Abstract
In this edition of Mangement in Education we investigate some of the turmoil and contradictory nature of the gap and, at times, tension between ideals and reality. Beginning with a schools focus, we move through a range of settings. All articles however comment on the micro and macro of survival in the settings described and how people juggle with meeting the needs of a variety of players, including their own values-led educational position. We thus begin with Stephen Rayner who considers the moral dilemma faced by school leaders working in a conflicted policy environment where educational values vary and are often out of line with those that educators adopted when entering into teaching. Through small-scale research Stephen considers the extent to which differing educational values can contribute to healthy debate as well as how wider political policy-making, that takes no account of the difficulties faced by individual pupils’, can be adopted irrespective of context. Al Ramierez, Wendy Clouse and Kristyn White Davis also discuss the policy-practice gap, although in this article this is in relation to the evaluation of teachers in Colorado. They argue that political micro-management does little to support teachers in implementing policy. Moreover school leaders need to be trusted and supported rather than impeded by policy if they are to take responsibility for meaningful teacher evaluations in ways that facilitate good teaching and learning practices. Anthony Thorpe and Gay Bennett-Powell discuss the development needs of secondary school middle leaders and report early findings from an ongoing study. Anthony and Gay demonstrate that, interestingly, middle leaders argue their development needs are greatest in areas where they also are most confident and discuss why this might be. Further, they state that middle leaders benefitted from coaching and mentoring development and that they also needed to understand flexible and multiple approaches to leading and managing people.
Michael Brooks and Nada K Kakabadse present us with an interesting insight into the education psychology services and matrix management that includes working across four geographical areas and with multi-professional teams within children’s services support. Michael and Nada argue for the importance of coherence where roles and responsibilities are carefully articulated to best support staff and avoid confusion and stress. This is particularly important to a service where empathy, flexibility and understanding professional boundaries are important. Michael and Nada therefore argue that careful planning and thoughtful implementation are of vital importance to make matrix management work effectively. Kay Carter and Krishan Sood add further detail to the integrated children’s services picture. They consider the difficulties posed by the need for extremely good communications together with good leadership and management. This, Kay and Krishan argue, needs close dialogue between partners and collaborators to look at change processes and potential new ways of operating.
Clearly, the overwhelming picture presented through these articles is the ways in which activities take place often before they have been clearly thought through and often as a result of an external ‘push’ from policy-makers. What becomes obvious is the need to take account of the voices of those engaged in the process. They can provide a wealth of information that can inform improvement and enable a refocussing to take place that emphasizes what is important and what is possible.
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