The Detroit Public School District: A Case Study Into Superintendents’ Leadership From 1975 to 2015

[摘要] School district superintendents play several roles including teacher-scholar, instructional leader, organizational manager, business manager, democratic leader, stateswoman, and social scientist. In each unique role, superintendents are district leaders who use various leadership styles including authentic leadership, team leadership, system leadership, situational leadership theory, distributed leadership, leader-member exchange theory, and transformational leadership.This case study provides an analysis of interviews with four former Detroit Public Schools (DPS) superintendents and one chief executive officer.As a historical case study focused on former district leadership from 1975 to 2015, the research retells the leadership stories in a manner that provides insider information and shares institutional knowledge about leading Michigan’s largest school district.The five district leaders interviewed for this study are Arthur Jefferson, Deborah McGriff, David Snead, David Adamany, and Karen Ridgeway.Implications for key findings are embedded across time-related themes: duration, momentum, futuring, transformation, and quality.Each leader interviewed discussed challenges relative to complex school systems including but not limited to mission, vision, values, goals, operations, finance, academics, student attendance, general accountability, policy, and politics.The dialogue and circumstances for school systems serving predominantly high poverty students and families warrants comparable discussions about public education in urban areas across the nation.

[发布机构] University of Michigan

[效力级别] High-performance

[关键词] Education;High-performance;Leadership;Student performance;Detroit;Superintendent;Education;College of Education, Health and Human Services