Theories of Educational Management

 

Module by: Tony Bush. E-mail the author

Summary: Educational management is a field of study and practice concerned with the operation of educational organizations. The present author has argued consistently (Bush, 1986; Bush, 1995; Bush, 1999; Bush, 2003) that educational management has to be centrally concerned with the purpose or aims of education. These purposes or goals provide the crucial sense of direction to underpin the management of educational institutions. Unless this link between purpose and management is clear and close, there is a danger of “managerialism . . . a stress on procedures at the expense of educational purpose and values” (Bush, 1999, p. 240). “Management possesses no super-ordinate goals or values of its own. The pursuit of efficiency may be the mission statement of management – but this is efficiency in the achievement of objectives which others define” (Newman & Clarke, 1994, p. 29).

Note:

This module has been peer-reviewed, accepted, and sanctioned by the National Council of the Professors of Educational Administration (NCPEA) as a scholarly contribution to the knowledge base in educational administration.

The process of deciding on the aims of the organization is at the heart of educational management. In some settings, aims are decided by the principal, often working in association with senior colleagues and perhaps a small group of lay stakeholders. In many schools, however, goal setting is a corporate activity undertaken by formal bodies or informal groups.

School aims are strongly influenced by pressures from the external environment. Many countries have a national curriculum and these often leave little scope for schools to decide their own educational aims. Institutions may be left with the residual task of interpreting external imperatives rather than determining aims on the basis of their own assessment of student need. The key issue here is the extent to which school managers are able to modify government policy and develop alternative approaches based on school-level values and vision. Do they have to follow the script, or can they ad lib?

Distinguishing Educational Leadership and Management

The concept of management overlaps with two similar terms, leadership and administration. “Management” is widely used in Britain, Europe, and Africa, for example, while “administration” is preferred in the United States, Canada, and Australia. “Leadership” is of great contemporary interest in most countries in the developed World. Dimmock (1999) differentiates these concepts whilst also acknowledging that there are competing definitions:

School leaders [experience] tensions between competing elements of leadership, management and administration. Irrespective of how these terms are defined, school leaders experience difficulty in deciding the balance between higher order tasks designed to improve staff, student and school performance (leadership), routine maintenance of present operations (management) and lower order duties (administration). (p. 442)

Administration is not associated with “lower order duties” in the U.S. but may be seen as the overarching term, which embraces both leadership and management. Cuban (1988) provides one of the clearest distinctions between leadership and management.

By leadership, I mean influencing others actions in achieving desirable ends . . . . Managing is maintaining efficiently and effectively current organisational arrangements . . . . I prize both managing and leading and attach no special value to either since different settings and times call for varied responses. (p. xx)

Leadership and management need to be given equal prominence if schools are to operate effectively and achieve their objectives. “Leading and managing are distinct, but both are important . . . . The challenge of modern organisations requires the objective perspective of the manager as well as the flashes of vision and commitment wise leadership provides” (Bolman & Deal, 1997, p. xiii-xiv).

The English National College for School Leadership.

The contemporary emphasis on leadership rather than management is illustrated starkly by the opening of the English National College for School Leadership (NCSL) in November 2000. NCSL”s stress on leadership has led to a neglect of management. Visionary and inspirational leadership are advocated but much less attention is given to the structures and processes required to implement these ideas successfully. A fuller discussion of the NCSL may be found in Bush (2006).