Under My Thumb

Abstract

This study investigates whether and how principals implementing Instructional Leadership Teams (ILTs) were able to share decision-making authority with team members and how team members perceived this authority. Having interviewed and observed ILT members in four, in-district charter schools in a large northeastern city I find that principals had great difficultly releasing authority to team members and deployed a variety of “moves” to keep control over decision-making. Team members also appeared to perceive their authority as subordinate to the principal and embraced a hierarchical model of school leadership with an emphasis on formal authority and autocratic decision-making