Standards for Leadership : Gateway to a Stronger Profession?

Lawrence Ingvarson, ACER
Michelle Anderson, ACER

Abstract

Recruitment, preparation, continuing professional learning and recognition of school leaders are widespread concerns for policymakers and practitioners. Standards for school leadership are a notable development in Australia and overseas for addressing these concerns. In Australia, many quality sets of standards for teachers and school leaders have been developed but they are not profession-wide. This paper is based on a project ACER was commissioned to undertake by Teaching Australia in June 2005. Our brief was to review approaches to standards and options for a national system for assessment against school leadership standards for prospective and established school leaders. The review examined in detail five professional learning systems, one from Australia and four from overseas. A central component to these systems is the presence of standards for school leadership to guide professional preparation and the ongoing learning of school leaders. A key focus of this session is how the profession can play a much stronger role in providing a standards-guided professional learning system.