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Editorial article, editorial: insights in leadership in education: 2022.

• Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, Orange, CA, United States

Editorial on the Research Topic Insights in leadership in education: 2022

This collection of articles provides an overview of educational leadership as we emerge from the pandemic crisis into a divisive era characterized by political unrest, social and cultural upheaval, and persistent economic hardship. Across the globe, leaders in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions are faced with the challenges of making up for student learning loss during the pandemic, educator burn out, parental and community concerns about curriculum content, mental health issues and the impact of artificial intelligence on education. Education leaders are taxed with meeting these challenges with scant resources in a conservative policy climate that favors traditionalism at the expense of a liberal progressive outlook.

The nine articles included in this Research Topic offer a variety of perspectives on issues pertaining to education leadership. Orr's overview of leader preparation in “ Reflections on leadership preparation research and current directions ,” reinforces the importance of leadership outcomes – particularly those related to improvement of student learning. Now recognized as a field of its own, the study of leadership preparation has developed over the past 20 to 30 years. Yet we know little about the relationship of preparation to leadership effectiveness in facilitating marginalized and under-represented students' academic achievement. Orr identifies partnerships between schools and universities as a key element of quality preparation programs in the U.S. echoing a more general commitment to collaborative approaches to leadership development and institutional effectiveness.

For instance, Pashmforoosh et al.'s study of 40 school leaders who participated in virtual professional learning communities (VPLC) found these communities of practice across schools in Texas were instrumental in building principals and assistant principals instructional leadership capacity. “ Building school leaders' instructional leadership capacity through virtual professional learning communities,” highlights the effectiveness of community building through collaboration. Participants worked with each other to identify creative solutions to problems of practice in their high-needs schools.

In another example of collaboration, Washington and Johnson , in their article, “ Toward culturally sustaining/revitalizing indigenous family-school-community leadership ,” identify promising leadership models that are more respectful of indigenous communities' self-determination over education. The collaborative partnerships advocated in this review are focused on learning from the indigenous communities' ways of knowing, being and doing to craft education policies and practices to benefit indigenous students and their families.

Fahrenwald et al. also focus on collaborative partnerships between higher education institutions and the civil society in Austria. “ Taking the lead for campus-community-partnerships” is a brief research report, which raises questions about how these CCPs are led, managed, and sustained. Their research findings indicate that despite the importance attached to the potential of CCPs to foster social innovation through collective action, there is little institutional support for them. Most are initiated voluntarily by mid-career women faculty members. To realize the potential of these partnerships, the authors recommend greater institutional commitment and maintenance of support.

Another article that focuses on higher education discusses the results of a PhD program evaluation. In “ Leadership in PhD (LeaP): a longitudinal leadership skill building program for underrepresented biomedical research trainees ,” Doles et al. found the program effective in helping underrepresented biomedical research trainees build community and develop new leadership skills. The positive feedback from students suggests possibilities for the LeaP model to be adapted for other health professional programs designed to increase diversity in the field.

Klinck et al. studied School Management Teams (SMT) in South Africa to understand better the necessary competencies, abilities and attitudes that lead to improved service delivery. Findings reported in “ Creating a high-performing school management: bringing talent to the table for effective service delivery ” include a set of desirable interpersonal skills, managerial skills, emotional intelligence, effective communication, and team building skills. The authors recommend that the SMTs are provided training and development to strengthen these skills in order to provide better social justice education and increased academic achievement.

Finally, three articles consider different approaches to leadership including transformational leadership, caring leadership, and servant leadership. In “ Transformational educational leaders inspire school educators' commitment ,” Kareem et al. studied the effect of leader's transformational style on teacher commitment in India. They found that the positive effect of this kind of leadership encouraged a culture of collaboration and self-development. Steilen and Stone-Johnson report on a study of elementary principals' caring leadership during the pandemic. In “ “There wasn't a guidebook for this”: caring leadership during a crisis,” the authors advocate for in-service and pre-service leadership development to help leaders prioritize care as central to their work not only for others but also for themselves. And Dami et al. discuss the results of a study of Christian higher education lecturers in Indonesia in their article “ Servant leadership and job satisfaction: the mediating role of trust and leader-member exchange .” They found that servant leadership positively influences trust, leader-member exchange and job satisfaction.

At the heart of most of these articles is an interest in understanding better how education leaders work impacts others – students, community members and other educators. They illustrate the primary focus of leadership research over the past 20 years, which has been on the relationship between leadership and student learning. These articles contribute to this important agenda by offering different theoretical and conceptual approaches to leadership, global perspectives, and a variety of education settings. Moving forward, as the negative effects of racism, sexism, ableism, homo-and transphobia, and anti-migrant policies and practices place increasing numbers of our communities in jeopardy, courageous education leadership is imperative for the wellbeing of future generations. My hope is that in the next decade, education scholars and researchers commit to generating new knowledge of how leadership matters in the lives of those served. Leadership is fundamentally about prioritization and decision-making that has the power to elevate human potential or stifle it. To ensure the former, we will need a concerted global effort on the part of the academic community partnering with education practitioners, community members and students themselves.

Author contributions

MG: Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing.

The author(s) declare that no financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Conflict of interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

The author(s) declared that they were an editorial board member of Frontiers, at the time of submission. This had no impact on the peer review process and the final decision.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Keywords: leadership, collaboration, student learning, education, courage

Citation: Grogan M (2024) Editorial: Insights in leadership in education: 2022. Front. Educ. 9:1372208. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2024.1372208

Received: 17 January 2024; Accepted: 29 January 2024; Published: 15 February 2024.

Edited and reviewed by: Ekkarin Sungtong , Prince of Songkla University, Thailand

Copyright © 2024 Grogan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Margaret Grogan, grogan@chapman.edu

This article is part of the Research Topic

Insights in Leadership in Education: 2022

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Educational leadership in the time of a pandemic: Lessons from two institutions

Eva m. aagaard.

1 Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis MO, USA

Mark Earnest

2 University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora CO, USA

Over the course of a few weeks in March, COVID‐19 upended the daily lives of Americans. Academic Medical Centers became a center‐point for the response to the virus. Leaders within academic medical centers faced twin challenges of responding to the needs of the patients we serve while managing radical changes within their own institutions, including the educational mission. In this article, we describe some key themes identified and lessons learned as educational leaders during this time. We draw from the experiences of two institutions‐ one public and one private. These lessons learned fall into the broad categories of leadership decision‐making and communication and included the importance of principled decision‐making, a connected leadership team, and effective communication both within leadership and to the broader institutional community. The consequences of these responses resulted in a renewed recognition for us as educational leaders of the interdependence of our tripartide academic fates, the importance of academic medical centers as anchor institutions and advocates for our community, and the resilience and ingenuity of our students. We provide examples of these lessons and themes and make recommendations for how to approach educational decision‐making in the “new normal” of living with COVID‐19 for the immediate future.

1. INTRODUCTION

The disruptions to daily life brought by the emergence of SARS‐CoV‐2 as a global pandemic are unprecedented in modern times. Over the course of a few weeks in March, life in the US changed with unimaginable speed and scope, paralleling earlier experiences across the globe. For many regions of the country, academic medical centers (AMCs) formed a center‐point for the response to the virus and the havoc that has followed in its wake. Nothing in memory casts the critical importance of AMCs' missions in starker relief: caring for the sick and preventing avoidable harm, educating the public, and medical learners as faculty educate themselves and each other, and generating and interpreting new knowledge. While the pandemic amplified the urgency of each mission area, it simultaneously swept away standard operating procedures. Face‐to‐face communication vanished, taking with it most standard routines and protocols. Leaders within AMCs faced the twin challenges of responding to unprecedented community needs while managing radical changes within their own organizations and across all missions. Within medical education, these radical changes began for both of our institutions in early March (Table  1 ‐Timeline of Events at One Institution). As community‐based spread of COVID‐19 became apparent in each of our cities, we discontinued in‐person classroom based activity, shifting rapidly to online learning. In early March, the Association for American Medical Colleges (AAMC) released a statement encouraging medical schools to remove medical students from the care of patients with known or suspected COVID‐19 and raising concerns about the ethical implications of allowing students into the clinical environment at all given the many unknowns of the pandemic. 1 Over the course of a few days, multiple decisions needed to be made, communicated, implemented, and managed. Aspects of leadership decision‐making and communication greatly affected our ability to address these challenges. Moreover, it caused us to reflect on the critical importance of AMCs in providing a way forward in crisis. In this perspective, we outline our key lessons learned as educational leaders at two different academic medical centers, one public and one private, but with similar experiences and timelines, and how we believe these lessons should influence decision‐making going forward in the pandemic as we live with COVID‐19 and resume our critical missions.

Timeline of events at one institution

2. LEADERSHIP DECISION‐MAKING AND COMMUNICATION

2.1. the importance of principled decision‐making.

When conditions require rapid decisions in the absence of evidence, clarifying and articulating the principles that should guide decision‐making is critical. “Operational tempo”—the speed and intensity of actions relative to the speed and intensity of emerging events—is a common concept in the military and among organizations designed to respond to emergent conditions. 2 With notable pockets of exception, this is not a familiar concept for AMC’s which are built to foster the deliberative, systematic processes that build evidence and certainty. Even in our Emergency Departments and ICU's, where a brisk “ops tempo” is common, we study our choices and seek to systematize them. We learned that rapidly establishing and broadcasting the principles that should guide decision‐making in the face of rapid operations tempo is a best practice. Similarly, gathering ongoing feedback on those decisions from the stakeholders impacted and engaging them in decision‐making when possible is critical to staying an effective course.

In the early hours of the pandemic, safety quickly emerged as a foundational principle. Establishing the best means to ensure the safety of our patients, faculty, staff, and learners emerged as the fundamental imperative—acting on that principle has been an iterative, ongoing process. As community spread of COVID‐19 entered our respective communities, we made rapid decisions to move to online learning for classroom‐based activities. This was critical because the means of spread and mechanism by which to ensure safety in large group environments was not yet clear. In the case of the clinical environment, caring for our patients cannot be separated from caring for ourselves. The availability of personal protective equipment (PPE) and the impact of practice decisions on the supply of PPE has proved critical to safety, and has guided the flow of patients, providers, staff, and learners through our practices and services. This led to early exclusion of both medical students and residents from care of COVID‐19 suspected or confirmed patients early in the pandemic. A lack of available PPE meant we need to limit the number of people who cared for patients and the logical choice, since learners must be supervised, is to have faculty care for these patients. However, early evidence that COVID‐19 causes more severe disease and mortality in older and chronically ill populations also resulted in exclusion or restriction of some faculty from the clinical environment. Of critical importance were the protocols for occupational and student health to ensure screening, care and infection control guidance for faculty, staff, and students alike. 3

While achieving educational objectives initially took a pause as we addressed safety concerns, advancing these objectives remained and remains a guiding principle for our decision‐making. 3 , 4 , 5 Preparing learners to advance to further training or practice and to assure their readiness to do so is a core mission. During this unprecedented time, our educators were charged with finding creative, effective methods to educate our students under less than ideal conditions while assuring the safety of our learners, faculty, staff and patients in the learning process. At both of our institutions, the inability to meet the core learning objectives of the required clinical curriculum ultimately led to a decision to remove learners from those environments. Specifically, necessary decisions to cancel elective and semi‐elective procedures in order to ensure adequate access to ventilators, critical care beds, and hospital beds, led to an inability to meet core objectives in both the surgery and the obstetrics and gynecology clerkships very quickly. As fewer and fewer other elective admissions occurred, both because of shifts in patient care needs and decisions made by the patients themselves, other services were impacted. This had implications not only for medical student education, but also for resident education, leading us to shift groups of residents to the emergency department, critical care units, and home‐based work. To meet the educational needs of our medical students, we rapidly developed online platforms for case‐based learning, engaged in distance standardized patient and simulation activities, and rapidly revised the clerkship schedules and lengths to ensure we could meet the core learning objectives. 1 , 6 For residents, we implemented telehealth, home‐based chart review rotations for quality improvement, and online case‐based learning to prepare for potential redeployment if needed. Throughout we engaged the learners to understand the impact of these changes. They not only provided critical feedback but also suggestions for changes. Examples of changes that resulted from their feedback included adding regular synchronous sessions to classroom‐based education to ensure effective engagement with the faculty; changes to the way coursework and assignments were presented; flexibility in exam schedules to address internet issues and opportunities for clinical engagement in areas not previously explored.

2.2. A connected leadership team

Communication between leaders of the academic enterprise is crucial for effective functioning. 7 , 8 , 9 Never is it more important for a leadership team to communicate effectively and efficiently than in a crisis. Situational awareness of other members of the team, their roles, and the events unfolding in their mission areas can be of critical importance. 10 The COVID‐19 pandemic erected a number of challenges to effective communication and situational awareness between team members. The move to shelter‐in‐place orders removed the efficiency and clarity of in‐person communication just as the required pace of decision‐making and management sped up within each of our academic missions. To address this threat, at one of our institutions, the Dean met each morning (in person but appropriately socially distanced) with his senior mission leaders in clinical care, education, research, administration, and public health. The meetings lasted 30 minutes and served as a form of academic incident command center. This time allowed us to communicate information to each other about our daily priorities and ask questions about how various decisions might affect the other missions. As an example, at this daily briefing, the clinical leader provided information about the timing of elective surgery cancellation, providing ample time and foreknowledge for the education leader to make decisions about when the educational learning objectives of the surgical clerkship would be compromised to an extent that removing the learners from the environment would be necessary. Similarly, this meeting spurred critical conversations about effective strategies for managing house staff and the broader physician redeployment strategy of the school as hospitalized COVID cases rose. Although it is not necessary for such a meeting to occur in person, the in‐person nature of this meeting facilitated unstructured conversations that allowed for a more nuanced understanding of the situation each of us was facing.

2.3. Organized, coordinated, and cascading communication

While internal communication between leaders may have been effective, communicating to the rest of our stakeholders was often problematic, particularly at the beginning of the pandemic. In the decentralized structure of many AMCs, including our own, it was difficult to communicate critical decisions to everyone who needed or wanted to know. Email‐based communication was the initial attempt at spreading information, resulting in flooded inboxes. Websites with new and updated policies and procedures became important repositories, but were difficult to maintain across units within the medical school and across the hospital and medical school. Individuals within the clinical environment relied on word of mouth, often spreading misinformation. Those outside of clinical environments communicated via social media and other platforms, again often misrepresenting the “on the ground” situation. Communication teams struggled to get important information out to faculty, staff, and learners in a timely and effective manner.

In addition to streamlining and coordinating communication, our institutions developed a distributed communication strategy. For critical clinical information, this involved distribution through and by department chairs and division chiefs. This allowed information to be tailored to the audience. For educational information, it involved distribution though program directors and educational administration. To facilitate transparency and address common questions, at one institution, we developed regular cascading remote meetings with key stakeholders. The Dean and his leadership team met weekly or more frequently with the Department Chairs to review critical changes and foreshadow potential next steps, gain input and refine strategies. In turn, Department Chairs and Division Chiefs held regular town halls with faculty to review current state and answer the many questions that arose. They also distilled key emails and sent out regular digests to ensure the most important information was captured and targeted to their faculty, housestaff, and staff. Questions and issues that emerged were fed back to senior leadership to inform further decision‐making. The feedback and engagement of “on the ground” stakeholders proved critical throughout the response.

In education, this involved regular town halls with educational leaders at all levels including administrators, course and clerkship directors, program directors, and staff to update on the situation and address key questions, policy needs, and challenges. It also included bi‐weekly meetings with students of each class individually with the undergraduate administration. We chose to meet with classes separately because their issues were different and each required unique approaches and conversations. At the residency level, we meet weekly with program directors providing best practices, and encouraged program directors to meet regularly with residents and fellows. We also had intermittent all GME town halls with residents and fellows to address central concerns. These town halls proved critical in dispelling myths, identifying issues senior leadership were not aware of and providing transparency in a time of confusion and crisis. Again regular digest emails of the most important information became a valuable mechanism to distribute information to faculty and learners.

3. REFLECTIONS ON EDUCATION AS A CORE MISSION OF AN ACADEMIC MEDICAL CENTER

3.1. the interdependence of our fates.

As the size and scope of AMC’s have grown, mission compartmentalization and balkanization has been an unfortunate and periodic side effect. 11 Investigators may feel disconnected from the clinical missions that help fund their work and which their discoveries ultimately serve. Educators struggle with the constraints they face in optimally teaching their learners, like the steady creep of content and the growth of clinical service requirements. Clinical care, the financial engine for the enterprise, faces ongoing pressures for productivity in a competitive world where the demands of financial performance and growing consumer expectations come at a cost of relationships, reflection and time for teaching and scholarship. However, the importance and interdependence of the tripartite mission may have never been clearer than in the last several months‐ an important lesson going forward. 12

The sudden deceleration in clinical operations produced waves that have rocked our research and educational enterprises. Funds for discretionary purposes dried up instantly, halting recruitments and plans for strategic new initiatives. To reduce density on campus, non‐essential research was halted. Essential research was generally classified as that related to COVID‐19 and that which would be completely lost if not continued at a decelerated pace. Patients, the substrate of clinical learning, were suddenly in short supply and for those who were present, physical contact remained limited to only those necessary for care. Removal of learners from non‐clinical environments, including labs, changed the work of students, houseofficers, and faculty overnight.

But these changes also resulted in a wonderful story of resilience and reinforcement of the importance of the work we do as AMCs. Never in human history has medical science moved so quickly. Therapies and new clinical pathways were developed and tested with astonishing speed. Basic science innovations are rapidly unraveling the virus’ secrets, resulting in new ways of detecting, tracking, and understanding the illness as well as identifying promising new targets to treat and control it. Our institutions are creating and testing vaccines, developing and testing therapeutics, and creating and implementing novel testing strategies. At one of our institutions, an animal model for COVID was rapidly developed and used to trial multiple therapeutic and vaccine candidates. A vaccine candidate has emerged from this work that is currently under study. New testing strategies were developed by our research labs and operationalized by clinical and research teams allowing for surveillance and diagnostic testing strategies to be developed and to support both state and local testing needs. Both of our institutions participated in therapeutic and vaccine trials that have contributed to current best practices and vaccine opportunities. Throughout the pandemic, faculty at AMCs across the world have been gathering and distributing critical information about Covid‐19’s course and collaborating across centers in instituting best practices—both critically important when evidence is limited. Similarly, policies and procedures for workplace safety, testing, and management have been freely shared in a collaborative, cross‐institution support network.

In education, we engaged locally and nationally with teams of collaborators and colleagues to develop comprehensive new plans for online education, alternatives to clinical care, and new schedules for our clinical care environments. We have collaborated to identify best practices to support our learners and stand up virtual interviewing and medical school and residency and fellowship program selection in an online, socially distanced world. Never has the educational community worked closer together to solve truly complex problems and make rapid decisions in support of our learners. These decisions ranged from ACGME suspension of non‐critical review processes, to suspension of Step‐2 Clinical Skills, to creation and implementation of novel test delivery for USMLE Step 1 and Step 2, to creating novel LCME review processes, to decisions to move all medical school and residency interviews online and suspend unnecessary away rotations. Each of these were difficult decisions made possible only through collaboration across medical schools, between medical school and residency program leadership, and through the facilitation and support of the national organizations that support and accredit our educational programs.

3.2. Advocacy and the anchor institution

As anchor institutions in our respective communities, members of our faculty serve as critical experts and advocates at the local, regional, and national level. Locally, members of our infectious disease, infection prevention, and occupational health teams advocated for rigorous infection prevention and educated our students, housestaff, faculty and staff, as well as the public about best practices. They continually updated us as information became available and served as thought leaders and champions for effective policies and procedures. Faculty, school and health system leaders allied with our Departments of Public Health to build data management tools, address public health challenges, and provide resources including testing and PPE when resources were limited. Our leadership met weekly (and sometimes almost daily) with local and state governments to advocate for and create policies and guidelines that support best practices and sensible strategies for both stay‐at‐home and return‐to‐work. Our institutions broadly engaged with public health efforts to develop community education strategies, test vulnerable populations, assess supplies, and develop plans for PPE distribution and to study the impact of our interventions. This work proved critical for our community and also greatly influences our learners.

3.3. The resilience and ingenuity of students

Although our students were not on the front lines of patient care for the pandemic, they have made considerable contributions in collaboration with our institutional and local community. Early in the course of the pandemic, our students, like that of other institutions, 13 organized and developed a working group to identify potential strategies to help during the COVID pandemic. Under the supervision of faculty, they developed a leadership team and several sub‐teams to work on areas of need. The products of these efforts are ample and include developing an online tool for faculty and residents to request childcare and for learners across all health professions to volunteer to provide it. They created best practices including limiting the number of people providing childcare and ensuring alignment with LCME rules around services for supervisors. Students worked with colleagues in the engineering school to make face shields when they became scarce and later, collaborated with industry to build these in mass. They supported just‐in‐time education on Covid‐19 for community providers by helping to staff a Project ECHO—providing background research and collating resources for community participants. They created support and thank you videos for our faculty, housestaff, and allied health providers. Students reached out to our community partners. They delivered food to homebound elders and at‐risk individuals and developed educational materials for non‐English speaking populations. They sewed cloth masks, created PPE kits for homeless and under‐resourced populations, and served as contact tracers for our city and county departments of public health. Throughout the last many months, we have been inspired by both their creativity and ability to get things done despite the immense stressors of their constantly changing environment.

3.4. Principled decision‐making‐returning to the “new normal”

As we have progressively returned to our tripartite mission of clinical care, research, and education in the “new normal” with COVID‐19 firmly a part of all we do, the principles that guided us in our early decisions must remain at the forefront.

In education, we will need to ensure the safety of our learners in the classroom, the labs, and the clinical environment. This means making hard decisions about using online learning in place of large group classroom‐based activities and effective social distancing during necessary in‐person activities, such as clinical skills training. We were fortunate at both of our institutions to have some infrastructure to support online learning for lecture‐based education. However, like most schools, effective active learning in the online environment is far from assured. A great deal of work remains to develop the necessary IT infrastructure, technological support, and faculty expertise to do it effectively. 14 , 15 Resources for online instruction are only part of this resource challenge as our medical schools, residencies, and fellowships move to fully online interviewing and recruiting. For both of our schools, we have made decisions to do all lecture‐based activity online, but have added small group, socially distanced activities when meeting the learning objectives requires it‐ such as is necessary for clinical skills training and lab‐based activity. We are closely monitoring for any evidence of spread of disease within the classroom and thus far have not found any. All interviews for both medical school and residency are being done virtually and travel continues to be suspended.

Our new clinical environment presents its own slate of challenges including ensuring our hospital partners have appropriate plans for PPE supplies and our learners are appropriately trained in effective infection prevention strategies. Both of our institutions are dedicated to having students remain in the clinical environment going forward and begin supervised care of patients with COVID‐19. It seems likely that this illness will be around for at least several years, and they will need to understand how to care for patients with it. We have instituted focused training in appropriate use of PPE, infection control and prevention, and strict protocols for symptom screening, COVID testing, and contact tracing.

Finally, the state of the local healthcare system and its ability to meet the educational objectives and support the safety of all involved must be constantly monitored. Over the next year to 18 months, we are all anticipating surges of COVID that will affect our ability to teach students and train residents and fellows. As COVID‐19 cases again begin to rise in the community and changes are made to procedural schedules to ensure adequacy of hospital and ICU beds and equipment, the ability to meet core learning objectives may again be jeopardized. We have learned that we can supplement traditional clinical learning with simulation and case‐based learning, which can reduce necessary clinical time, but not eliminate it. The challenges of navigating the changes in the clinical environment have proven the most challenging. Maintaining communication amongst leaders, closely monitoring our clinical and community environments, and maintaining open lines of communication with our learners, course directors, program directors, and faculty will be of critical importance.

In addition to managing educational priorities, we are working hard to determine best practices for how to provide personal and professional support for our students, housestaff, faculty, and staff. COVID is affecting professional identity formation and wellbeing 16 , 17 and yet the best response to this reality is far from clear. We have been calling on our learners, student affairs units, and psychiatry, psychology and human resources colleagues to identify imaginative new approaches. Based on their suggestions, we have recently implemented a peer support team, online groups, and continued frequent town halls, as well as enhanced interaction between faculty and students in remote education. In addition, we anticipate increased demand for health services including mental health as we continue our education mission amidst this crisis.

A number of allied efforts are assisting with the educational challenges we face. The AAMC has facilitated the formation of several educational leader communities. These communities in turn, have engaged with key national organizations like NBME, ACGME, and ERAS and have shared emerging best practices. Their survey of COVID response practices informs a regularly updated dashboard that is broadly available to members of the AAMC. Dr. Ed, program director, and other educational list serves have provided ideas, resources, and support for educators. Educational journals are providing rapid turnaround on COVID‐related articles. These resources and others will help us to develop new strategies where needed to meet our educational objectives in constrained environments and timelines. Whatever strategies an individual school chooses will need to be flexible, aligned with the resources and strengths of the institution, and consistent with the values of the school and faculty who will need to teach it.

The events of the last year are without modern precedent. We are all watching history unfold around us. Through this fog of uncertainty, some clarity has emerged. Our community is remarkably resilient. Our interdependent, tripartite academic mission is our strength. An effective leadership team with open and clear communication and an effective, organized, and cascading communication strategy are critical ingredients. Finally this: optimism is an evidence‐based response. In the face of unprecedented challenges, our academic medical community has learned, adapted, and innovated at a pace not seen in human history to promote the health and well‐being of our patients, faculty, staff, and learners while ensuring the effective training of the next generation of physicians. As academic leaders and faculty we are role modeling critical behaviors for our learners and we are demonstrating to them exactly how important the work we do is. This generation of learners will no doubt be influenced by these experiences, and it is our belief that they will have developed remarkable resilience and a renewed passion for their future careers as physicians.

This article is part of the Biomedical Education Special Collection

Peter DeWitt's

Finding common ground.

A former K-5 public school principal turned author, presenter, and leadership coach, DeWitt provides insights and advice for education leaders. He can be found at www.petermdewitt.com . Read more from this blog .

12 Critical Issues Facing Education in 2020

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Education has many critical issues; although if you watch the nightly news or 24/7 news channels, you will most likely see very little when it comes to education. Our political climate has taken over the news, and it seems as though education once again takes a back seat to important political events as well as salacious stories about reality-television stars. It sometimes make me wonder how much education is valued?

Every year around this time, I highlight some critical issues facing education. It’s not that I am trying to rush the holiday season by posting it well before the 1 st of the new year. It’s actually that I believe we should have a critical look at the issues we face in education, and create some dialogue and action around these issues, and talk about them sooner than later.

Clearly, the fact that we are entering into 2020 means we need to look at some of these issues with hindsight because we have seen them before. Have the issues of the past changed or do they continue to impact our lives? As with any list, you will notice one missing that you believe should be added. Please feel free to use social media or the comment box at the end of this blog to add the ones you believe should be there.

12 Issues Facing Education

These issues are not ranked in order of importance. I actually developed a list of about 20 critical issues but wanted to narrow it down to 12. They range from issues that impact our lives in negative ways to issues that impact our lives in positive ways, and I wanted to provide a list of issues I feel educators will believe are in their control.

I have spent the better part of 2019 on the road traveling across the U.S., Canada, Europe, the U.K., and Australia. The issues that are highlighted below have come up in most of those countries, but they will be particularly important for those of us living in the U.S. There are a couple that seem to be specifically a U.S. issue, and that will be obvious to you when you see them.

Health & Wellness - Research shows that many of our students are stressed out , anxiety-filled, and at their breaking point. Teachers and leaders are experiencing those same issues. Whether it’s due to social media, being overscheduled, or the impact of high-stakes testing and pressure to perform, this needs to be the year where mindfulness becomes even more important than it was in 2019. Whether it’s using mindfulness apps and programs or the implementation of double recess in elementary school and frequent brain beaks throughout the day, it’s time schools are given the autonomy to help students find more balance.

Literacy - We have too many students not reading with proficiency, and therefore, at risk of missing out on the opportunity to reach their full potential. For decades there have been debates about whole language and phonics while our students still lag behind. It’s time to put a deep focus on teaching literacy with a balanced approach.

School Leadership - Many school leaders enter into the position with high hopes of having a deep impact but are not always prepared for what they find. School leadership has the potential to be awesome. And when I mention school leadership, I am also referring to department chairs, PLC leads, or grade-level leaders. Unfortunately, not all leaders feel prepared for the position. Leadership is about understanding how to get people to work together, having a deep understanding of learning, and building the capacity of everyone around them. This means that university programs, feeder programs, and present leaders who coach those who want to be leaders, need to find ways to expose potential leaders to all of the goodness, as well as the hardships, that come with the position.

Our Perception of Students - For the last year I have been involved in some interesting dialogue in schools. One of the areas of concern is the perception educators (i.e. leaders, teachers, etc.) have of their students. Sometimes we lower our expectations of students because of the background they come from, and other times we hold unreachable expectations because we believe our students are too coddled. And even worse, I have heard educators talk about certain students in very negative ways, with a clear bias that must get in the way of how they teach those students. Let 2020 be a year when we focus on our perception of students and address those biases that may bleed into our teaching and leading.

Cultures of Equity - I learned a long time ago that the history I learned about in my K-12 education was a white-washed version of it all. There is more than one side to those stories, and we need all of them for a deeper understanding of the world. Read this powerful guest blog by Michael Fullan and John Malloy for a deeper look into cultures of equity.

Additionally, we have an achievement gap with some marginalized populations (i.e., African American boys), and have other marginalized populations (i.e., LGBTQ) who do not feel safe in school. Isn’t school supposed to be a safe place where every student reaches their full potential?

Students and the schools they attend need to be provided with equitable resources, and we know that is not happening yet. My go-to resource is always Rethinking Schools .

District Office/Building-Level Relationships - There are too many school districts with a major disconnection between the district office and building level leaders. 2020 needs to be the year when more district offices find a balance between the top-down initaitives that take place, and creating more space to engage in dialogue with building leaders and teachers. School districts will likely never improve if people are constantly told what to do and not given the opportunity to share the creative side that probably got them hired in the first place.

Politics - It’s an election year. Get ready for the wave of everything that comes with it. Negative campaigns and bad behavior by adults at the same time we tell students to be respectful to each other. It’s important for us to open up this dialogue in our classrooms, and talk about how to respectfully agree or disagree. Additionally, we have to wonder how the campaigns and ultimate presidential decision will impact education because the last few education secretaries have not given us all that much to cheer about.

Our Perception of Teachers - Over the last few decades there has been a concerted effort to make teachers look as though they chose teaching because they could not do anything else. Whether it be in political rhetoric or through the media and television programs, our dialogue has not been kind, and it has led to a negative perception of teachers. This rhetoric has not only been harmful to school climates, it has turned some teachers into passive participants in their own profession. Teachers are educated, hardworking professionals who are trying to help meet the academic and social-emotional needs of their students, which is not always easy.

Vaping - Many of the middle and high schools in the U.S. that I am working with are experiencing too many students who vape, and some of those students are doing it in class. In fact, this NBC story shows that there has been a major spike in the use of vaping among adolescents. Additionally This story shows that vaping is a major health crisis , and it will take parents, schools, and society to put a dent in it.

Time on Task vs. Student Engagement - For too long we have agreed upon words like “Time on task,” which often equates to students being passive in their own learning. It’s time we focus on student engagement, which allows us to go from surface to deep level learning and on to transfer level learning. It also helps balance the power in the room between adults and students.

Teachers With guns - I need to be honest with you; this one was not easy to add to the list, and it is very much a U.S. issue. I recently saw this story on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt that focused on teachers in Utah being trained to shoot guns in case of an active shooter in their school. This is a story that we will see more of in 2020.

Climate Change - Whether it’s because they were inspired by Greta Thunberg (Time Person of the Year) or the years of hearing about climate change in school and at home, young people will continue to rise up and make climate change a critical issue in 2020. We saw thousands of students strike this year and that will surely rise after Thunberg’s latest recognition.

In the End - It’s always interesting to reflect on the year and begin compiling a list of critical issues. I know it can be daunting to look at, and begin to see where we fit into all of this, but I have always believed that education is about taking on some of this crucial issues and turning them around to make them better. Anyone who gets into teaching needs to believe that they can improve the educational experience for their students, and these are just a few places to start.

Peter DeWitt, Ed.D. is the author of several books including Coach It Further: Using the Art of Coaching to Improve School Leadership (Corwin Press. 2018), and Instructional Leadership: Creating Practice Out Of Theory (Corwin Press. 2020). Connect with him on Twitter , Instagram or through his YouTube station .

Photo courtesy of Getty Images.

The opinions expressed in Peter DeWitt’s Finding Common Ground are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.

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Year in Review: Top EL Articles of 2021

1. December 2020/January 2021: " Coping With Change and Uncertainty " by Phyllis L. Fagell

An exclusive look into educator mental health..

2. February 2021: " Moving from Talk to Action in Professional Learning " by Jim Knight

Build a thriving culture of professional learning..

3. March 2021: " Beware of Equity Traps and Tropes " by Jamila Dugan

Real and practical ways to take action..

4. April 2021: " What Great Principals Really Do " by Jason A. Grissom, Ana J. Egalite, & Constance A. Lindsay

Strengthening leader effectiveness..

5. May 2021: " What Can We Learn from Covid-Era Instruction ?" by John Hattie

Implementing research the right way..

6. Summer 2021: " Planning Technology Integration for In-Person Instruction " by Monica Burns

Prepare to plan your most powerful lessons ever..

7. September 2021: " 5 Changes, Shifts, and Implications for What’s Next in Education " by Tom Vander Ark 

How can schools and educators work differently.

8. October 2021: " What Schools Need Now: Relational Discipline " by Micere Keels

How to respond to challenging behaviors..

9. November 2021: " Four Myths on Coaching and Efficacy " by Lauren Vargas & Rashaida Melvin

Bolstering educator efficacy..

10. December 2021/January 2022: " What Can Teachers Do to Engage Anxious Students ?" by Jessica Minahan, Sarah Ward, and Kristen Jacobsen

Learn to get—and keep—students engaged and motivated..

Esteban Bachelet is an associate online editor of Educational Leadership magazine.

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Rethinking Education Leadership, Policy, & Politics in Uncertain Times

Rethinking education leadership, policy, & politics in uncertain times: a conversation with sonya douglass horsford.

Sonya Douglass Horsford was recently a co-recipient of a Critics’ Choice Book Award for The Politics of Education Policy in an Era of Inequality: Possibilities for Democratic Schooling (Routledge 2019), co-authored with Janelle T. Scott of the Graduate School of Education at the University of California at Berkeley, and Gary L. Anderson of the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York University. Here, Horsford, Associate Professor of Education Leadership and Founding Director of TC’s Black Education Research Collective (BERC), discusses a new approach to education policy, called critical policy analysis, to support greater civic engagement and political activism among education practitioners and communities.

Sonya Douglass Horsford

Read a story about Sonya Douglass Horsford's new book, The Politics of Education Policy in an Era of Inequality: Possibilities for Democratic Schooling.

Your book is unequivocal in asserting that the dismantling of public education in America has been highly intentional. Yet our school system is so decentralized — is that kind of intentionality really possible?

Yes, it is possible but will require educational researchers, working with policymakers, school leaders, parents and community to reassert what public education can be in the 21 st -century, post-COVID and following the last years of a Trump Administration during which there were real efforts to weaken, de-fund and privatize public schools in America. 

Those efforts, building on top-down, high-stakes accountability policies initiated by the Bush and Obama Administrations, constitute a 20-year push to centralize educational goals and outcomes with a focus on test scores and competition.

In sum, where we are with education today is the direct result of an intentional policy agenda based on market logics that distrusts government and its ability to educate children effectively.

Thus, the de-funding of what Education Secretary DeVos and other proponents of school choice describe as “government schools” reflects decades of work led by policy researchers, policymakers, philanthropists and corporate reformers from both political parties seeking to de-fund and privatize public education. 

The de-funding of what Education Secretary DeVos and other proponents of school choice describe as “government schools” reflects decades of work led by policy researchers, policymakers, philanthropists, and corporate reformers from both political parties seeking to defund and privatize public education.

More and more communities, parents and school leaders are rejecting this market-based approach and are looking for new ways to envision public schools in America, where education addresses the educational inequities and disparities that have persisted for far too long. 

To what extent has what you call a loss of faith in the public system been a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy?

As the system comes under attack and as funds are cut, schools lack the capacity to perform. So many people have indeed lost faith in the system — and that’s reached crisis proportions in New York City, with the recent debacle around the schools reopening. Yet at the same time, if you have a child connected to a public school, you look at that school with a different set of eyes, beyond testing and achievement. Many parents and school leaders recognize the important role and functions schools provide as centers of community. This is particularly true during COVID, where schools and those on the frontlines continue to risk their lives responding to the needs of students, parents and other community members by providing food, internet service, housing, utilities assistance and other essential services. We’re seeing now with COVID just how much the role of schools serving a community has been taken for granted in the past, and how destructive it is when those supports are taken away.

We’re seeing now with COVID just how much the role of schools serving a community has been taken for granted in the past, and how destructive it is when those supports are taken away.

To what degree have private philanthropies played a role in shaping the current education system?

Private philanthropies have really changed the landscape. They’ve supported policy reforms in education that help governors, mayors and other education executives rather than promote democratic processes, like the election of local school board members.

Historically, educators led and shaped education policy, but now it’s in the hands of policymakers, philanthropists and education reform organizations. That’s shifted the balance of power and who is actually leading the schools, and the values we hold concerning education.

Ultimately, responding to these changes is about having a vision of the value of public education. Do we still believe it’s a public good?  Do we still value educators?  If so, then we have to articulate that vision and act to defend and advance it.

What does it mean to understand that, as you say, education is inherently political? Or that those who support public education need to be as intentional as those who have tried to dismantle it — what would that look like?

Private philanthropies have really changed the landscape. They’ve supported policy reforms in education that help governors, mayors, and other education executives rather than promote democratic processes, like the election of local school board members.

There are huge limitations to how we’ve been looking at policy. The current moment shows that policy decisions are based on emotional, not rational policy decisions. We’d like to think otherwise, but critical policy analysis suggests that’s not how it happens. The electorate is often driven by symbolism, rhetoric and the politics of spectacle. They want to see immediate results from policy decisions, new initiatives or funding priorities.  If they don’t see measurable results quickly, they reject them as not working and move on to the next reform, initiative or proposal. Meanwhile, marginalized communities and students in many underperforming schools are further marginalized because these reforms are typically tested on them and not in suburban schools. 

Why is this? As education researchers, we explore how the likes of Donald Trump, Secretary DeVos and other are seeking to dismantle public education in America. For example, look at Trump’s assault on critical race theory. If you’re a critical race theorist, you’re not surprised by his statements, because Trump embodies what CRT seeks to reveal and fight against — systemic racism and white supremacist policies woven into the fabric of American institutions.   [Critical race theory, or CRT, is a theory that originated in legal studies that examines the role of race and racism in US laws, policies, and political and economic institutions and is concerned with the unfair distribution of power, resources and legal protections by race.]

But most people don’t understand what critical race theory is. They just see the words “critical” and “race.” And Trump just throws it out to mobilize his base and everyone reacts and takes the bait. It’s like a sport for him. People who advocate for equity and justice must recognize this if we want to effective.

Look at Trump’s assault on critical race theory. If you’re a critical race theorist, you’re not surprised by his statements, because Trump embodies what CRT seeks to reveal and fight against — systemic racism and white supremacist policies woven into the fabric of American institutions. 

What are the discussions we should be having about how policy should change?

We need to start by organizing and mobilizing and using research to improve the lives of people instead of just talking about it.  We need to expose who is leading our schools and influencing school leaders.  While there are some who suggest there is a vacuum of leadership, the reality is the leadership needs to shift away from philanthropists and school reformers back to the teacher, parent, student and community leaders who know best what students need to learn and succeed.

One result of COVID, and of the confusion and chaos from the President of the United States and the lack of guidance from Secretary DeVos, is that it has exposed what isn’t working, and people are rejecting a continuation of this market-based approach.  Unfortunately, there’s not a shared vision to provide a safe and supportive learning environment, and that’s how the blame game starts.

But now is a great time to talk about mayoral control and school governance across the country. It’s an opportunity to dismantle the reform-based policies of the past and to restructure schools in service of the public good they were always meant to be, for students and the communities they serve.   

There are so many talented, passionate and committed people in education. So what do we have to lose if those educators speak up and say, “These are the values we hold dear” and partner with parents and communities to make it happen?

That’s what my book explores, and the opportunity we have to change the conversation.

Tags: Education Policy Education Leadership K-12 Education School Choice - Privatization

Programs: Education Leadership Urban Education Leaders Program

Departments: Education Policy & Social Analysis

Published Wednesday, Oct 7, 2020

Teachers College Newsroom

Address: Institutional Advancement 193-197 Grace Dodge Hall

Box: 306 Phone: (212) 678-3231 Email: views@tc.columbia.edu

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Please note you do not have access to teaching notes, artificial intelligence in educational leadership: a symbiotic role of human-artificial intelligence decision-making.

Journal of Educational Administration

ISSN : 0957-8234

Article publication date: 17 February 2021

Issue publication date: 2 June 2021

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to a type of algorithms or computerized systems that resemble human mental processes of decision-making. This position paper looks beyond the sensational hyperbole of AI in teaching and learning. Instead, this paper aims to explore the role of AI in educational leadership.

Design/methodology/approach

To explore the role of AI in educational leadership, I synthesized the literature that intersects AI, decision-making, and educational leadership from multiple disciplines such as computer science, educational leadership, administrative science, judgment and decision-making and neuroscience. Grounded in the intellectual interrelationships between AI and educational leadership since the 1950s, this paper starts with conceptualizing decision-making, including both individual decision-making and organizational decision-making, as the foundation of educational leadership. Next, I elaborated on the symbiotic role of human-AI decision-making.

With its efficiency in collecting, processing, analyzing data and providing real-time or near real-time results, AI can bring in analytical efficiency to assist educational leaders in making data-driven, evidence-informed decisions. However, AI-assisted data-driven decision-making may run against value-based moral decision-making. Taken together, both leaders' individual decision-making and organizational decision-making are best handled by using a blend of data-driven, evidence-informed decision-making and value-based moral decision-making. AI can function as an extended brain in making data-driven, evidence-informed decisions. The shortcomings of AI-assisted data-driven decision-making can be overcome by human judgment guided by moral values.

Practical implications

The paper concludes with two recommendations for educational leadership practitioners' decision-making and future scholarly inquiry: keeping a watchful eye on biases and minding ethically-compromised decisions.

Originality/value

This paper brings together two fields of educational leadership and AI that have been growing up together since the 1950s and mostly growing apart till the late 2010s. To explore the role of AI in educational leadership, this paper starts with the foundation of leadership—decision-making, both leaders' individual decisions and collective organizational decisions. The paper then synthesizes the literature that intersects AI, decision-making and educational leadership from multiple disciplines to delineate the role of AI in educational leadership.

• Organization
• Decision-making
• Administration

Wang, Y. (2021), "Artificial intelligence in educational leadership: a symbiotic role of human-artificial intelligence decision-making", Journal of Educational Administration , Vol. 59 No. 3, pp. 256-270. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-10-2020-0216

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