Abstract:
School leaders today face an ever-increasing set of system expectations about their behaviours and leadership practices. External accountabilities influence the work being undertaken in schools and require principals to balance their own vision and preferred practices with those of the wider systems in which they work. Principals are working under performative policy conditions (Ball, 2003; 2005) that promote public and transparent school data and there is explicit emphasis from the system that they will focus on school improvement in relation to those data. Building upon recent research in this context which has explored how these policies have influenced the work undertaken in schools (Hardy & Boyle, 2011; Lingard & Sellar, 2013; Niesche, 2011), this paper focuses on a particular element of enacting these policies - a system-produced school data profile in which certain aspects of education, including NAPLAN, hold pride of place.
This paper presents case study data from three principals in Queensland state schools who hold varying opinions towards the proliferation of data available to schools as well as towards the emphasis placed on NAPLAN testing. The data profile was identified by these principals as their measure of school improvement, indicating the emphasis placed upon it and, by extension, on the elements of education measured within the profile.
It explores the tensions between the importance these principals place on NAPLAN testing and the way many of their behaviours or practices are constituted as a response to the testing. It argues that some elements of the principalship are inextricably linked to the influence of NAPLAN and that while some of these principals may not personally hold NAPLAN in high esteem, it plays an integral role in shaping their practices. Subsequently, the paper suggests that principals must reconcile their preferred ways of working with those expected (either explicitly or implicitly) by the system.
This paper presents case study data from three principals in Queensland state schools who hold varying opinions towards the proliferation of data available to schools as well as towards the emphasis placed on NAPLAN testing. The data profile was identified by these principals as their measure of school improvement, indicating the emphasis placed upon it and, by extension, on the elements of education measured within the profile.
It explores the tensions between the importance these principals place on NAPLAN testing and the way many of their behaviours or practices are constituted as a response to the testing. It argues that some elements of the principalship are inextricably linked to the influence of NAPLAN and that while some of these principals may not personally hold NAPLAN in high esteem, it plays an integral role in shaping their practices. Subsequently, the paper suggests that principals must reconcile their preferred ways of working with those expected (either explicitly or implicitly) by the system.