Educational Management In Managerialist Times

For academics and students, 'Education Management in Managerialist Times' offers a critical guide to existing educational management texts and makes a strong case for redefining educational management along more socially and politically informed lines.

This book is dedicated to an analysis and synthesis of research on strategy and school leadership, with the ultimate goal of suggesting a new research programme. Each chapter takes up this challenge through different means, resulting in an overview of the construct of strategy within the practice of school leadership. It is hoped that each of these chapters encourages students, practitioners and scholars to continue to investigate this important topic and to undertake the methodological challenges set out to advance our understanding of strategy and school leadership in managerialist times. Despite maintain a primarily scholarly focus – as such a focus is exceedingly important for the advancement of any domain of inquiry – it is also recognised that many of the ideas discussed have profound practical significance for schools and those who lead and manage them. The arguments in this book, particularly those in the latter chapters seek to expand the horizons of scholarship and understanding on the topic of strategy and school leadership. Although this should not be interpreted as a prescriptive call for how further inquiry should be undertaken, it is but one voice in the conversation. The reviews, studies, analysis and proposed research programme of this book argue that the strategies of school leaders are of considerable theoretical and practical importance to schools, the governance of schooling and the behaviour and performance of schools. While this book offers a blueprint for further inquiry, it remains for the reader to accept the challenge. Doing so will enable important new insights into strategy and school leadership.

A collection of chapters on education management intended for use on education management courses, and for use by school headteachers, teacher's centres, education directors and advisors in LEAs and subscribers to education and EMA.

This book examines the impact of neo-liberal reform on the traditional caring ethos of public services such as education, exploring how these reforms influence the appointment and experiences of senior management across the education sector.

Hoyle and Wallace illustrate with penetrating insight the perverse outcome of tightening management and leadership so much that it leads to three different forms, each with the same five characteristics, of what they call "managerialism": excessive micromanagement of schools in a sometimes futile and self-defeating quest for success′ - Tim Brighouse, Times Educational Supplement `This book is an excellent read about management and leadership in schools. Overall, I felt that this book makes a positive contribution to the debate about the impact of managerialism within public services. I liked the elements that made up the ironic orientation (scepticism, pragmatism and contingency), recognising them in my own experiences in Higher Education, and I liked the way in which the concept of irony was linked to some key concerns as well as positive practices. This is a book that I would thoroughly recommend to anyone interested in leadership and management in schools, but given its broader application, I would also recommend the book to anyone interested in leadership and management in the public sector′ - ESCalate Read the full review as posted on the ESCalate website, the Education Subject Centre for the Higher Education Academy ′Eric Hoyle and Mike Wallace are two of the best known writers on educational leadership and management. They have made very significant contributions to organisational theory and its application to education for four decades. This book′s focus on ambiguity and irony provides a welcome and timely contrast to the rational assumptions and managerialism which underpin government policy and much academic writing in this field′ - Professor Tony Bush, International Educational Leadership Centre, University of Lincoln ′They have brought to centre-stage ideas and concepts which have largely been peripheral in the field, and in doing so have made us look with new lenses at what we need to say about professional work and identity. It has therefore performed a valuable and much needed service, and will provide a major reference point in debates about the future of the education profession′ - Mike Bottery, Educational Management, Administration & Leadership ′This in an important book. I wish I had written it, indeed I wish I had the skill, the knowledge and the wit to write it′ - Mark Brundrett, Educational Management, Administration & Leadership Why do efforts to improve the quality of education via organizational leadership and management make matters worse in some respects as well as better? In what ways are education professionals responding to such efforts? The authors of this highly original book develop an ironic perspective for analysing the ambiguities and unintended consequences of well-intentioned actions in organizational life, and how these are exacerbated by change. Focusing on school leadership and management, Hoyle and Wallace suggest that major reforms have had limited success because the changes introduced have diverted school staff from their core task of promoting student learning, resulting in dissatisfaction, frustration and stress. They argue that a more temperate approach to leadership and management supported by wise policy-making can create structures that take the strain and reduce stress, encourage autonomy while accepting associated risks, and sponsor moderate experimentation and innovation emerging from communities of professional practice. Educational Leadership and Organizational Irony is essential reading for all concerned with improving education: advanced course students, leaders and managers, trainers, administrators, policy-makers and academics. It also offers insights for the study of public service and business organizations.

In the past 40 years there have been a number of significant developments across the fields of educational administration and history. In this volume, the authors have selected a number of key issues to illustrate and trace these changes. The seven articles by leading scholars in the field offer an analysis of contemporary educational administration, history and policy debates and how this has impacted on teachers, leaders, schools and the education sector. This book offers readers a valuable insight into continuing and contemporary debates in the field and the authors offer a refreshing interpretation of these debates. This book provides a rich analysis from a range of theoretical, methodological perspectives and highlights the extent to which these debates remain a contemporary concern. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Educational Administration and History.

The relationship between welfare and the state has undergone a sustained process of reconfiguration over the past two decades and managerialism has played a key role in this process. In education, parents are now seen as consumers and schools as small businesses, their income dependent on their success in attracting customers within competitive local 'markets'. At the same time, management practices borrowed from business, such as target setting and performance monitoring, now play a key role in regulating schools. What kinds of schools are the reforms producing? What impact are they having on school culture and values? What are the social justice implications of applying a business model to the provision of schooling? In The Managerial School Sharon Gerwirtz draws on in-depth interviews with teachers in a range of secondary schools and close observation of school practices to try to answer these questions.Through a comparison of Conservative and New Labour policies, she argues that New Labour's 'third way' for education is a contradictory mix of neo-liberal, authoritarian and humanistic strands that is not in any real sense a new educational settlement. This empirically based account of over a decade of education reform offers a unique insight into the effects of managerialism on schools and a hard-hitting analysis of the inherent tensions in a system that undoubtedly perpetrates social injustice.

Martin Thrupp argues that there has to be a much bigger educational and social justice agenda to school improvement than the managerial approaches typically taken by government policy. He critiques those school improvement texts, courses and consultancies which mostly frame their analyses within the terms of current policy and therefore act to apologise for it. An alternative, more critical approach to school improvement is developed in the book and the author also provides examples of practical strategies to be employed within this approach. >