In what are often described as modern Western school systems, the supervision of elementary schools generally shifted from the hands of clerical administrators to genuine state officials during the nineteenth century. The Prussian state, like other predominantly Protestant states, relied on clerical personnel and church supervision structures to…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how principals and school supervisory authorities understand and use feedback from mandatory proficiency tests (VERA) in the low-stakes context of Germany. For the analysis, the authors refer to a theoretical model of schools that differentiates between Autonomous and Managed Professional…

Assumes that the role and tasks of principals in the maintenance and development of the quality school can only be approached scientifically if two discourses ((1) quality of schools and (2) autonomy of schools) are taken into account. Discusses two central concepts of principalship: (1) instructional leadership role and (2) transformational…