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secondary principals and teachers alike must welcome and embrace the opportunities that come
with diversity in secondary schools.
Spillane and Diamond (2001) state that a transformational perspective will directly
impact the school community in the way school leaders approach daily tasks, challenges, and
educational goals/objectives. This requires a shared responsibility of all the stakeholders
involved. The traditional paradigm of a school leader/principal being the sole decision maker is
replaced with a collaborative and distributive leader who promotes a shared involvement both
directly and indirectly with all stakeholders
Finally, the authors agree with a 45 year old argument by Miriam Schleisch (1968),
where she stresses the importance of secondary teachers having the moral and ethical obligation
to provide literacy instruction across all content areas which will enable them to identify,
support, correct and fill the gap and voids in
all
students reading/literacy deficiencies. We must
move current in-service secondary and preservice teachers beyond being a content oriented
teacher. To be effective, secondary teachers in today’s diverse schools must skillfully connect
content, pedagogy and culture (Almager, 2012) to improve student achievement through their
teaching performance. Ultimately, this shift will result in all secondary students developing
higher levels skills which commensurate with their abilities that will directly enhance learning
for the rest of their lives.
About the Authors
Fernando Valle is an Associate Professor of Educational
Leadership at Texas Tech University. Currently, i3 Innovation
REFLECT and SEED federal grant work across the state is
informing his teaching and research. Dr. Valle received a
Doctorate in Educational Leadership from The University of Texas
at Pan American and after serving as a middle school teacher,
middle school counselor, high school counselor and principal, he
moved into university work. He examines distributive and
transformative practices in secondary schools and collaborates
with scholars nationally to develop Latina/o Leaders and research
Latina/os across the Educational Leadership pipeline.
Dr. Gionet L. Cooper is principal at Dunbar College Preparatory
Academy in Lubbock, Texas. He is also currently an Adjunct
Professor at Texas Tech University for the College of Education.
Dr. Cooper is in the process of implementing comprehensive
literacy that will address reading, writing, and numeracy
challenges within the school.