THE PHILOSOPHIES OF PRINCIPALS OF EXEMPLARY AND RECOGNIZED ... · THE PHILOSOPHIES OF PRINCIPALS OF EXEMPLARY AND RECOGNIZED CAMPUSES ... educational philosophies and sought to develop

NATIONAL FORUM OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION AND SUPERVISION JOURNALVOLUME 30, NUMBER 2,2013

THE PHILOSOPHIES OF PRINCIPALS OFEXEMPLARY AND RECOGNIZED

CAMPUSES

Robert Steeber, EdDRegion XI Education Service Center

Casey Graham Brown, PhDTexas A&M University-Commerce

ABSTRACT

This study examined the philosophical profiles of Texas secondary principalswho had led their campuses to an exemplary or recognized status. Philosophicalareas were studied to determine whether a significant correlation could befound between highly-rated principals' philosophies. The epistemology,axiology, and ontology of the study's participants were developed. Principalswith successful campuses were similar regardless of campus rating, campustype, gender, experience level, student population, campus population, campusethnicity, or campus socioeconomic status.

Introduction

The responsibilities of a campus principal surpass those ofmaintaining campus security, supervising teachers, monitoring studentbehavior, and balancing campus finances. The main charge ofprincipals today, and center of much literature on the subject ofeducational leadership, is raising student achievement. While theprincipal's impact on leaming "may be indirect, it is cmcial" (Kaplan,Owings, & Nunnery, 2005, p. 29). The ability to meet state standardsis a leading concem for the public school leaders. Legislation such as

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62 NATIONAL FORUM OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION AND SUPERVISION JOURNAL

the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 placed the publicschool accountability issue at the nation's doorstep.

The public education system for the state of Texas has not beenimmune, although the issue for Texas was not new to a state that wasalready involved in high-stakes testing and accountability. Each year,Texas school leaders wait for two important accountability pieces: aSchool Report Card, the state's rating, and Adequate Yearly Progress,the federal government's report on accountability.

Purpose of the Study

Schools need strong leadership to be productive in the Texasaccountability system. Principals must have a great deal of skill andability to lead a campus through the challenges of present dayaccountability demands (Barth, 1990) as well as to "publicly answerfor the performance of the schools under their guidance" (Kaplan etal., p. 42). To better understand effectiveness in the context ofaccountability, leaders who have been capable of attaining highaccountability ratings needed to be identified and a profile of theireducational philosophy was in need of development. The constmctionof these philosophical profiles was conducted to gain insight into thebeliefs held by tíiese successful schools as indicated by the high stateratings.

Theoretical Framework

To define leadership, there must be a much deeperphilosophical analysis of the phenomenon. As a summation for afoundation, there should be a synthesis of fundamental underpinningsthat make the leader or defme the leadership philosophy. Since thebeginning of the 20"* century, organizational culture has developedfrom the simplistic ideology of scientific management into the morecomplex and environmentally conscious theories introduced in the

ROBERT STEEBER AND CASEY GRAHAM BROWN 63

later part of the 20* century. Contrasting early leaders such asFredrick Taylor, the father of Scientific Management, John Dewey, thedeveloper of the scientific method, or Max Weber, the theorist whointroduced the Bureaucracy Theory with McGregor's Theory X andTheory Y or Contingency Theories developed by Fred Fielder, or PaulHersey and Kenneth Blanchard (Marion, 2002), leadership theory hasdeveloped from "Plan, organize, and, control, control, control"(Morgan, 1986, p. 26) to a less rigid approach.

In a complex world, leadership responsibility has become morecomplex to meet challenges. The person in charge must possess skillsto be a leader and manager and have the capacity to understand theskills appropriate for the activities (Marion, 2002). Gaziel (2003)examined educational leadership as separate skills of leading andmanaging. According to Gaziel, "School principals tend, in the presentsample, to use multiple frames in solving problems" (p. 484). Thestudy's objective was to predict the leadership and managerial abilitiesof the campus principal based on the organizational metaphorsestablished by the work of Morgan (1986) and the frames of theseorganizations based on the research of Bolman and Deal (1984).Morgan symbolized organizations as machines (stmctural), organisms(human-resource), political systems (political), or brains (symbolic),and according to Boknan and Deal, the leadership style best suited forthe establishment must model behavior that was appropriate for any ofthe 4 types of organizations.

The leader must define for himself or herself what is tme(epistemology), what is real (ontology), and what is right (axiology).From that point, the leader must either communicate thesephilosophies to the organization or, through human resource practices,find individuals who are similar in thought and place them into openpositions. Those organizational members, as well as any new memberswho adhere to this vision, will work within the philosophical mission,or the leader, unable to accommodate change, will be removed(Wheatley, 1999).


An administrator's leadership foundation profoundly affectsmany of the facets within the educational organization and overallschool effectiveness. Educational philosophy was designed to givemeaning to education and to provide definitions for the goals andobjectives of education (Phénix, 1958). With the development ofaccountability measures the need to identify philosophical beliefs ofleaders has become increasingly important. This study took existingeducational philosophies and sought to develop profiles of successfulcampus leaders.

Methods

The primary purpose of this study was to develop aquantifiable profile of the philosophical beliefs of secondary principalswhose campuses were rated as exemplary or recognized during thefirst 4 years of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills(TAKS) assessment program and to compare these profiles withinspecific research variable divisions. Leaders from secondary campuseswere considered for participation. A secondary campus was eitiier ahigh school or a junior high school/middle school. The campus alsohad to have received an exemplary or recognized state rating. Afterconsiderable effort to contact the 200 possible participants, 43secondary principals chose to participate in the survey. The 20%participation rate was considered a limiting factor to the overallsuccess of the research findings.

Using data obtained with an online survey, a numerical profilewas developed for each member of the participant group for thestrength exhibited on the five educational philosophies of behavioraleducation, comprehensive education, progressive education,humanistic education, and social change education. An overall meanscore for each philosophy was developed. From this profile baselineinformation was provided for the philosophies being examined by thestudy.


The philosophical beliefs of participants were compared andcontrasted based on pre-determined factors. These predeterminedvariables were used to comprise seven research questions to answerthe questions of whether there were significant differences inleadership foundation profiles for secondary principals of: (a)exemplary or recognized campuses, (b) exemplary and recognizedcampuses based on campus type, (c) exemplary and recognizedcampuses based on gender, (d) exemplary and recognized campusesbased on ethnicity, (e) exemplary and recognized campuses based onyears of experience, (f) exemplary and recognized campuses based onschool size, and (f) exemplary and recognized campuses that have astudent enrolhnent wàth 50% or higher low socioeconomic status.

The survey. Philosophy of Education Inventory (PEI), designedby Lorraine Zinn, was used to gather quantitative data to rank aparticipant's philosophical ideology. The survey was designed toprovide a measure for 5 philosophical ideologies (Behavioral,Comprehensive, Progressive, Humanistic, and Social Change). Thescoring matrix provided a numerical association with how stronglytheir beliefs matched each finishing statement. A high score on one ortwo areas indicated a strong belief system within that philosophy. Datawere analyzed to determine whether there was a predominantphilosophical profile among leaders capable of developing schoolsable to meet state standards that were considered recognized orexemplary.

The highest possible achievement in Texas public schools isthe rating of exemplary. An exemplary high school campus has tomeet the following criteria: (a) have a 90% pass rate for all studentsand all measurable student subgroups in the subjects of mathematics,English language arts, social studies, and science; (b) have 90% ofspecial education students meet expectations on state assessment; and(c) have a 95% completion rate for the previous year (TEA, 2007a).For junior high or middle school campuses to reach exemplary, theymust reach the same 90% plateau on similar assessments but alsomaintain a dropout rate of 1% or less.


Multivariable statistical methods were applied to analyze theparticipants' philosophical profiles. A foundation of leadership profilewas created for all participants. The individual profiles were sortedand used in the statistical analysis based on the needs of the individualresearch questions. Further profile subgroups were created for gender,years of experience, campus population, ethnicity, and campussocioeconomic status.

Descriptive statistics, Kniskal-Wallis one-way analysis ofvariance, and the Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney two-sample test werecalculated. The Kruskal-Wallis test was used to determine whether themeans of the research question subgroups are equal. Thisnonparametric testing procedure was chosen over the one-way analysisof variance (ANOVA) due to low retum rate and lack of theassumption of a normal population. In the instances where significantdifferences were indicated, post hoc testing was performed through theWilcoxon-Mann-Whitney procedure to identify where specificdifferences occurred wáthin the subgroups.

Findings

The highest scoring educational philosophy was theProgressive educational philosophy (M = 87.14). This indicated thatthe secondary principals led their campuses to the highest ratingsthrough the use of models of education that incorporated cooperativelearning techniques.

The lowest score of the group (Âf= 71.19) was the Humanisticeducational philosophy. A Humanistic educational approach wouldsignify an effort to allow students to self-actualize and self-pace (Zinn,1996). On the contrary, the low score would indicate an educationalsystem with stmcture, set standards, and regimentation. This idea ofstructure is strengthened by the mean score (M = 80.95) attained onthe Behavioral education philosophy. The strongest positivecorrelation existed between campus type and Behavioral philosophy


while the strongest negative correlation existed between campusenrollment and Comprehensive philosophy.

Leadership Foundation Profile and Campus Rating

The first research question was utilized to examine whetherthere were significant differences in the philosophical profiles ofsecondary principals of exemplary campuses verses those withrecognized campuses. Survey tool questions asked the participant toprovide whether he or she had an exemplary or recognized campusduring one of the four TAKS years between 2004-2007. Participantswere asked to identify the first year in which they were exemplary orrecognized and answer the survey based on that year of accountability.

Ofthe 43 participants, 18.6% (n = 8) represented exemplarycampuses, while the remaining 81.4% (« = 35) were leaders ofrecognized campuses. These statistics were fairly representative oftherandomly chosen participant list. Of the 200 chosen possibleparticipants, 16% (n = 32) were from exemplary campuses and 84% (n= 168) had a recognized rating.

The Progressive philosophy represented the highest mean scorefor both of the sample groups that modeled the overall group reportgiven at the beginning ofthe chapter. The lowest score for both groupswas in the Humanist philosophy, which was also consistent with theoverall group performance. In contrast, the exemplary group had ashift in the second and third philosophy from the overall groupperformance. Social Change philosophy and Behavioral philosophychanged places when compared to the overall group data. Hegarty(2001) wrote that Social Change education was "a society-centeredphilosophy which seeks to raise consciousness about social, economic,environmental, and political injustice and to promote studentautonomy and empowerment" (p. 9). This indicates that exemplarycampuses participants were more inclined to incorporate student-centered leaming strategies with more equality between teacher andstudent than participants from recognized campuses.


When the strength scores were examined between the groups,the exemplary principals had a higher mean score than the recognizedprincipal group in only one area. Progressive philosophy. In all othercategories, the recognized principals had higher mean scores. Furthertesting was done to determine whether these differences weresignificant.

These ranks were examined to determine whether they werefrom the same population. At significance level a = .05 and samplesizes n >5, the critical value was ; ^ (1, A = 43) = 3.84 (Siegel &Castellan, 1988). Therefore, for / /= .738, .119, 1.266, .035, and 1.130respectively, there were no significant differences between leadersfrom an exemplary or recognized campus.

Leadership Foundation Profile and Campus Type

The primary purpose of the second research question was tocompare and contrast secondary principals leading different campustypes. The basic question was whether successful junior highprincipals had differing philosophical profiles than successful highschool principals.

Based on the participants, 27.9% (« = 12) of the participantsled highly rated high school campuses. The remaining 31 participants,or 72.1% of the group, were junior high school campus principals. Theoriginal 200 invited participants had the percentage breakdown of 22%high school and 78% junior high principals. Further comparisonindicated that these numbers were fairly representative of the statetables of rating by campus type (TEA, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007b).Examining each of the 4 years individually, the 2004 secondarycampuses were the most similar to the research data with high schoolcampuses and junior high campuses representing 40.1% and 59.9%,respectively, of the secondary campuses rated as exemplary orrecognized (TEA, 2004). In the years 2006 and 2007, the participantgroup was comparable to the state group when the exemplary andrecognized high school to junior high ratio was 24.2% to 75.8% and


21.3% to 78.2%, respectively (TEA, 2006,2007b).

The mean score comparison is consistent with the total groupprofile. The highest-ranking philosophy for both sub-groups was theProgressive philosophy with a mean score of 90.08 for the high schoolprincipals and a mean score of 86.00 for the junior high principals.Humanistic philosophy remained the lowest ranking philosophy. OnHumanistic philosophy, high school and junior high principalsproduced an average score of 71.25 and 71.16 respectively. Theremaining three categories of Behavioral, Social Change, andComprehensive philosophy had the same rank order with thesubgroups and the total group profile.

Unlike the profiles of principals based on campus ratings, themean scores of one group were not higher in all philosophy categories.When the mean scores were compared within campus type, the highschool principals scored higher in the Progressive, Humanistic, andSocial Change philosophies but had lower mean scores than the juniorhigh principals in the Behavioral and Comprehensive philosophies.The Kmskal-Wallis Test was used to determine whether thephilosophy scores were drawn from the same population. For campustype, results of the Kmskal-Wallis Test indicated, at significance levela = .05 and sample size n >5, the critical value was x^ (^, N = 43) =3.84 (Siegel & Castellan, 1988). Therefore, for/ /= 3.009, .667, 2.603,.026, and .200, respectively, no significant differences existed betweenthe principals who came from either a high school campus or a juniorhigh campus.

Leadership Foundation Profíle and Gender

The third research question examined the profiles of principalsfrom high performing campuses when the variable of gender was thedefining component. Of the 43 participants, 30.2% (n = 13) werefemale and 69.8% (n = 30) were male. This population distributionwas very similar to the 200 participant group where 26% of the groupwas female and 74% was male.

7 0 NATIONAL FORUM OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION AND SUPERVISION JOURNAL

The data obtained from this category were very consistent withthe total participant data. In comparison, the rank order of philosophypreference was consistent for both female and male subgroups with thetotal participant ranking. The Progressive philosophy was the highestscoring with a mean female score of 86.54 and a mean score of themale participants of 87.40. The subgroups showed some differences inscore for the Humanistic philosophy. While the male participantsscored it last (M = 69.90), the female participants had Humanisticphilosophy (M= 74.15) as their fourth strongest with Comprehensivephilosophy in last place (M = 73.46). Mean scores for the femaleparticipants are lower than the males in the Behavioral,Comprehensive, and Progressive philosophies but are higher in theHumanistic and Social Change philosophies.

The most obvious possibility for a significant difference wouldbe with the Comprehensive philosophy score. For this philosophy, thelargest difference between mean rarúcs existed where the score offemales equaled 17.96 while the male score equaled 23.75. Thedifference of 5.79 represented the largest difference in scores withinthe sample groups. The second greatest difference between scores waswithin the Humanistic philosophy where females and males differedby 5.40 points.

There were no significant differences in any philosophicalcategory based on gender. The sample sizes are greater than 5,therefore for a = .05 the/^ (1, A = 43) = 3.84 (Siegel & Castellan,1988). None of the derived íí-values exceeded the critical value of3.84. The Comprehensive and Humanistic philosophies produced thehighest //-values but were not large enough to be significant.

Leadership Foundation Profile and Ethnicity

An important aspect of the state accountability system is theinclusion of scores that would directly measure the performance ofchildren from different ethnic backgrounds (TEA, 2002). Therefore,the study compared rank order scores of principals who had campuses


that had either a majority of Caucasian, Hispanic, or African-American students. The descriptive statistics were dominated by theprincipals leading campuses with a majority Caucasian studentpopulation. The representation was 74% (n = 32) of the participants,while 16.3% (n - 7) and 9.3% (n = 4) of the participant group werefrom majority Hispanic and African-American campuses, respectively.The lack of retum rate for the African-American campuses with only 4participants was a concem, but with the importance in accountabilitybeing directed toward ethnic performance, the comparative analysiswas completed.

The descriptive data indicate some noticeable differences inphilosophical strengths between the African-American campuses andthe total profile. For the African-American campuses, the Humanisticphilosophy was not the lowest ranking philosophy. The Progressivephilosophy continued to be the highest, but there was a very differentorder to the remaining philosophies. The principals' rankings werecompleted in the order of Social Change, Behavioral, Humanistic, andComprehensive philosophies. The mean rank of scores was obtainedfrom the participant data based on the research category of ethnicity.These ranks were examined to determine whether they were from thesame population, or whether significant differences occurred within aphilosophy.

For the comparative analysis of the participant group based oncampus ethnicity, based on the research of Siegel and Castellan(1988), for a = .05 the x^ (2, A = 43) = 5.99, the populations showedno significant differences. The nearest measure for significance camefrom the Progressive philosophy where H= 4.926 but failed to reach asignificant level.

Leadership Foundation Profile Years of Experience

Research question five compared and contrasted the principalprofiles of principals based on their total years of experience at thetime of their recognized or exemplary rating. The research question


used four rating categories were (a) less than 5 years of experience, (b)6-10 years of experience, (c) 11-15 years of experience, and (d) 16 ormore years of experience.

Principals with less than 5 years of experience wererepresented with the higjiest frequency of participation (n = 20). Thelowest participation came in the 11-15 years of experience subgroupvkâth a sample size of 2 principals. With this limitation, any significantdifference that occiured between this subgroup and any of the otherthree subgroups was not addressed. The Kmskal-Wallis test wasapplied to the sample groups to compare and contrast. Anycomparative analysis that included the 11-15 years of experiencesubgroup was deemphasized due to insufficient representation.

Mean ranks, when based on the years of experience of thesecondary principals, were ascertained. Obvious differences couldoccur in the Humanistic philosophy for the subgroups of principalswith 1-5 years of experience (M = 25.40) and principals wdth 6-10years of experience (M =16.35). In all ofthe comparative categories,the greatest difference existed between these two mean scores. Alldata analysis concerning the 11-15 years of experience subgroup wasdeemphasized due to limited retum for that particular subgroup. Atsignificance level a = .05 and sample size « >5, the critical value wasX' (3, AT = 43) = 7.82 (Siegel & Castellan, 1988). None ofthe derived//-values exceed the attained critical value of 7.82; therefore, nosignificant differences were observed for principals with varied yearsof experience.

Leadership Foundation Profile and School Size

The purpose of research question 6 was to determine whetherdifferences in philosophy scores exhibited by principals from differentcampus sizes were significant. The study examined campus size basedon the criteria of (a) less than 100 students, (b) 101-400 students, (c)401-700 students, (d) 701-1000 students, and (e) campuses with morethan 1000 students.


The majority of the participants were within the subgroup thathad a 101-400 campus enrollment. Of the 43 participants, 58.1% (« =25) were at campuses with 101-400 students, 4.6% {n = 2) were atcampuses with less than 100 students, 20.9% (n = 9) were at campuseswith 401-700 students, 11.6% (n = 5) were at campuses with 701-1000 students, and 4.6% (n = 2) were at campuses with more than1000 students.

The rank orders exhibited by 3 of the subgroups were verydifferent when compared to the total group profile. Also, when thewithin group rank orders are compared, the subgroups exhibit somedifferences. A rank order similar to the total group profile existedbetween the 101-400 enrollment group and the 401-700 enrollmentgroup with only a change in order of the Social Change philosophyand Comprehensive philosophy within the 101-400 subgroup. For theremaining 3 subgroups, there were very different orders in rank orderwhen compared to the total group profile. Some of these variationscould most certainly be attributed to small sample sizes but,regardless, it would seem worthy to mention that the Humanisticphilosophy scores were not last in 2 of the 3 subgroups, with a secondplace finish for the participants with 701-1000 student enrollment anda third place finish in the greater than 1000 students subgroup.

The differences between mean ranking of the participants fromthe campus enrollment perspective did not appear to be verysignificant when only the groups with a sample size of 5 or greaterwere examined. This statement held true except for within theComprehensive philosophy where a large difference existed betweenparticipants whose campuses had an enrollment of 101-400 students(M = 24.64) and those participants from campuses with an enrollmentbetween 701-1000 students (M = 8.50)

There were significant differences in the Comprehensive andHumanistic philosophies when based on campus enrollment. For a =.05 the x' (4, iV = 43) = 9.49 (Siegel & Castellan, 1988), theComprehensive philosophy and the Humanistic philosophy had H-


values of 12.254 and 9.602 respectively, which exceeded the criticalvalue of 9.49.

Post Hoc testing identified areas of significant differenceswithin Comprehensive and Humanistic philosophies. The Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test examined two independent samples of thesubgroups. An a = .05 was used to determine significance. For theComprehensive philosophy between the subgroup of 101-400 studentcampuses verses 701-1000 campus students U = 13.000, p = .005, asignificant difference occurred at a = .05; subgroup participants werefrom different populations. For the Humanistic philosophy betweenthe subgroups of campuses with 101-400 students verses campiiseswith 701-1000 students i /= 24.000,/? = .032, a significant differenceoccurred at a = .05; participants were from different populations.

Leadership Foundation Profíle and Campus Socioeconomic Status

The seventh research question examined the profiles ofsecondary principals from hi^-performing campuses when thevariable of campus socioeconomic status was the defining component.Campuses were viewed as having either high or low populations ofstudents enrolled in the free or reduced lunch program. For thepurpose of the study the high socioeconomic status campuses had 50%or more students designated as eligible for free or reduced lunches.

Of the 43 participants, 72.1% (n = 31) represented campuseswith an economically disadvantaged population of less than 50% ofthe student body while the remaining 27.9% (« = 12) were leaders ofcampuses with a 50% or greater student population identified aseligible for free or reduced lunches. When the subgroup data werecompared to the total group profiles, the rank orders were the same.Progressive philosophy continued to have the highest score while theHumanist philosophy had the lowest score. The comparison todetermine whether there were significant differences in the scoresbegan with determining rank mean scores.


The mean rank of scores obtained from the participant databased on the research category of ethnicity were examined todetermine whether they were from the same population or whethersignificant differences occurred within a philosophy. Forsocioeconomic status, the results of the Kruskal-Wallis Test indicatethat at significance level a = .05 the critical value was;^^ (^,N= 43) =3.84 (Siegel & Castellan, 1988). Therefore, for / / = .200,2.449,2.306,.225, and .954 respectively, no significant differences existed betweenthe principals who came from either a high or low socioeconomiccampus.

Discussion and Implications

The results ofthe study provided an interesting insight into thephilosophical beliefs of the secondary principals who chose toparticipate in the study. When the rank orders of the research questionsubgroups are compared to the total profile rank orders, the majorityfinding was that the orders were exact or very similar. The total profilehad an order of finish for the 5 philosophies from greatest to least asthe Progressive philosophy. Behavior philosophy. Social Changephilosophy. Comprehensive philosophy, and Humanistic philosophy.The strength of the Progressive philosophy indicated that educationhas moved in a direction that was presented by Dewey in the 1900s.Hegarty (2001) wrote, "Dewey hoped for schools where leaming wasa part of each student's life, connected to the student's presentsituation and his needs" (p. 29).

When the subgroups were compared to this baseline rankingthere were a number of subgroups that were deemphasized due to lackof participants. The seven research questions produced 40 subgroups.Of these 40 subgroups, 10 had the same rank order as the groupprofile, 6 had rank orders that were different than the group profile,and 24 subgroups were deemphasized due to lack of participants (n <5).


Five of the 6 subgroups with differences from the profile grouphad a difference between two consecutive categories. Of these 5subgroups, the categories of exemplary principals and high schoolprincipals had a change in order from the profile ranking in the second(Behavioral) and third (Social Change) philosophies, while thesubgroups of principals with 16 or more years of experience and theprincipals with 101-400 students had a change in order from theprofile ranking in the third (Social Change) and fourth(Comprehensive) philosophies. The female subgroup had a change inorder from the profile ranking in the fourth (Comprehensive) and fifth(Humanistic) philosophies.

The subgroup that exhibited the largest variation from theprofile ranking was the group of principals at campuses with 701-1000students. This subgroup saw a shift of the Humanistic philosophy,usually the lowest rank, to the second position. Further, the second(Behavior) and third (Social Change) philosophies had a change inorder from the profile ranking. The high finish of the Humanisticphilosophy indicates that these principals "intended to enhanceindividual self-development which may or may not meet anyone else'sexpectations or standards" (Zinn, 1996, p. 146).

The comparative analysis section of the study indicated fewsignificant differences within the 7 research questions. Although therewere differences in the rank scores when compared within the researchquestion divisions, these differences only rose to the level ofsignificance for school size.

Research question 6 examined the differences in philosophyscores when based on campus size. Sigrüficant differences existedwithin subgroups for the Comprehensive philosophy and theHumanistic philosophy. Post Hoc testing determined that within theComprehensive philosophy and the Humanistic philosophy asignificant difference existed between the principals with campusenrollments of 101-400 students and the principals with campusenrollments of 701 -1000 students.


The understanding of educational philosophy as it relates toaccountability could be significantly useful to school districteffectiveness. With continued increased accountability comes dramaticpenalty for unsuccessful performance. The examination andsubsequent understanding of the philosophical foundation ofsuccessful leadership may also prove valuable in campuses achievingthe ultimate goal of state-rated exemplary and recognized status. Texasdistricts would have insight as to what philosophical makeup is mostsuccessful at leading the secondary schools to the higher campusratings.

Conclusions

The study of leadership and the philosophy of the leader haveimplications in many areas of education which, according to Busch(2003), help to change the leaming environment. Leadership style isdirectly linked to the person's inner thoughts and beliefs (Sergiovanni,1992). Leadership is developed from the ideals of what is true, what isreal, and what is right, the leader's epistemology, ontology, andaxiology.

While the principal's impact on leaming "may be indirect, it iscmcial" (Kaplan et al., 2005, p. 29) as "principal effectiveness andteaching quality are related" (Kaplan et al., p. 42). With increasedaccountability comes a need for reform. The general public hasexpectations that the schools are more effective at educating studentsfor the global market (Hanushek, 1994). All areas of education willhave to adjust to meet higher standards (Barth, 1990).


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Wheatley, M. J. (1999). Leadership and the new science: Discoveringorder in a chaotic world. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.

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