New Explorations for Instructional Leaders

Book excerpt: The existing literature on instructional leadership mainly examines the components, procedures, and mechanisms of instructional leadership and its influence on school performance and student academic results. The application of instructional leadership is insufficiently discussed. Moreover, despite longstanding efforts to campaign for instructional leadership’s prioritization, several studies have shown that the time devoted by principals to instructional leadership activities is inadequate. These disappointing statistics make the research on instructional leadership application most necessary. Why do principals find it difficult to put instructional leadership into action? What can help them overcome the challenges involved in applying instructional leadership? What functions of instructional leadership do school leaders tend to sidestep? New Explorations for Instructional Leaders: How Principals Can Promote Teaching and Learning Effectively answers these questions and addresses the need for additional research-informed literature on instructional leadership application. The findings of Haim Shaked’s studies, conducted over the past five years among principals working in the Israeli school system, are presented in this book in a way that can be used by researchers, policymakers, school leaders, and educators in different countries.