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Description:
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Administrators remain the most influential force behind school improvement , which means the development of effective administrators is critical . If the present public educational system is to meet the challenges posed by competing entities , educational leaders will need to look beyond mere technical , managerial "know how" to a redirection of purposes and goals . The current emphasis placed on principals to guard the status quo must be replaced by emphasizing leaders who can develop visions of the future and reshape their schools . Principals are needed who can connect routine activities and decisions made within the school to the larger cultural dimensions . In order for principals to make these connections , they must first be able to recognize what the most critical issues are , and second , recognize the important elements that frame these issues .
The theoretical framework of the study is that of multi -frame thinking proposed by Lee G . Bolman and Terrance E . Deal . This study is based on the premise that all four frames presented by Bolman and Deal (i .e . structural , human resource , political , and symbolic ) are significant predictors of effective leadership that developing administrators need , with the symbolic frame holding the greatest promise for leadership that results in school reculturing .
Principal development and assessment will play a key role in determining the effectiveness of current and future leaders . The School Administrator's Skills Assessment (SASA ) program is one process that principals can elect to participate in to satisfy the legislative mandate for administrators to receive assessment every five years . An important research issue is to determine whether the assessors enter the process with the cognitive frames predisposition that will enable them to identify the presence or absence of multi -frame principal behavior and use this information to support effective leadership development within administrators . This study is designed to identify the cognitive frame disposition of those trained as assessors , which in turn will influence how they assess principals participating in the SASA program .
The state of Texas is now committed to using the SASA program as a significant means to assess principals and contribute to their continuous professional growth . Bolman and Deal (1997 ) have found that leaders with narrow , single -framed perspectives cannot be effective long -term . This study is designed to determine whether the SASA assessor's schemas reflect multi -frame analysis . |