Collective leadership joins the power of parents, community, and schools—to the students’ benefit
By Suzy Frisch | Spring 2010
Karen Seashore helped lead a groundbreaking study showing that extending leadership to parents, teachers, and beyond boosts student achievement.
Call it the Big Tent theory in education.
When all of the stakeholders—parents, community
members, teachers, administrators—come together to
collectively influence school-related decisions, student
achievement improves. It turns out that sharing leadership
among a broad swath of people doesn’t end up eroding anyone
else’s power either.
These are key findings from a recent landmark study on leadership in education, “Learning from Leadership: Investigating the Links to Improve Student Learning.” The five-year research project, which was funded by the Wallace Foundation, is one of the largest ever conducted on the subject. Led by professors Kyla Wahlstrom and Karen Seashore, along with co-investigators from the University of Toronto, a team of researchers focused on 45 districts in nine states, via multiple site visits, interviews, and surveys of 8,391 teachers.
“Our research basically has confirmed that collective leadership is important for improving teacher practice and ultimately student learning,” says Wahlstrom, director of the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement. Teachers in schools with strong collective leadership demonstrated motivation and reported positive work settings, which influenced student achievement.
The study fills a gap in existing research about leadership. “Nobody in education has looked to see if you enlarge the influence that exists in a school setting, does that have any effect on kids,” says Seashore (organizational leadership, policy, and development), the Robert H. Beck Professor of Ideas in Education. “Is this just something you do to make adults feel good? Or does it have an impact on student achievement?”
The study found that student achievement improves as more people from different interest groups influence school decisions. Generally, that’s because collective leadership can inspire people to communally think about big-picture issues, such as their broad goals for students’ education. “Getting people’s attention focused on student learning and getting people to feel more influential creates an environment where people are also attentive to instructional practices,” Seashore says. “In schools where we see parents and teachers exercising influence together, we actually see better instruction.”
Community and especially parental involvement in the schools can face barriers, however. Work schedules, language differences, or cultural attitudes may prevent individuals outside the system from taking part in school decisions. Faculty from a number of different departments across the college are working to eradicate those barriers—efforts that involve bolstering parents, tapping community resources, and encouraging schools to go beyond their walls to the stakeholders around them.
Parental guidance recommended
Parents are schools’ most important partners in teaching children. So it follows naturally that when they are deeply involved in decision-making, students and schools benefit. The Wallace study found that collective leadership works best when superintendents seek the input of parents outside of traditional parent-teacher organizations. These leaders go out of their way to gather diverse viewpoints and use creative strategies to encourage parents to lead.
Schools need to go beyond fundraising and field trips to seek parental influence on shaping curricula or incorporating students’ learning opportunities into the community. Otherwise, many parents won’t get engaged, notes Wahlstrom.
“Parents are key stakeholders,” agrees Marj Hawkins (Ed.D. ’97), head of early childhood services and community outreach for the St. Cloud Area Schools. “If we don’t have parents on board with our core expectations and our goals and strategies for reaching those expectations, it’s difficult to get their support for what we’re doing educationally.”
Though many schools have good intentions, there are universal challenges in fostering deep parental involvement. It’s not that parents don’t care about their children’s educations, says Susan Walker, associate professor in the parent and family education program (curriculum and instruction). In all walks of life, many parents are stressed from working long hours, holding multiple jobs, functioning as single parents, or working split shifts with their partners. Helping schools make decisions just doesn’t make it to the top of the priority list.
For some immigrant groups, Walker says, it may not feel natural or comfortable to get involved with school leadership in ways that are customary in the United States. Other parents may not have completed high school or had a bad educational experience, Walker continues. “They don’t feel like they have a voice now, because they didn’t as students,” she says.
And finally, the abundance of school choice has made the system more complicated for potential parent leaders. It’s not just as simple as walking over to the neighborhood school for a meeting, with children attending magnets, charter schools, or open enrolling in other districts. “Many parents show their leadership in support of their individual child or individual school,” Walker says. “That’s about as much as they can do because the system is complicated to understand and has not provided an easy mechanism for parents to have a say.”
To encourage parental contributions, Walker says, school leaders should offer a welcoming and fun place for the whole family. Hosting talent shows, car washes, picnics, and other programs throughout the year can draw families to the school in the first place. She also encourages teachers to invite parents to the classroom to talk about their job or their culture or anything. The more parents are comfortable just being at the school, the more likely they are to get involved on other levels.
In addition, Walker encourages training teachers to view parents as collaborators and advocates, not problems to be dealt with. She also suggests having teachers and administrators venture out more into the community to get families involved with decision-making. That might mean heading out to community centers, community picnics or parties, and religious institutions, which could be less intimidating than the school setting.
To encourage involvement in its schools, the St. Cloud district offers parenting classes or tutoring in community centers or apartment buildings with large concentrations of students. School leaders also make it easier for parents to get involved. That might mean offering childcare during meetings, serving dinner, or paying the transportation costs of people who don’t have cars.
Overcoming barriers
Obstacles to collective leadership can and should be overcome with a bit of creativity, agrees Jerry Stein, senior fellow in the School of Social Work, who founded the Learning Dreams program. Launched in 1996, the initiative helps parents achieve their educational goals—whether it’s learning a language or finding out how to start a business. The premise is that parents need to be engaged, enthusiastic learners to help their own children succeed.
“There is enormous evidence supporting that a love of learning in the home is the foundation for school success,” Stein says. “Most people who do well in school had people who helped them connect to learning.” Once parents become active learners, themselves, they are more likely to get involved in their child’s education and ultimately to want to influence larger school issues.
Stein urges schools to think differently when it comes to tapping parental resources for collective leadership. For starters, educators and school leaders should take themselves outside the schools and go to the parents. That might mean visiting religious venues, community groups, apartment buildings, or libraries.
Then they should give parents more power and back it up by giving them control of some funds to support education either inside or outside of the school. “All of the money spent in schools is tax money. Take a fraction of it and create a parent council around spending the funds,” Stein advises. “It transforms that discussion. If parents have power in the form of money, the communication and participation problem is over.”
Engaging the larger community
Beyond parents and teachers, schools improve when they involve community members in collective leadership. When community residents get engaged in the schools and learn more about the issues they face—whether it’s growing class sizes or the challenges of special education—they can champion their cause in the larger community.
Reaching out is especially important in communities where many residents don’t have a child in the schools. In St. Cloud District 742, for example, only 25 percent of residents have a student currently attending school. “When we need to ask for funding for the local levies, they need to understand what’s going on so they can support it,” says alumna Hawkins. “It’s hard to support things you don’t believe in.”
Most recently, District 742 undertook a community-wide process to create collective goals for the schools. Called Vision 2014, the number one item on the list is “shared ownership for student success: community, families, students, and district.”
The district has also tapped professional expertise within the community, such as consulting with architects, finance experts, and others as it starts to plan for a new early education–12 campus. A few years back, the district enlisted a local marketing expert who helped the district tell its story to the rest of the community—especially important in this era of open enrollment, when schools compete for students.
Associate professor Wallace urges professionals to share their skills. She especially encourages those who work with children and have the capacity to influence budgetary, policy, and system change—including legislators, nurses, and heads of transportation services—to share in collective leadership. Community and parental involvement should develop from the bottom up, with support from institutions such as the University that can gather and interpret supportive data, she adds.
“It should also be comprehensive,” she continues, “because school readiness is not just getting good early education, it’s also health, supportive parenting, and living in a healthy, safe, enriched community.”
In the realm of education, the whole is always more than the sum of its parts. Not only does it take a village to raise a child, it takes engaged and empowered teachers, parents, school staff, and community members to develop strong schools that are beacons of learning.
Key findings on collective leadership from the Wallace Foundation study “Learning from leadership: Investigating the links to improve student learning”
- Collective leadership more strongly influences student learning than individual leadership.
- Respondents from high-performing schools acknowledge the greater influence of teacher teams, parents, and students, compared to other respondents.
- High-performing schools have “fatter” or “thicker” governing structures that gather robust input from a range of stakeholders.
- Principals and district leaders exercise the most influence on decisions and do not lose influence as others gain it. Collective leadership occurs when effective individual leaders encourage others to join in.
