 527) in this special section. See also Henry Mintzberg, Managers Not MBAs: A Hard Look at the Soft Practice of Managing and Management Development (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 2004). 9. Mintzberg, op. cit. 10. Ibid. 11. In this article, I emphasize the use of teaching cases, which reflects my teaching experience. For an excellent discussion of problem-based learning, which goes beyond teaching cases, see Sandra Stein's article (p. 522) in this special section. 12. This section is adapted from courses on leadership that I have taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Penn Graduate School of Education. 13. The use of site visits is an idea worth exploring. Anecdotal evidence suggests that well-planned visits can be powerful learning experiences. For example, see the offerings of IMD, a leading business school in Lausanne, Switzerland. 14. See Margaret Orr's article (p. 492) in this special section, for alternative approaches to the traditional dissertation that address some of my concerns. See also Jeff Archer, "Some Ed.D. Programs Adopting Practical Approach," Education Week, 14 December 2005, p. 8. 15. I'm indebted to Peter Kuriloff for his insights about the market forces pushing education schools toward low-quality, fast-track, high-status degrees. For these reasons, it is highly unlikely that a master's degree will replace the doctorate in superintendent programs. But one can imagine, as I have done, a group of leading universities taking this high-risk leap. 16. Theodore Creighton, "Standards for Education Administration Preparation Programs: Okay, but Don't We Have the Cart Before the Horse?," Journal of School Leadership, September 2002, pp. 526-51; see also Margaret Orr's article (p. 492) in this special section. 17. For a discussion of what students learn in graduate school versus what they bring, see Arthur Blumberg, School Administration as Craft: Foundations of Practice (Needham Heights, Mass.: Allyn and Bacon, 1989), especially pp. 220-24. 18. David H. Hargreaves, "Leadership for Transformation Within the London Challenge," annual lecture of the London Leadership Center, 19 May 2003; and idem, Education Epidemic: Transforming Secondary Schools Through Innovative Networks (London: Demos, 2003). While Hargreaves writes about secondary schools, his argument fits Ed Schools, and this section draws heavily on his work. 19. Anthony S. Bryk et al., Trust in Schools: A Core Resource for Improvement (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2002). 20. Ronald Heifetz, who has written an article for this special section (p. 512), has heavily influenced my thinking about leadership. 21. Warren G. Bennis and James O'Toole, "How Business Schools Lost Their Way," Harvard Business Review, May 2005, p. 9. JEROME T. MURPHY is Harold Howe II Professor of Education and dean emeritus at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, Mass. He is currently a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. He wishes to thank Thomas Champion, Patricia Albjerg Graham, Jean Murphy, Susan Murphy, Samantha Tan, and Lee Teitel for their advice on this article. He also wishes to thank the Spencer Foundation for its support. |
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