Jewish & Arab principals' workload and stress in an accountability reform era
Decentralizing reforms that aim to improve school effectiveness and enhance education and learning achievements have increasingly encouraged the adoption of two education reforms in the Israeli education system, along with school-based management in 560 elementary schools in Israel. The aims of this study were twofold: (1) To explore and compare the workload experienced by school principals in the Jewish and Arab education systems following the implementation of these reforms; (2) To examine the influences of this implementation on the principal's role performance, including time management.
Three themes derived from qualitative data analysis of 32 interviews with Arab school principals and 40 interviews with Jewish school principals:
(a) Negotiation between conflicting expectations of stakeholders, including redefinition of the teacher’s role; increasing teachers’ presence in school to 36 hours in elementary schools and 40 hours in middle and high schools; and meeting expectations of stakeholders, such as teachers' union, inspectors, or school mentors during the implementation phase. Furthermore, the transition to self-management requires the Arab principal to reorganize use of resources, under the shadow of an inherent deficit of resources and lack of cooperation with local government education administrations. In contrast, Jewish principals usually faced workload due to stakeholders, especially parents, over-involvement in school management.
(b) Similarly, the Jewish and Arab principals reported changing their work day towards over-involvement in management and control of teachers’ attendance; too much time spent on endless reports and forms, increasing stress and exhaustion; and overwhelming supervisory activities that the principal is required to perform compared to the past. Moreover, Arab principals confronted the interferences of hamulas (extend families) interferences in principals decision towards teachers.
(c) Accountability policy, expressed by an exam regime (such as the National Test of School Efficiency and Success Indices), teacher evaluation and climate evaluation, which create isolation, work overload, and inefficient time management. Principals are expected to keep the school accountable, manage data and meet controversial expectations. The direct result is that the principal is denied quality time at school and face many barriers when attempting to adopt forms of instructional leadership.
The presentation concludes with the need to increase teachers’ autonomy in the direction of self-reporting mechanisms, and work as co-principals in order to administer the school and to lead it pedagogically. Thus, alleviating, to some extent, the principal’s workload and its concomitant stress, that is experienced differently among principals who function in two different cultures.
Keywords: accountability, reforms, workload, stress, time-management