ABSTRACT
School reform introduces new activities for teachers, administrators, students, and parents. Principals are often called upon to be instructional leaders, teachers are called upon to help develop plans for change to adapt new curricula and/or methods, parents are expected to become active participants in schools, and students are to take active responsibility for learning. All participants are held increasingly accountable for the success or failure of reform. This chapter focuses on the issue of what it means to be an agent of change from both the principal and the teacher perspective. It defines agency as the capacity to change the existing state of affairs – a capacity which all people have regardless of how they choose to exercise it. In some cases, the reform reshaped the activities of the principal to include more involvement with teaching and learning.
