The Importance Of School Effectiveness In Schools

INTRODUCTION

“Heck (2013) defines effective schools by saying it should provide stable and consistent results over time that apply to all students within the school... Underlying the notion of school accountability is the belief that school personnel should be held responsible for improving student learning.”

Society continues to change and so does the notion of what may be effective in schools. What we may think was effective before may not necessarily be effective now. We try to understand what works best as schools restructure and transform. This paper aims to critically discuss two mainstream thoughts in education that are crucial for improving or maintaining effectiveness at schools. I will discuss the various forms of effectiveness and

As Cameron (2005) states, “Organisations effectiveness is mainly a problem- driven construct rather than a theory- driven construct” (p. 313) Thus meaning that; what we as educators put in is what we will get out. Efficiency is defined as the point to which an organisation or programme maintains or focuses on academic achievement and employment skills.

To create effective schools, schools need to become effective rather than be effective (Zammuto, 1984). However, for teachers to be an integral part of the change process, they need to do more than blindly accept a principal’s vision. “Too often schools are organized as administrative hierarchies rather than as groups of professionals working toward shared goals” (Cibulka and Nakayama, 2000, p. 4).

The effective school movement emphasizes teacher excellence, collaboration, and mentoring so that schools become “places where every educator is recognized as a valuable contributor with unique strengths and impressive potential to learn, grow, and improve” (Johnson, 1997, p.

One is the traditional way; to think of organisations as the hierarchical system in which power and intelligence are at the top. Thus being good ideas are produced at the top and are passed down through order and power (control). The newer thought which was brought in, in the 20th century is to think of organisations as co-operative, collegial and collaborative systems, whereby good ideas exist everywhere in the organisations and can only be placed into action when those from the hierarchy commands it. Classical theorists view organizations as a “complex web” of social relationships and interdependencies and motivation whereby ideals, values, beliefs and personnel satisfaction is used as a means of true