Middle level school leadership in Chile: superintendents' views of their functions, preparation and practices

Abstract

The international research defines the characteristics of effective middle leaders that boost school improvement and student learning. In Chile, middle leaders, called sostenedores, are moving from a position where their role was administrative to one where they have an instructional and pedagogical role as leaders. After presenting an overview of several educational laws and regulations that have outlined the administrator, or superintendent's' role, , this article shows the results of a survey applied to superintendent's that provides information about their functions, how important they are to them, the time that they spend on different activities, the evaluation of their own preparation to deal with the new assignments and the pedagogical and instructional support that they provide their schools. The results reveal that superintendent's still attribute greater importance and dedicate more time to the administrative functions. While they consider leading pedagogical and instructional issues to be important, they spend less time on them and perceive themselves to be less prepared to execute them. The article concludes highlighting the urgency of training superintendent's on the subjects expected, specifically for those who work in public schools considering the recently created figure of Local Educational Services.