Pivoting a Profession: School Leadership Formation Across the Americas

The Americas have experienced an historic blow to educational progress; 7.6 million more “learning poor” in Latin America, as U.S. low-income students lost seven months in math. Amidst this urgency, continued health threats, economic strains, political instability, and social unrest underline the exacerbated uncertainty faced by school professionals. How can we best support urgently needed educational improvements in such fluid settings? Johanek’s project will help transform the professional formation of school leaders across the Americas by identifying and gauging a core judgment capacity – in situ judgment – which underlies effective, timely, context-responsive performance within our diverse contexts of increased ambiguity across the hemisphere; and by developing systematic ways to help aspiring, novice, and practicing professionals develop that capacity further. This cross-university, cross-disciplinary effort has the potential to spur dramatically more effective adaptation by school leaders to current volatile contexts.