School leader experiences with local education authorities – extended policy frames of well-functioning relationships across contexts of time

Decentralized education systems increasingly rely on a positive collaborative relationship between school leaders and local educational authorities. In education policy, this relationship appears to be taken for granted, while research describes how such expectations fail to account for the complexities of the work of school leaders and LEAs. Drawing on in-depth interviews with six school leaders in two different contexts of time, this study analyses how they experience their relationships with LEAs under changing reforms. The analysis shows that these experiences revolve around resource availability, monitoring results, and reporting mechanisms. However, the emphasis shifts between the two contexts and illustrates how education reforms both sustain the central elements of previous reforms and add new elements, resulting in an extension of school leader and LEA responsibilities. The study shows how education reforms build on and amplify the policy expectations of well-functioning relationships between school leaders and LEAs.