Political risk-taking: a requirement of today's instructional leadership

Today's instructional leaders across the U.S. must comply with accountability policies that determine the effectiveness of their curriculums based upon a single standardized test score. This political context places enormous pressures on educators to purchase canned programs that promise to raise these test scores quickly. At considerable risk, some instructional leaders resist these political pressures and use instructional practices they determine are best in their particular school districts. This paper draws on empirical findings from a qualitative study that investigated what happens in districts that make educators willing to take political risks and resist accountability pressures