Date of Award

2008

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Educational Leadership

First Advisor

Dr. Angela Sewall

Abstract

Literacy reform is at the forefront of the accountability movement in the education arena today. School principals must tackle one of the most perplexing problems facing education reform: how to understand and change the culture of the school. Literacy instruction can become the catalyst for school change in the reform effort. Leadership for change can evolve within a professional learning community, in which school principals act as change facilitators, collaboratively leading the reform efforts in their schools. A person that is in the position to facilitate change within a system is considered a change facilitator. In schools, this may include literacy coaches, classroom and supplementary teachers at the building level, as well as central office administrators, outside consultants, college university faculty, parents, business partners, and politicians. The study examined the role of the principal in the implementation of a comprehensive literacy model, Partnerships in Comprehensive Literacy. A key feature of the particular model, Partnerships in Comprehensive Literacy (PCL), is the use of school-based literacy coaches to facilitate and sustain school change, while using student achievement as a measure of school improvement. The study investigated the function of the school principal, as perceived by the school's literacy coach, as a change agent in the implementation process. The analysis examined three perceptual measures: a measure for grouping behaviors of change facilitators, an environmental measure for documenting behaviors for implementing a comprehensive literacy school, and a measure to determine how school principals build collaboration among their staff. Findings indicate that principal leadership is central to school improvement; when principals build a collaborative learning environment, schools are more effective in their efforts to implement innovations for school change. The study revealed that Initiator and Manager change facilitator styles of principals have the potential to be more successful with the implementation of the Partnerships in Comprehensive Literacy model. Those principals who work closely to create a literate environment by fully implementing features of the Environmental Scales for Assessing Implementation and the Collaborative Learning Environment measures have a greater chance of building capacity and maintaining sustainability.

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