MEM 643 - ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT AND

LEADERSHIP

EFFECTIVENESS

NONTHEORETICAL INFLUENCES ON ORGANIZATIONAL THOUGHT

Academic theorizing is hardly the only force that develops our

understanding of educational organization and behaviour in them. two
powerful and highly pragmatic emerging influences have largely ignored
traditional organization theory you have substantially buttressed the kinds of
thinking just described. One of these is the effective schools research, the other
is the much larger , broader school reform movement that gathered momentum
in the 1980s.
Effective schools in research. The now-substantial body of research
literature on effective schools had its origins in despair. In 1970s, big city
schools were generally perceived as performing so badly that some were
beginning to wonder, can big city high schools be made to work for the poor,
ethnic minority students ? Do any big city high schools exist in which student
achievement: level satisfactory ? And if they do what can we learn from them
that will help us to improve other schools ? And analysis of the readingachievement test scores, some-albeit at the time , a few inner city high schools
were clearly performing better than others.
Findings of the effective school research. First a word of caution. Ever
since the first research on effective schools began to appear in the literature in
the 1970s, there have been repeated efforts to synthesize the findings and
extract the essence of what it tell us. By the 1980s considerable agreement had
emerged among students of effective schools research as to what the key
findings were.
Five basic assumptions of effective schools. First let us look at the basic
assumptions that underline the concept of effective schools.
1. Whatever else a school can and should do, its central purpose is to
teach: success is measured by the students progress in knowledge,
skills and attitudes.

2. the school is responsible for providing the overall environment in which

teaching and learning occur.
3. Schools must be treated holistically: partial efforts to make the
improvement that deal with the needs of only some of the students and
break up the unity of the instructional program are likely to fail.
4. The most crucial characteristics of a school are the attitudes and
behaviors of the teachers and other staff , not material things such as
the size of the library or the age of the physical plant.
5. Perhaps most important , the school accepts responsibility for the
success or failure of the academic performance of the students.
Students are firmly regarded as capable of learning regardless of their
ethnicity, sex, home or cultural background or family income . Pupils
from poor families do not need a different curriculum, nor does their
poverty excuse failure to learn basic skills. Stewart Purky and
Marshall Smith assert, adding . Differences among schools do have an
impact on student achievement and those differences are controlled by
the school staff.
Though one of the outstanding characteristic of effective school as is
that they take responsibility for meeting the educational needs of the students
to greater degree than their less-successful counterparts, this still a concept
that many educational practitioners find difficult to accept. Especially in those
schools seemingly overwhelmed.
Thus the effective schools research suggest increased involvement of
teachers and other staff members in decision making, expanded opportunities
for collaborative planning, and flexible change strategies that can reflect the
unique personality of each school. The goal is to change the school culture, the
means requires staff members to assume responsibility for school
improvement, which in turn is predicated on their having the authority and
support necessary.. to create instructional programs that meet the educational
needs of their students.
Seeking an effective schools formula. The early effective schools research
was quickly seized upon as the basis for developing programs for improving the
performance of schools. Effective schools , ran that early message, share the
following characteristics:
Strong leadership by the principal
High expectations for student achievement on the parts of the teachers
and other staff members

An emphasis on basic skills

An orderly environment.
Frequent and systematic evaluation of students, and
Increased time on teaching and learning task

Emerging approach to effective schools . Pukery and Smith have identified

thirteen characteristics of effective schools from the reported research. They
fall into two groups. The first group of nine characteristics can be implemented
quickly at minimal cost by the administrative. They are:
1. School site management and democratic decision making in which
individual schools are encouraged to take greater responsibility for, and
are given greater latitude for educational problem solving.
2. Suppport from the district for increasing the capacity of schools to
identify and solve significant educational problems ; this includes
reducing the inspection and manage ment roles of central office people
while increasing support and encouragement of school level leadership
and collaborative problem solving.
3. Strong leadership which may be provided by administrator but also may
be provided by integrated terms of administrators, teachers and perhaps
others.
4. Staff stability, to facilitate the development of a strong cohesive school
culture
5. A planned , coordinated curriculum that treats the students educational
needs with the needs holistically and increases time spent on academic
learning.
6. Schoolwide staff development that links the school organizational and
instructional needs with the needs that teachers themselves perceive
should be addressed;
7. Parental involvement particularly in support of homework, attendance,
and discipline;
8. Schoolwide recognition of academic success , both in terms of improving
academic performance and achieving standards of excellence;
9. Emphasize time on teaching and learning for example, reduce
interruptions, stress primacy of focused efforts to learn, and restructure
teaching activities.
The second group of four characteristics that have great power to renew
and increase effectiveness overtime. These four school characteristic are :

10. Collaborative planning and collegial relationships that promote feelings of

unity, encourage sharing of knowledge and ideas and foster consensus among
these in the school;
11.Sense of community in which alienation both teachers and students- is to
reduced and a sense of mutual sharing is strengthened.
12.Shared clear goals and high achievable expectations , which arise from
collaboration , collegiality and a sense of community and which serve
to unify those in the organization through their common purposes;
13.
Order and discipline the bespeak the seriousness and
purposefulness of the school as the community of people, students,
teachers, and staff, and other adults, that is cohered by mutual
agreement on shared goals, collaboration, and consensus.
Clearly, the critical school characteristics listed in the second group are
more complex, that those in the first group, more difficult to achieve and
sustain overtime, yet they combine to produce great power to establish
the improvement of educational effectiveness as a central focus of life
within the school.

Prepared by : ROLANDO C. CABIC