Principals’ Coordinating Strategies and School Effectiveness¹

This paper examines the relationship between strategies used by principals to coordinate organizational activities and school effectiveness. The dominant view of effective principals suggests that they generally emphasize those tasks which are directly related to teaching and learning and assert influence and authority surrounding these tasks to coordinate instructional programs. Attention has also been placed in the effectiveness literature on the importance of developing a shared sense of direction to achieve coordination and effectiveness. The results of a study of elementary school principals in community schools in Israel suggest that principals' roles in framing school goals, that is, establishing a clear mission, are more instrumental in establishing school effectiveness than are the emphases of traditional areas which have been associated with school effectiveness.