Leithwood, Begley and Cousins (1994), in their book Developing Expert Leadership, discuss several questions related to the impact and influences on the practices of current school leaders. In their discussion they review studies conducted from 1974 to 1988 and attempt to find out what the studies contributed to knowledge about the impact of school leaders. They state the 7
Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, Issue #54, June 26, 2006. © 2006 by CJEAP and the author(s).
following: “First, we must acknowledge significant limitations in the research-based knowledge about the nature of current school-leaders’ impact. But, based on the number of studies alone, one can reasonably conclude that current school-leaders are capable of having a significant influence on the basic skills’ achievement of students” (p.14). They further state that evidence concerning other types of impact was extremely thin.