The Influence Of Principal Leadership On Educational Outcomes Of Inner Cities Children

The Influence of Principal Leadership on Educational Outcomes of Inner-cities Children
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The Influence of Principal Leadership on Educational Outcomes of Inner-cities Children
Abstract
The role of principals faces a lot of challenges that seem to be increasing due to various school reforms that demand accountability in the field of education. In the professional of school principals, those from high-risk schools find the ever-increasing challenges facing them more overwhelming. Inner-city school principals face the challenges of providing learning opportunities for the vulnerable and needy children and create a learning environment for these needy children to achieve their outcomes. The available literature has ignored the experiences of inner-city school principals and the few studies that have focused on the role of principal leadership in advantaged schools. This study attempts to explore the realities of inner-city schools by establishing the role of principal leadership on children educational outcomes.
Introduction
The quality of education offered in schools depends on the internal processes work of the involved stakeholders to improve the performance of children. One of the processes is leadership whose basic purpose is to ensure that things are done in a manner that benefits the majority. In schools, instructional leadership portrays the school principal as the central figure whose responsibility is to ensure that the school staff and community are working towards the mission and vision of the school. The school principal all the activities of the school from management to curriculum management and ensures that there is professional development for the teachers to promote best practice. Additionally, the principal has the responsibility of monitoring student progress to establish the needs of their needs and where changes need to be done to improve their performance. Besides these, the principal is mandated to ensure that a positive learning environment is created. However, the general school administration and the role of principals is always questioned. According to Murphy (2002):
For some time now, the (education) profession has been marked by considerable ferment as it has struggled to locate itself in a post behavioral science era. During this era of turmoil, the historical foundations of the profession have been thrown into question, especially the legitimacy of the knowledge base supporting school administration and the appropriateness of programs for preparing school leaders.
Leadership is an evolving concept in all platforms, and those who aspire to be good leaders need to understand it, be aware of their strengths and weaknesses, adopt the best practice that will enable them to provide their best to their followers.
Various scholars have provided a range of theories aimed at helping people to understand the whole concept of leadership. Most of these theories encompass a wide range of features from the industrial period to the current dynamic political, educational and business perspectives of this era. For the past three decades, there have been some studies on the role of instructional leadership in the field of education from various scholars ...