Distributed leadership in schools: Does system policy make a difference?

This chapter explores linkages between system policies, the role of principals, distributed leadership and school improvement. Scholars increasingly believe that the empowerment of a broader set of stakeholders as school leaders will enable schools to achieve the goal of continuous improvement. We report in this chapter the results of a series of analyses centering on the impact of new state policies that sought to create broader and deeper leadership capacity in schools as a vehicle for stimulating and sustaining school improvement. Copyright © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009. The final publication is available at http://www.springerlink.com