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Five Key Responsibilities: The School Principal as a Leader (Wallace Foundation)

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Five Key Responsibilities: The School Principal as a Leader (Wallace Foundation)

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This excerpt from the Wallace Foundation explains five key responsibilities for school principals as they strive to become extraordinary leaders in school districts.

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Contents
The School Principal as Leader: Guiding Schools to Better Teaching and Learning
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The School Principal as Leader: Guiding Schools to Better Teaching and Learning

Shaping a vision of academic success for all students

Although they say it in different ways, researchers who have examined education leadership agree that effective principals are responsible for establishing a schoolwide vision of commitment to high standards and the success of all students.

Newcomers to the education discussion might find this puzzling: Hasn't concern with the academic achievement of every student always topped principals' agendas? The short answer is, no. Historically, public school principals were seen as school managers, 5 and as recently as two decades ago, high standards were thought to be the province of the college bound. "Success" could be defined as entry-level manufacturing work for students who had followed a "general track," and low-skilled employment for dropouts. Only in the last few decades has the emphasis shifted to academic expectations for all.
"Having high expectations for all is one key to closing the achievement gap between advantaged and less advantaged students."
This change comes in part as a response to twin realizations: Career success in a global economy depends on a strong education; for all segments of U.S. society to be able to compete fairly, the yawning gap in academic achievement between disadvantaged and advantaged students needs to narrow. In a school, that begins with a principal's spelling out " high standards and rigorous learning goals," Vanderbilt University researchers assert with underlined emphasis. Specifically, they say, "The research literature over the last quarter century has consistently supported the notion that having high expectations for all, including clear and public standards, is one key to closing the achievement gap between advantaged and less advantaged students and for raising the overall achievement of all students."

"Seek Out the Best Preparation You Can Find"

Advice to Teachers Interested in Becoming a Principal

"There's a tradition of teachers who are really excellent exemplars in the classroom of saying, 'I don't want to be a principal because it has nothing to do with instruction,'" says Linda Darling-Hammond, a leading authority on education policy and the teaching profession. [See Q&A with her.] "But one of the things we found in our study was that as some of those people were reached out to and got the message that being a principal could be about... building the quality of instruction, they said, 'Oh, well I might actually want to do that.' They've become spectacular school principals, and we've seen them in action.So number one, do it if that's what you're passionate about.

"Number two, seek out the best preparation you can find for instructional management, for organizational development, for change management - for these things that we know matter because [being a principal] is a different use of your skills and talents. There is a broader knowledge base to capture, and not every place you may look to build your skills will have those pieces in place. Be aggressive about finding the right support and training for yourself.

"Third, collaborate, collaborate, collaborate. Go into this with the idea that, 'I'm going to build a team. It's not going to just have to be me. My job is to really find the expertise and the skills and the abilities of the people that I work with, cultivate those, glue them together.' You will be both a more successful principal and you will be a saner principal who has at least a little bit of a life beyond all of the effort that you put into the work in the schools."

So, developing a shared vision around standards and success for all students is an essential element of school leadership. As the Cheshire cat pointed out to Alice, if you don't know where you're going, any road will lead you there.

Creating a climate hospitable to education

Effective principals ensure that their schools allow both adults and children to put learning at the center of their daily activities. Such "a healthy school environment," as Vanderbilt researchers call it, is characterized by basics like safety and orderliness, as well as less tangible qualities such as a "supportive, responsive" attitude toward the children and a sense by teachers that they are part of a community of professionals focused on good instruction.

Is it a surprise, then, that principals at schools with high teacher ratings for "instructional climate" outrank other principals in developing an atmosphere of caring and trust? Or that their teachers are more likely than faculty members elsewhere to find the principals' motives and intentions are good?

One former principal, in reflecting on his experiences, recalled a typical staff meeting years ago at an urban school where "morale never seemed to get out of the basement." Discussion centered on "field trips, war stories about troubled students, and other management issues" rather than matters like "using student work and data to fine-tune teaching." Almost inevitably, teacher pessimism was a significant barrier, with teachers regarding themselves as "hardworking martyrs in a hopeless cause."

To change this kind of climate - and begin to combat teacher isolation, closed doors, negativism, defeatism and teacher resistance - the most effective principals focus on building a sense of school community, with the attendant characteristics. These include respect for every member of the school community; "an upbeat, welcoming, solution-oriented, no-blame, professional environment;" and efforts to involve staff and students in a variety of activities, many of them schoolwide.

Engaging parents and the community: continued interest, uncertain evidence
Many principals work to engage parents and others outside the immediate school community, such as local business people. But what does it take to make sure these efforts are worth the time and toil required? While there is considerable interest in this question, the evidence on how to answer it is relatively weak. For example, the Minnesota-Toronto study found that in schools with higher achievement on math tests, teachers tended to share in leadership and believed that parents were involved with the school. The researchers noted, however, that "the relationships here are correlational, not causal," and the finding could be at odds with another finding from the study. Separately, the VAL-ED principal performance assessment (developed with support from The Wallace Foundation) measures principals on community and parent engagement. Vanderbilt researchers who developed the assessment are undertaking further study on how important this practice is in affecting students, achievement. In short, the principal's role in engaging the external community is little understood.
Principals play a major role in developing a "professional community" of teachers who guide one another in improving instruction.
Cultivating leadership in others

In fact if test scores are any indication, the more willing principals are to spread leadership around, the better for the students. One of the most striking findings of the universities of Minnesota and Toronto report is that effective leadership from all sources - principals, influential teachers, staff teams and others - is associated with better student performance on math and reading tests.

University of Washington research on leadership in urban school systems emphasizes the need for a leadership team (led by the principal and including assistant principals and teacher leaders) and shared responsibility for student progress, a responsibility "reflected in a set of agreements as well as unspoken norms among school staff."

Effective principals studied by the University of Washington urged teachers to work with one another and with the administration on a variety of activities, including "developing and aligning curriculum, instructional practices, and assessments; problem solving; and participating in peer observations." These leaders also looked for ways to encourage collaboration, paying special attention to how school time was allocated. They might replace some administrative meeting time with teacher planning time, for example. The importance of collaboration gets backing from the Minnesota-Toronto researchers, too. They found that principals rated highly for the strength of their actions to improve instruction were also more apt to encourage the staff to work collaboratively.

What does "professional community" look like? Its components include things like consistent and well-defined learning expectations for children, frequent conversations among teachers about pedagogy, and an atmosphere in which it's common for teachers to visit one another's classrooms to observe and critique instruction.
A central part of being a great leader is cultivating leadership in others.
Most principals would welcome hearing what one urban school administrator had to say about how team-based school transformation works at its best: "like a well-oiled machine," with results that could be seen in "student behavior, student conduct, and student achievement."

Improving instruction

Effective principals work relentlessly to improve achievement by focusing on the quality of instruction. They help define and promote high expectations; they attack teacher isolation and fragmented effort; and they connect directly with teachers and the classroom, University of Washington researchers found.

Effective principals also encourage continual professional learning. They emphasize research-based strategies to improve teaching and learning and initiate discussions about instructional approaches, both in teams and with individual teachers. They pursue these strategies despite the preference of many teachers to be left alone.

In practice this all means that leaders must become intimately familiar with the "technical core" of schooling - what is required to improve the quality of teaching and learning.

A PROFILE IN LEADERSHIP: DEWEY HENSLEY

Nearly all 390 students at Louisville's J. B. Atkinson Academy for Excellence in Teaching and Learning live in poverty. But from 2006 to 2011, principal Dewey Hensley showed this needn't stand in the way of their succeeding in school. Under Hensley's watch, students at Atkinson, once one of the lowest performing elementary schools in Kentucky, doubled their proficiency rates in reading, math and writing. Most recently, the school was one of only 17 percent in the school district that met all of its "adequate yearly progress" goals under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Hensley's is not a tale of lonely-at-the-top heroics, however. Rather, it is a story about leadership that combines a firm belief in each child's potential with an unrelenting focus on improving instruction - and a conviction that principals can't go it alone. "Building a school is not about bricks," Hensley says. "It's about teachers. From inside out, you have to build the strengths. I'm not the leader. I'm a leader. I've tried to build strong leaders across the board."

Today Hensley is chief academic officer of Jefferson County, Ky., Public Schools. Principals there and elsewhere could learn a lot from how he led Atkinson with a style that mirrors in many ways the characteristics of effective school leadership identified in research.

Shaping a vision of academic success for all students
His first week on the job, Hensley drew a picture of a school on poster board and asked the faculty to annotate it. "Let's create a vision of a school that's perfect," he recalls telling them, adding: "When we get there, then we'll rest." Hensley, the first person in his extended family to graduate from high school and then college, sought to instill in his staff the idea that all children could learn, with appropriate support. "I understand the power of a school to make a difference in a child's life," he says. "They [all] have to have someone who will give them dreams they may not have."

Creating a climate hospitable to education
School suspensions at Atkinson were among the highest in the state when Hensley took over. Determined to create a more suitable climate for learning, Hensley visited the homes of the 25 most frequent student offenders, telling the families that their children would be protected, but other children would be protected from them, too, if necessary. Hensley brought in teams to diagnose each child's academic and emotional needs and develop individual "prescriptions" that might include anything from home visits to intensive tutoring to eyeglasses. Chess club, a special program for truant students and ballroom dancing lessons culminating in a formal candlelit dinner that included students' parents were other tone-changers, along with school corridors with names like Teamwork Trail and street signs directing students 982 miles to Harvard or 2,352 miles to Stanford.

Cultivating leadership in others
Hensley set up a leadership structure with two notable characteristics. First, it was simple, comprising only three committees: culture, climate, and community; instructional leadership; and student support. Second, it made leadership a shared enterprise. The committees were populated and headed by teachers, with every faculty member assigned to one. "I relinquished leadership in order to get control," Hensley says. "I asked people to be about leadership."

He also encouraged his teachers to learn from one another. Science teacher Heather Lynd recalls the day Hensley visited her classroom and then asked her to lead a faculty meeting on anchor charts, annotated diagrams that can be used to explain everything from the water cycle to punctuation tips. "He's built on teachers' strengths to share them with others," says reading specialist Lori Atherton. "That creates leadership."

Improving instruction
Hensley did a lot of first-hand observation in classrooms, leaving behind detailed notes for teachers, sharing "gold nuggets" of exemplary practices, things to think about and next steps for improvement. He also introduced cutting-edge professional development, obtaining a grant to set up the ideal classroom in the building, full of technology and instructional resources. And he formed a collaboration with the University of Louisville. In one project, professors observed how Atkinson's teachers kept students engaged and shared the collected data with the faculty in addition to using it for a research study.

Hensley also encouraged teachers to do skill building on their own. As a result, Atkinson teachers began attaining certification at a feverish pace from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, a private group that offers teachers an advanced credential based on rigorous standards. Finally, Hensley focused on getting students the instruction that tests and observations showed they needed. For example, Hensley paired struggling 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders with National Board-certified teachers who gave them intensive help in reading and writing until they reached grade level.

Managing people, data and processes
Data use figured prominently in Hensley's turnaround efforts. "We test them once, we see where they are," science teacher Lynd says of the students. "If they're not proficient, we re-teach and test again." To track progress across the school, Atkinson used a data board that lined one wall in the school's curriculum center. Under photos of each teacher, staff members could view the color-coded trajectory of students' achievement measured on three levels: grade level, below grade level and significantly below. The display was part of what Hensley calls the faculty's "tolerance for truth," honestly examining results and "taking ownership of each student's performance."

Such methods did not win plaudits from everyone; half the faculty transferred after his first year. But as time went by, the number of teachers seeking to leave the school declined to a trickle and the list of those seeking to transfer in ballooned. Moreover, if winning over skeptics is any indication of success, Hensley points with pride to a comment years later from a veteran teacher who had initially opposed his changes at Atkinson: "She said, 'They sent a lot of people here to fix this school. You're the only one who taught us how.'"

Principals themselves agree almost unanimously on the importance of several specific practices, according to one survey, including keeping track of teachers' professional development needs and monitoring teachers' work in the classroom (83 percent). Whether they call it formal evaluation, classroom visits or learning walks, principals intent on promoting growth in both students and adults spend time in classrooms (or ensure that someone who's qualified does), observing and commenting on what's working well and what is not. Moreover, they shift the pattern of the annual evaluation cycle to one of ongoing and informal interactions with teachers.

The Minnesota-Toronto study paints a picture of strong and weak instructional leadership. "Both high- and low-scoring principals said that they frequently visit classrooms and are 'very visible,'" the researchers write. "However, differences between principals in the two groups come into sharp focus as they describe their reasons for making classroom visits. High-scoring principals frequently observed classroom instruction for short periods of time, making 20 to 60 observations a week, and most of the observations were spontaneous. Their visits enabled them to make formative observations that were clearly about learning and professional growth, coupled with direct and immediate feedback. High-scoring principals believed that every teacher, whether a first-year teacher or a veteran, can learn and grow.
Effective leaders view data as a means not only to pinpoint problems but to understand their nature and causes.
"... In contrast, low-scoring principals described a very different approach to observations. Their informal visits or observations in classrooms were usually not for instructional purposes. Even informal observations were often planned in advance so that teachers knew when the principal would be stopping by. The most damaging finding became clear in reports from teachers in buildings with low-scoring principals who said they received little or no feedback after informal observations."

As noted above, a central part of being a great leader is cultivating leadership in others. The learning-focused principal is intent on helping teachers improve their practice either directly or with the aid of school leaders like department chairs and other teaching experts.

Managing people, data and processes

"In the great scheme of things," noted one research report, "...schools may be relatively small organizations. But their leadership challenges are far from small, or simple." To get the job done, effective leaders need to make good use of the resources at hand. In other words, they have to be good managers.

Effective leaders studied by University of Washington researchers nurtured and supported their staffs, while facing the reality that sometimes teachers don't work out. They hired carefully, but - adhering to union and district personnel policies - they also engaged in "aggressively weeding out individuals who did not show the capacity to grow."

The simple fact is that without effective leaders most of the goals of educational improvement will be very difficult to achieve. Absent attention to that reality, we are in danger of undermining the very standards and goals we have set for ourselves. Fortunately, we have a decade of experience and new research demonstrating the critical importance of leadership for school principals and documenting an empirical link between school leadership and student growth. And we have the benefit of the professional standards developed by ISLLC and principal evaluation tools like VAL-ED.

Still, the lives of too many principals, especially new principals, are characterized by "churn and burn," as the turnover findings bear out. So what can be done to lessen turnover and provide all teachers and students with the highly skilled school leadership they need and deserve? In other words, how do we create a pipeline of leaders who can make a real difference for the better, especially in troubled schools?

A pipeline for effective leadership
Wallace's work over the last decade suggests such a pipeline would have four necessary and interlocking parts:

Defining the job of the principal and assistant principal. Districts create clear, rigorous job requirements that detail what principals and assistant principals must know and do, and that emerge from what research tells us are the knowledge, skills and behaviors principals need to improve teaching and learning.

Providing high-quality training for aspiring school leaders. Principal training programs, whether run by universities, nonprofits or districts, recruit and select only the people with the potential and desire to become effective principals in the districts the programs feed into. The programs provide the future leaders with high-quality training and internships that reflect the realities education leaders face in the field.

Hiring selectively. Districts hire only well-trained candidates for principal and assistant principal jobs.

Evaluating principals and giving them the on-the-job support they need. Districts regularly evaluate principals, assessing the behaviors that research tells us are most closely tied to improving teaching and student achievement. Districts then provide professional develop- ment, including mentoring, that responds to what the evaluations find for each individual.

Coordination of state and district efforts
Effective school leadership depends on support from district and state officials. Except for the most entrepreneurial, principals are unlikely to proceed with a leadership style focused on learning if the district and state are unsupportive, disinterested or pursuing other agendas.

Leadership and the transformation of failing schools
Armed with what we've learned about the potential for leadership over the last decade, we have cause for optimism that the education community's long neglect of leadership is at last coming to an end. We still have a lot to learn, but we have already learned a great deal. In the face of this growing body of knowledge and experience, it is clear that now is the time to step up efforts to strengthen school leadership. Without effective principals, the national goal we've set of transforming failing schools will be next to impossible to achieve.

But with an effective principal in every school comes promise.

THE PRINCIPAL-TEACHER CONNECTION: A SCHOLAR'S VIEW
Linda Darling-Hammond is the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University. One of the nation's leading authorities on education policy as well as teachers and the teaching profession, Darling-Hammond has served on The Wallace Foundation's board of directors since 2009. She was interviewed in April 2012 by Lucas Held, Wallace's communications director. These are edited excerpts of the interview. Lucas Held: What do we know about the link between effective teaching and good principals? You note in your 2010 book, The Flat World and Education: How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future, that good principals are the number one reason why teachers stay in school.
Linda Darling-Hammond: That comes up in survey after survey. If you ask teachers, "What kept you in a school that you're in?" or "What caused you to leave?" administrative leadership and support is one of the most critical elements because everything the teacher does is framed by the way the leadership operates. It is possible to be an effective teacher in a poorly led school but it's not easy. That takes a toll. And it is possible to become an ever more effective and successful teacher in a well-led school. Teachers go into the profession to be successful with kids. If they are working with a leadership team led by a principal who understands what it takes to be successful with kids, how the organization should be organized, what kind of supports need to be there, how learning for teachers can be encouraged as well as learning for students, how to get the community and the parental supports in place, that lets the teacher do her or his job effectively and achieve the most important intrinsic motivation: success with kids.
LH: Is that connection generally known?
LDH: You would think it would be obvious. But in schools where there has not been much cultivation of leaders, there is often a hunkering down and just saying, "Well, there's leadership over [t]here and there's teaching over here." That misses the boat in terms of creating effective learning organizations.
LH: How do principals and teachers work together to create a collaborative focus on learning?
LDH: In thriving schools you have a professional learning community. If there isn't one, it's something that teachers and leaders have to build together, getting past the closed-door culture which is often inherited in schools: "We're all doing our own thing in our own classroom."

Leaders who are effective often have a distributed leadership approach. The principal functions as a principal teacher who is really focusing on instruction along with [and] by the side of teachers - not top down mandates and edicts. When principals are trying to help create such a culture, [they] begin to open the doors and say, "Let's talk about our practice. Let's show our student work. Let's go look at each other's classrooms and see what we're doing." Obviously the teachers who will benefit from that can facilitate [matters] by opening their doors and working with each other and bringing ideas to the table. One of the best practices that I've seen when new cultures are being planted is holding the faculty meeting in a different room every time and allowing teachers to talk about strategies they're using that are proving successful. Being willing to open your door and say, "Here's what's going on in my little kingdom here" is the beginning of planting seeds to create a collaborative culture where learning is always building on what teachers and leaders are doing together.
LH: Is it your sense that most schools are operating this way or does this remain the exception?
LDH: More and more teachers are willing and eager to collaborate with one another. More and more leaders are becoming aware of how important that is. But it is certainly not everywhere. There [was] an interesting survey not long ago, The Schools and Staffing Survey, which the federal government does. It asked teachers, "How many of you have the opportunity to collaborate with each other?" Something like 80 or more percent said, "Yes, I have that opportunity." But [when the survey] asked how many would strongly agree or would agree that there is a collaborative culture in their schools where people collaborate frequently, only 15 percent said that. What it says to me is that we have a little bit of collaboration going around everywhere, but we have a lot of collaboration going on in very few places.

One reason for that is that we design our schools in most cases still in the United States based on the factory model of 100 years ago, where the idea was that teachers are only working when they're in classrooms instructing children. If you look at schools in many countries in Europe and Asia, teachers have about 15 hours a week or more where they collaborate with each other on planning, to do action research, to do lesson study, to go into each other's classrooms and look at what they're doing, to meet with parents and students about issues that have come up or that they're trying to address. That differential use of time allows teachers to continually get better at what they're doing. We need to restructure schools to be able to do that.
LH: What you're saying, in a sense, is that a collaborative learning environment is so important that time needs to be carved out to focus on building that work.
LDH: That's right - and being sure that whenever somebody is doing something right, it's getting shared, and whenever somebody has a problem, they have people to go to to help them solve their problem. [There are] very interesting studies about gains in student achievement that have gone on in recent years, and a couple of them are particularly important. They find that there's much greater gain in student achievement in a school when people work collaboratively in teams and when teams of teachers stay together over a period of time and build their collective know ledge and collective capacity. The whole can be greater than the sum of the parts. That's one of the major jobs of good leadership.
LH: Do teachers need to understand what effective principals do?
LGH: I think so for many reasons. One is so that [they] know what to expect. [Another] is that there's increasing use of 360-evaluations, where everyone is inputting to perceptions about the effectiveness of their leaders. [It's important] also [to understand] how to work as a team, how to be supportive of one another.

A lot of a principal's work can be invisible to teachers when they're in the classroom. I often use the metaphor of the conductor of the orchestra. We watch the conductor, we're in the audience and we say, "I could do that. Piece of cake. Right?" That's true of teachers' skill in the classroom; it's also true of principals' skill in orchestrating the collective, harmonious work of teachers. [The principal's work] includes organizational design and development. It includes instructional leadership and the development of learning opportunities for kids and teachers. It includes change management, moving an organization from where it is to where it needs to be. It includes outreach with various publics and communities that maintain support for the school - the school board, the parent community, others in the community who are resources to the work of the school.... It's important to understand those things, both to be able to expect and support them, and to also provide good feedback and evaluation.
LH: What advice would you give teachers to become part of the process of making their schools better places?
LDH: Obviously everyone works in their own vineyard, in their own classroom. Beyond that, it's important for teachers to learn from the beginning of their careers - and throughout their careers - how to be good collaborators and community members, how to reach out to others (both to offer to share ideas and thoughts, and to ask and learn from others), how to propose ways that collaboration may be able to take root, to sometimes reach out to the principal and say, "Can I help with this? Is there a way that I can facilitate some of this work getting done or enable you to be able to facilitate it?" There is still quite often this idea that each teacher is a lone agent and the principal is a lone agent, just like the superwoman or superman image, with the cape. And in fact, sometimes school leaders are alone and isolated and may not even realize that they can get help from the faculty to move an agenda forward.
LH: Sounds like a two-way street.
LDH: Absolutely. There actually is a lot to learn about how to be a good collaborator, how to manage differences of opinion, how to talk to each other in ways that will be productive and then get to a place where the conversations can be better and richer. In our efforts to develop the profession, we have to make sure that kind of learning is available to everyone.
LH: Let's talk about some of the features that distinguish high-performing schools from low-performing schools.
LDH: One of the features that we've talked about is lots of collaboration around good practice. That's built on a strong foundation of trust. Some really important research [has] looked at the relational elements of effective schools. It's not just focusing on data about the test scores and so on. It's also building trust between and among the professionals, seeing teachers as respected professionals, that is, people not to be mandated to or barked at but as colleagues who have expertise to be orchestrated and shared - and as professionals who want to continue to grow. Finding ways for the perspectives of teachers and other members of the school community to be shared - as a basis for problem solving, as a basis for school improvement planning - is really important.

In highly successful environments, efforts have been made to make it possible for teachers to be successful. That means making sure that they have the instructional resources they need - textbooks and other tools of learning (computers, good curriculum). [It means] that they are asked to work in ways that will allow them to be successful. For example, we know that when a teacher can either loop with the same students or stay in the same or similar grade level for a period of time, they become more skilled than if you say, "Oh, this year you're teaching kindergarten and next year you're going to teach fifth grade, and then I'm going to put you in the fourth and then maybe the seventh." That is, in a way, very disrespectful to teachers, but it also makes them less effective. We know that from research. Respecting the opportunities for teachers to be efficacious in their teaching by giving them the opportunities, the tools and the relationship time with students to be able to be successful [is very important]. That sometimes means reorganizing the school organization so that it supports the work in a more productive way.

Sara Kay Bonti describes one of her early principals as the "lawn-mowed/books-ordered/supplies-filled" kind of manager. Looking back over 23 years as a high school English teacher in Florida, she remembers him as particularly demoralizing.

"He kept spreadsheets on who attended - or missed - every meeting," Bonti said. "He couldn't tell you what you were teaching or how you were teaching, but he could tell you what time you arrived at school every morning. Students told me the first time they ever saw him was when he handed them their diplomas at graduation. The turnover rate for teachers was very high."

Luckily for Bonti, this principal was not the only one she has encountered over the years. Indeed, other school principals - the kinds who instinctively champion instruction over paperwork - have been a source of inspiration for her. She has felt their efforts directly as a teacher, first in Pasco County, Fla., and now in Hillsborough County, which encompasses Tampa. And she has felt their work indirectly through a recent assignment that has sent her into about half the schools in Hillborough County, which, with almost 200,000 students, ranks among the country's 10 largest districts.

"What I've seen is that the common denominator in schools where students and teachers are successful is strong leadership," Bonti said.

Seeing the five practices at work
The five practices associated with effective leadership are on full display at these schools, in Bonti's experience. Take, for example, the first practice, knowing how to implant the notion that all students can learn and achieve. "I can tell by how I'm greeted at the school office how well a vision of student success has been communicated," Bonti said. "I will see a Student of the Month poster, or student art, or maybe in a high school there will be pennants around the walls of all the colleges where the students have been accepted. The students get the message."

Bonti has also seen how a principal can create a learning-friendly atmosphere that breeds enthusiasm among teachers and students. She cited as an example a principal who takes steps to boost student morale during the important Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). He makes sure breakfast is available. He can be seen walking the halls, quizzing students - "What does 'inference' mean?" he might ask - and a correct answer wins an ice cream coupon. He even organizes an FCAT pep rally.

She has also experienced firsthand how effective principals cultivate leadership in others. Bonti recalls being recruited to organize a Parents Night at the school where she taught most recently, Freedom High School. She also spent one summer working with middle school English teachers to help ensure that middle-school lessons flowed well into the senior high school courses. "Principals have found talents in me that I didn't know I had," Bonti said. "You can feel enriched beyond the classroom, and it's great to feel you are a part of helping the whole school succeed."

In addition, Bonti has seen how a skillful principal can use data to bring teachers into efforts to improve schools. After one statewide "Florida Writes!" assessment, Bonti's principal showed the school's English teachers that 10th grade students had unusually low scores for persuasive essays. The teachers determined that students were reluctant to take a strong stand on an issue - a requirement for making a credible argument - so the changes they instituted included providing more examples of strong persuasive essays in the lesson plans.
"The principal was good at pulling together all the pieces, not leaving us to feel we were working in isolation."
Bonti felt the principal had managed to balance leadership with a bow to the faculty's expertise. "We knew the curriculum. He didn't. So, he depended on us for the answer," she said. But he didn't stop there. He took the finding to other departments, so they knew to incorporate the results in their writing assignments. "He was good at pulling together all the pieces, not leaving us to feel we were working in isolation," Bonti said.

The power to improve instruction: spur to a career move?
Finally, there is the effective leader's fierce focus on improving instruction. That was Bonti's inspiration for taking on a three-year assignment as a full-time "peer evaluator" in the district's recently introduced teacher evaluation program. As part of the program, every teacher is observed at least three times a year by the school principal and a peer evaluator. Then, within one to three days, the teachers receive their assessments, with praise for their strengths and steps for overcoming weaknesses. "You can see why if a principal gives a physics teacher a 'requires action,' that teacher is going to want to know why, and then a principal has to explain not only why but specifically how to improve," Bonti said. "Teachers want that specificity, and they have a right to it."

That means principals have to be current on academic research. It means they need to be skillful at delegating some of their old management duties to make time for their instructional tasks. And it means they spend much of their time in classrooms, not in the seclusion of their offices.

Bonti finds the value in the new ways both self-evident and inspiring. That's why, when her gig as a peer evaluator ends, she is considering pursuing a new goal: becoming a principal herself.

The Knowledge Center at www.wallacefoundation.org contains more than 70 publications about school leadership. Here's a sampling:

Central Office Transformation for District-wide Teaching and Learning Improvement, Meredith I. Honig, Michael A. Copland, Lydia Rainey, Juli Anna Lorton and Morena Newton, University of Washington, 2010.

Educational Leadership Policy Standards: ISLLC 2008, Council of Chief State School Officers, 2008.

How Leaders Invest Staffing Resources for Learning Improvement, Margaret L. Plecki, Michael S. Knapp, Tino Castaneda, Tom Halverson, Robin LaSota and Chad Lochmiller, University of Washington, 2009.

Improving School Leadership: The Promise of Cohesive Leadership Systems, Catherine H. Augustine, Gabriella Gonzalez, Gina Schuyler Ikemoto, Jennifer Russell, Gail L. Zellman, Louay Constant, Jane Armstrong and Jacob W. Dembosky, RAND Corporation, 2009.

Leadership for Learning Improvement in Urban Schools, Bradley S. Portin, Michael S. Knapp, Scott Dareff, Sue Feldman, Felice A. Russell, Catherine Samuelson and Theresa Ling Yeh, University of Washington, 2009.

Learning-Focused Leadership and Leadership Support: Meaning and Practice in Urban Systems, Michael S. Knapp, Michael A. Copland, Meredith I. Honig, Margaret L. Plecki and Bradley S. Portin, University of Washington, 2010.

Learning From Leadership: Investigating the Links to Improved Student Learning: Final Report of Research Findings, Karen Seashore Louis, Kenneth Leithwood, Kyla L. Wahlstrom and Stephen E. Anderson, University of Minnesota and University of Toronto, 2010.

Making Sense of Leading Schools: A Study of the School Principalship, Bradley S. Portin, Paul Schneider, Michael DeArmond and Lauren Gundlach, University of Washington, 2003.

Preparing School Leaders for a Changing World: Lessons From Exemplary Leadership Development Programs - Final Report, Linda Darling-Hammond, Michelle LaPointe, Debra Meyerson, Margaret Terry Orr and Carol Cohen. Stanford University, 2007.

Review of Research: How Leadership Influences Student Learning, Kenneth Leithwood, Karen Seashore Louis, Stephen E. Anderson and Kyla L. Wahlstrom, University of Minnesota and University of Toronto, 2004.

Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education: Technical Manual, Andrew C. Porter, Joseph Murphy, Ellen Goldring, Stephen N. Elliott, Morgan S. Polikoff and Henry May, Vanderbilt University, 2008.

References

5. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 78.

6. Andrew C. Porter, Joseph Murphy, Ellen Goldring, Stephen N. Elliott, Morgan S. Polikoff and Henry May, Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education: Technical Manual, Version 1.0, Vanderbilt University, 2008, 13.

7. Michael S. Knapp, Michael A. Copland, Meredith I. Honig, Margaret L. Plecki, and Bradley S. Portin, Learning-focused Leadership and Leadership Support: Meaning and Practice in Urban Systems, University of Washington, 2010 , 2.

8. Bradley S. Portin, Michael S. Knapp, Scott Dareff, Sue Feldman, Felice A. Russell, Catherine Samuelson and Theresa Ling Yeh, Leadership for Learning Improvement in Urban Schools, University of Washington, 2009, 55.

9. Ellen Goldring, Andrew C. Porter, Joseph Muprhy, Stephen N. Elliott, Xiu Cravens, Assessing Learning-Centered Leadership: Connections to Research, Professional Standards and Current Practices, Vanderbilt University, 2007, 7-8.

10. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 81.

11. Knapp et al., 1, citing Kim Marshall from "A Principal Looks Back: Standards Matter," Phi Delta Kappan, October 2003, 104-113, and noting Marshall is also cited in Charles M. Payne's So Much Reform, So Little Change: The Persistence of Failure in Urban Schools, 2008, 33-34.

12. Portin, Knapp et al., p. 59.

13. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 116-118.

14. Andrew C. Porter, Joseph Murphy, et al., Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education, 15.

15. See for example, J.W. Gardner, On Leadership, The Free Press, 1993; J. Kouzes, J. and B. Posner, The Leadership Challenge: How to Keep Getting Extraordinary Things Done in Organizations, Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2008; and G. Yukl, Leadership in Organizations, Prentice-Hall, 2009.

16. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 81-82

17. Seashore Louis, Leithwood, 35.

18. Seashore Louis, Leithwood, 35.

19. Seashore Louis, Leithwood, 19.

20. Seashore Louis, Leithwood, 35.

21. Knapp, Copland et al., 3

22. Portin, Knapp et al., 56.

23. Portin, Knapp et al., 59.

24. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 82.

25. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 48.

26. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 282.

27. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 45.

28. Portin, Knapp et al., 56.

29. Portin, Knapp et al., v.

30. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 77, 91.

31. Kenneth Leithwood, Karen Seashore Louis, Stephen Anderson, Kyla Wahlstrom, Review of Research: How Leadership Influences Student Learning, University of Minnesota and University of Toronto, 2004, 24.

32. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 71.

33. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 86.

34. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 87-90.

35. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 92.

36. Portin, Schneider et al., 14.

37. Portin, Knapp et al., 52.

38. Portin, Knapp et al., v.

39. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 195.

40. Andrew C. Porter, Joseph Murphy, et al. Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education, 16-19

41. Porter, Murphy, et al., 141-142.

42. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 168-171.

43. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 165-166.

44. Meredith I. Honig, Michael A. Copland, Lydia Rainey, Juli Anna Lorton and Morena Newton, Central Office Transformation for District-Wide Teaching and Learning Improvement, University of Washington, 2010.

45. Catherine H. Augustine, Gabriella Gonzalez, Gina Schuyler Ikemotoa, Jennifer Russell, Gail L.Zellman, Louay Constant, Jane Armstrong, and Jacob W. Dembosky, Improving School Leadership: The Promise of Cohesive Leadership Systems, RAND Corporation, 2009; and Linda Darling-Hammond, Michelle LaPointe, Debra Meyerson, Margaret Terry Orr, Carol Cohen, Preparing School Leaders for a Changing World: Lessons from Exemplary Leadership Development Programs - Final Report, Stanford University, 2007, 127-129, 139-140.

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Five Key Responsibilities - The School Principal as Leader: Guiding Schools to Better Teaching and Learning

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The School Principal as Leader: Guiding Schools to Better Teaching and Learning Click here to download the full report: The School Principal as Leader: Guiding Schools to Better Teaching and Learning Although they say it in different ways, researchers who have examined education leadership agree that effective principals are responsible for establishing a schoolwide vision of commitment to high standards and the success of all students.

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Five Important Traits of an Outstanding Leader

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Five Important Traits of an Outstanding Leader

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This blog article features five traits that make up an outstanding educational leader in a school district.

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All educators take on leadership roles. Teachers are the leaders of their classrooms. Principals are the leaders of their schools. Every educator and administrator plays a part in leading tomorrow's future. How inspiring is that? Together, no matter what your role, you are making a difference in the lives of your students.

Want to be sure you're being a good leader? Here are five of the most important characteristics any effective educational leader should possess and demonstrate on a daily basis.

1. Self-aware

A good educational leader needs a solid understanding of oneself and should also have confidence. When you believe in yourself, you can accomplish so much more. Have confidence in the decisions you make, don't be nervous, and don't be afraid of what others may think. Plan how you'll start each and every day in ways that will lead your students, school, and colleagues in the right direction to achieve their goals.

2. Excellent communication skills

You can't lead a group of people if you don't speak with others! The best educational leaders are excellent communicators and know how to reach a variety of people in many different ways. For instance, a principal might have one-on-one chats with teachers each week and also send out a daily email update. This way, the principal takes the time to communicate in-person but also makes communication convenient by emailing the teachers as well. No matter what your job title is at your school, make sure you're constantly communicating with your colleagues, students, and others.

3. Resourceful

To be an effective leader, you need to be resourceful and open to new ideas. Especially during tough economic times, technology helps to change classrooms, and you need to be open to new ideas that will improve the way students absorb and retain information. You also need to know how to use the resources you have to the best of your ability-if you aren't sure, ask someone in the know. Take an online course. Get the answers you need; others around you will benefit greatly from this type of leadership mentality.

4. Lead by example

The best leaders in the educational system make it a point to lead by example, and not simply by words. It's easy to spell out rules and dictate them from an ivory tower, but this type of leadership will not have a large impact in your school. As an educator, you have much influence on students. If you want students to speak kindly to one another in the hallways, you must always speak kindly, too. If you want your students to show respect, them what that means. This method is effective and powerful, and helps you teach students skills they will need for the rest of their lives.

5. Power of teaching and learning

Perhaps the most important trait of being an educational leader is believing in your students and the power of education. If you don't believe in your students or your colleagues, then everyone is doomed for failure. It's vital to believe in what your school is trying to accomplish each and every day, and to convey your enthusiasm for change, your own motivation to make things better, and your confidence in those around you. Your words and actions directly impact morale-show others your passion for education, and they'll feel it too.

There are obviously so many different characteristics and traits of a good leader, but these are a great place to start if you're stepping up to more of a leadership role in your school-whether that's in your classroom, on a sports team you coach, or within your district. Show 'em what you got.

For details on our online MEd in Educational Leadership program, click here. If leadership is in the stars for you, you'll love what we have to offer working professionals.

Tags: Educational Leadership, Leadership and Administration

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5 Important Traits of Outstanding Educational Leaders

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All educators take on leadership roles. Teachers are the leaders of their classrooms. Principals are the leaders of their schools. Every educator and administrator plays a part in leading tomorrow's future. How inspiring is that? Together, no matter what your role, you are making a difference in the lives of your students.

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This article provides information on how a person can determine if they are emotionally intelligent.

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When emotional intelligence (EQ) first appeared to the masses, it served as the missing link in a peculiar finding: people with average IQs outperform those with the highest IQs 70 percent of the time. This anomaly threw a massive wrench into the broadly held assumption that IQ was the sole source of success.

Decades of research now point to emotional intelligence as being the critical factor that sets star performers apart from the rest of the pack. The connection is so strong that 90 percent of top performers have high emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is the "something" in each of us that is a bit intangible. It affects how we manage behavior, navigate social complexities, and make personal decisions to achieve positive results.

Despite the significance of EQ, its intangible nature makes it difficult to measure and to know what to do to improve it if you're lacking. You can always take a scientifically validated test, such as the one that comes with the Emotional Intelligence 2.0 book, but unfortunately, most such tests aren't free. So, I've analyzed the data from the million-plus people TalentSmart has tested in order to identify the behaviors that are the hallmarks of a high EQ. What follows are sure signs that you have a high EQ.

You have a robust emotional vocabulary.

All people experience emotions, but it is a select few who can accurately identify them as they occur. Our research shows that only 36 percent of people can do this, which is problematic because unlabeled emotions often go misunderstood, which leads to irrational choices and counterproductive actions.

People with high EQs master their emotions because they understand them, and they use an extensive vocabulary of feelings to do so. While many people might describe themselves as simply feeling "bad," emotionally intelligent people can pinpoint whether they feel "irritable," "frustrated," "downtrodden," or "anxious." The more specific your word choice, the better insight you have into exactly how you are feeling, what caused it, and what you should do about it.

You're curious about people.

It doesn't matter if they're introverted or extroverted, emotionally intelligent people are curious about everyone around them. This curiosity is the product of empathy, one of the most significant gateways to a high EQ. The more you care about other people and what they're going through, the more curiosity you're going to have about them.

You embrace change.

Emotionally intelligent people are flexible and are constantly adapting. They know that fear of change is paralyzing and a major threat to their success and happiness. They look for change that is lurking just around the corner, and they form a plan of action should these changes occur.

You know your strengths and weaknesses.

Emotionally intelligent people don't just understand emotions; they know what they're good at and what they're terrible at. They also know who pushes their buttons and the environments (both situations and people) that enable them to succeed. Having a high EQ means you know your strengths and how to lean into and use them to your full advantage while keeping your weaknesses from holding you back.

You're a good judge of character.

Much of emotional intelligence comes down to social awareness; the ability to read other people, know what they're about, and understand what they're going through. Over time, this skill makes you an exceptional judge of character. People are no mystery to you. You know what they're all about and understand their motivations, even those that lie hidden beneath the surface.

You are difficult to offend.

If you have a firm grasp of who you are, it's difficult for someone to say or do something that gets your goat. Emotionally intelligent people are self-confident and open-minded, which creates a pretty thick skin. You may even poke fun at yourself or let other people make jokes about you because you are able to mentally draw the line between humor and degradation.

You know how to say no (to yourself and others).

Emotional intelligence means knowing how to exert self-control. You delay gratification and avoid impulsive action. Research conducted at the University of California, San Francisco, shows that the more difficulty that you have saying no, the more likely you are to experience stress, burnout, and even depression. Saying no is a major self-control challenge for many people, but "No" is a powerful word that you should unafraid to wield. When it's time to say no, emotionally intelligent people avoid phrases such as "I don't think I can" or "I'm not certain." Saying no to a new commitment honors your existing commitments and gives you the opportunity to successfully fulfill them.

You let go of mistakes.

Emotionally intelligent people distance themselves from their mistakes, but do so without forgetting them. By keeping their mistakes at a safe distance, yet still handy enough to refer to, they are able to adapt and adjust for future success. It takes refined self-awareness to walk this tightrope between dwelling and remembering. Dwelling too long on your mistakes makes you anxious and gun shy, while forgetting about them completely makes you bound to repeat them. The key to balance lies in your ability to transform failures into nuggets of improvement. This creates the tendency to get right back up every time you fall down.

You give and expect nothing in return.

When someone gives you something spontaneously, without expecting anything in return, this leaves a powerful impression. For example, you might have an interesting conversation with someone about a book, and when you see them again a month later, you show up with the book in hand. Emotionally intelligent people build strong relationships because they are constantly thinking about others.

You don't hold grudges.

The negative emotions that come with holding onto a grudge are actually a stress response. Just thinking about the event sends your body into fight-or-flight mode, a survival mechanism that forces you to stand up and fight or run for the hills when faced with a threat. When the threat is imminent, this reaction is essential to your survival, but when the threat is ancient history, holding onto that stress wreaks havoc on your body and can have devastating health consequences over time. In fact, researchers at Emory University have shown that holding onto stress contributes to high blood pressure and heart disease. Holding onto a grudge means you're holding onto stress, and emotionally intelligent people know to avoid this at all costs. Letting go of a grudge not only makes you feel better now but can also improve your health.

You neutralize toxic people.

Dealing with difficult people is frustrating and exhausting for most. But high-EQ individuals control their interactions with toxic people by keeping their feelings in check. When they need to confront a toxic person, they approach the situation rationally. They identify their own emotions and don't allow anger or frustration to fuel the chaos. They also consider the difficult person's standpoint and are able to find solutions and common ground. Even when things completely derail, emotionally intelligent people are able to take the toxic person with a grain of salt to avoid letting him or her bring them down.

You don't seek perfection.

Emotionally intelligent people won't set perfection as their target because they know that it doesn't exist. Human beings, by our very nature, are fallible. When perfection is your goal, you're always left with a nagging sense of failure that makes you want to give up or reduce your effort. You end up spending time lamenting what you failed to accomplish and should have done differently instead of moving forward, excited about what you've achieved and what you will accomplish in the future.

You appreciate what you have.

Taking time to contemplate what you're grateful for isn't merely the right thing to do; it also improves your mood by reducing the stress hormone cortisol (in some cases by 23 percent). Research conducted at the University of California, Davis, found that people who work daily to cultivate an attitude of gratitude experience improved mood, energy, and physical well-being. It's likely that lower levels of cortisol play a major role in this.

You disconnect.

Taking regular time off the grid is a sign of a high EQ because it helps you to keep your stress under control and to live in the moment. When you make yourself available to your work 24/7, you expose yourself to a constant barrage of stressors. Forcing yourself offline and even--gulp!--turning off your phone gives your body and mind a break. Studies have shown that something as simple as an email break can lower stress levels. Technology enables constant communication and the expectation that you should be available 24/7. It is extremely difficult to enjoy a stress-free moment outside of work when an email with the power to bring your thinking (read: stressing) back to work can drop onto your phone at any moment.

You limit your caffeine intake.

Drinking excessive amounts of caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline, which is the primary source of a fight-or-flight response. The fight-or-flight mechanism sidesteps rational thinking in favor of a faster response to ensure survival. This is great when a bear is chasing you, but not so great when you're responding to a curt email. When caffeine puts your brain and body into this hyper-aroused state of stress, your emotions overrun your behavior. Caffeine's long half-life ensures you stay this way as it takes its sweet time working its way out of your body. High-EQ individuals know that caffeine is trouble, and they don't let it get the better of them.

You get enough sleep.

It's difficult to overstate the importance of sleep to increasing your emotional intelligence and managing your stress levels. When you sleep, your brain literally recharges, shuffling through the day's memories and storing or discarding them (which causes dreams) so that you wake up alert and clearheaded. High-EQ individuals know that their self-control, attention, and memory are all reduced when they don't get enough--or the right kind--of sleep. So, they make sleep a top priority.

You stop negative self-talk in its tracks.

The more you ruminate on negative thoughts, the more power you give them. Most of our negative thoughts are just that--thoughts, not facts. When it feels like something always or never happens, this is just your brain's natural tendency to perceive threats (inflating the frequency or severity of an event). Emotionally intelligent people separate their thoughts from the facts in order to escape the cycle of negativity and move toward a positive, new outlook.

You won't let anyone limit your joy.

When your sense of pleasure and satisfaction are derived from the opinions of other people, you are no longer the master of your own happiness. When emotionally intelligent people feel good about something they've done, they won't let anyone's opinions or snide remarks take that away from them. While it's impossible to turn off your reactions to what others think, you don't have to compare yourself to others, and you can always take people's opinions with a grain of salt. That way, no matter what other people are thinking or doing, your self-worth comes from within.

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Are You Emotionally Intelligent? Here's How to Know for Sure

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Emotional intelligence is a huge driver of success.

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The picture below represents a visual diagram of understanding Emotional Intelligence. This is retrieved from http://www.theillinoismodel.com/2017/09/eq-diversity-of-emotional-intelligence.html

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Emotional Intelligence--Understanding Emotional Intelligence and its Effects on Your Life

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Emotional Intelligence--Understanding Emotional Intelligence and its Effects on Your Life

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This article from CNN (2018) helps readers understand the meaning of Emotional Intelligence and how the idea affects the lives of individuals.

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What is emotional intelligence? It gives us the ability to read our instinctive feelings and those of others. Find out how you can test and improve your emotional intelligence.

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The picture below represents a visual representation of understanding transformational leadership  and the four practices/qualities of a transformational leader. This picture is retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-transformational-leadership-2795313

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This document from the School of Leadership Studies at Regent University provides insight and information on servant leadership and the characteristics of a servant leader.

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This article from Hammond (2018) explains teacher empowerment and perceptions on the principal who demonstrates servant leadership.

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YouTube presents a playlist of videos presented by newleaders.org featuring the Transformational Leadership Framework (TLF) and how principals and teachers collaborate to implement this framework and achieve results.

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Breakthrough Principals: Transformational Leadership Framework - YouTube

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The Transformational Leadership Framework (TLF) was developed through in-depth study of more than 100 high-gaining, high-poverty schools and focuses on the f...

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This article explains how transformational leaders impact the school climate and teacher's self-effiicacy in Indonesian schools.

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Current Case in Educational Leadership: Teacher Evaluations

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Current Case in Educational Leadership: Teacher Evaluations

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The following article from Education Week explains how the recent change in teacher evaluations affect the role of a school principal. This educational article may correlate with a leadership role as principals conduct evaluations.

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The pitched battles that once waged over more-rigorous teacher evaluations have long since quieted, but there's a lasting legacy of those systems: They have fundamentally changed the principal's job.

They have increased principals' attention to instruction and what's happening in classrooms. But at the same time, they have created monumental time-management challenges for principals that could lead to turnover and burnout.

That's according to a new paper published online last month in the Elementary School Journal, in which researchers from North Carolina State University, the University of Michigan, and Vanderbilt University examined how multiple-measure teacher evaluations adopted as a result of the Obama administration's Race To The Top competitive grant program-and still largely in place in many states-have redefined the principal's role.

Based on interviews with principals in six urban districts that began using new teacher-evaluation systems, the researchers found that principals were spending more time in classrooms and had better direction on what evidence to look for when they were there.

Related Graphic: The Time-Intensive Work of Evaluating Teachers

Evidence of good teaching was standardized across those districts, and the principals said they were getting more concrete and "objective" data from the new systems that they could use to have meaningful conversations with teachers about their performance, what they needed to do to improve, and even to make decisions about retaining or firing teachers, according to the paper.

But the systems were also time-consuming, the researchers wrote.

While evaluation systems varied across states, some required principals to have pre-conference meetings with teachers, conduct multiple observations annually, script entire lessons they observed, compare what they heard and saw with an evidence-based rubric, enter data into a district database, and again meet with teachers to review the observations. Other factors included student surveys and student test scores.

Principals told researchers that some of the coding required in each evaluation was so intense that they were spending hours after work and on weekends doing so. One principal estimated she was spending three hours to complete a single teacher's evaluation, according to the paper. Some said they felt they were less visible in their buildings as a result of the time required to complete the evaluations. And others feared the new systems were affecting their relationships with teachers who may be hesitant to approach them with a problem out of concern that doing so could count against them in the evaluation process.

Still, many principals interviewed by the researchers found the observation-based evaluation systems to be positive, said Jason Grissom, an associate professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt University, and one of the paper's authors.

"They had better information than they had before, they knew their schools better, at least in the sense of knowing more about the instructional capacity of people in their building and being able to articulate specific strengths or areas of challenges for individual teachers and give feedback on that basis, and also connect them to supports," Grissom said.

But even for the majority of principals who said the more-intensive evaluations were good for their schools, managing the time the evaluations take to complete is a major challenge. Overnight, Grissom said, job expectations changed for principals, without additional support.

"The expectations for doing all of this new work happened very quickly, and districts didn't necessarily think what can we do to help make space for principals? What can we take off their plate?" he said. "I think that was a big frustration for a lot of principals."

See Also: What Principals Can Do to Keep Good Teachers in Their Schools

The time constraints on principals is not exactly a new concern. In a 2013 survey, the National Association of Elementary School Principals and the National Association of Secondary School Principals found that completing a single, "substantive" teacher evaluation can take 11-15 hours of a principal's time over a school year.

The associations have called for additional and better training for principals and more time for them to have coaching sessions with teachers. They say states and districts should trust principals' professional judgment and reduce the number of observations for teachers who demonstrate effectiveness.

Research "reminds us that schools get the best return when principals allocate their time to priorities where we know their attention has the greatest impact," JoAnn Bartoletti, the executive director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, said in a statement. "That isn't lining the football field or shuffling compliance paperwork. The priority is helping teachers become better."

Downsides of Evaluation

Lisa Hilberg, the principal of Wilson Elementary School in Alpena, Mich., has mixed feelings about the teacher evaluations she must do.

She wants to be trusted to use the rubric-a kind of score card of skills and attributes that teachers must demonstrate-to have conversations with teachers as needed and not be required to document everything during observation sessions.

"It gives us an excellent focus for the conversation," she said about the rubric. "I think it's effective that way. The downside is all of the paperwork that goes with it."

The documentation is time-consuming and requires her to write down what she already knows, she said. And it's forced her to use time during the school day differently.

As a principal in a rural, high-poverty district, she prioritizes face-to-face time with parents and students. As a result, she is up as late as 11 p.m. at least three nights a week answering emails and finishing paperwork related to evaluations, she said.

"There are just so many needs with the kids in the daytime that the paperwork has to get done at night," she said.

Grissom and colleagues set out in 2012-13 to look at how principals were using the massive amounts of data they were getting from these new teacher-evaluation systems in six districts.

In the course of interviewing principals, "it became evident pretty quickly that implementing the systems was causing a fundamental shift in how they were doing the work," he said. The researchers did not gather feedback from teachers or students, something they said would be helpful in future studies.

The findings ring true for Eric Cardwell, the president of the National Association of Elementary School Principals, who is on a year's leave from his job as principal of Besser Elementary School in Alpena, Mich.

Cardwell, a veteran school leader, said the evaluation system in place before the district adopted the Charlotte Danielson teaching-evaluation tool about six years ago, was too lax.

"There was very little meaningful feedback that was provided to teachers," he said. "It was more just completing a form."

The new framework provides in-depth information and valuable feedback for both principal and teachers, and he appreciates the uninterrupted discussions with teachers during the self-evaluation portion.

"The bulk of the teachers I have worked with are their own worst critics, and they all want to improve," he said. "The rubric allows that to occur."

Time Is a 'Boogeyman'

But the amount of time he spent on the evaluations was a strain. He estimates that he spent 270 hours on evaluation in the 2016-17 school year, reviewing everyone but the custodian in his building. And he said he was putting in six and seven hours on Sundays, in addition to working extended weekdays to complete evaluations, especially to input data.

"Time has always been any educator's boogeyman-it's always chasing them," Cardwell said. "Although there have been some real positives that have come from the teacher evaluation [reforms], that boogeyman has gotten much larger."

He worries about burnout, and suggests that states and districts allow principals to rotate evaluations for teachers who are rated effective or highly effective. That would free up principals to work with struggling or brand new teachers. Better technology platforms for data entry would also cut down on time, he said. Some districts have also added a staff person to conduct the evaluation, he said.

For John George, the principal at Dexter McCarty Middle School in the Gresham-Barlow district near Portland, Ore., evaluations have been a sea change. But because the process was so cumbersome and took such a long time, principals were not using the data as intended: to have substantive conversations with teachers about instruction and collaborate on improvement.

"The value that we hoped for as a whole wasn't there for everybody," he said. He likes the direction his district is moving now with a pilot program to allow teacher-led walkthroughs be part of the evaluation process.

"I like the structure of teachers going into other teachers' classrooms to see practice because it's a less threatening than having an administrator come in and watch you," he said.

George also supports the idea of districts hiring teams to run a building or having one staffer dedicated to conducting evaluations. And one way he's tried to keep good relationships with teachers is to invite them to give feedback on his job performance.

"It's creating different channels for that communication to happen," he said. "It's like 'if you got to say something, come and tell me because I can't learn and I can't improve unless I get feedback, too.' "

Published in Print: November 14, 2018, as Teacher Evaluations Stretch Principals' Expertise, Time

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Teacher Evaluations Have Dramatically Changed the Principal's Job

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The pitched battles that once waged over more-rigorous teacher evaluations have long since quieted, but there's a lasting legacy of those systems: They have fundamentally changed the principal's job. They have increased principals' attention to instruction and what's happening in classrooms. But at the same time, they have created monumental time-management challenges for principals that could lead to turnover and burnout.

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School Principal Leadership: High School Principals 

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School Principal Leadership: High School Principals 

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This case study article examines how high school principals develop a capacity for fostering leadership among schools.

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This article examines the relationship between a principal's leadership behavior and the trust with teachers. The findings entail that democratic principal behaviors affect teachers' trust with the principal.

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This book represents a great reference to understanding school leadership and distinguishing the various leadership theories discussed in this class. Marzano, Waters, and McNulty explain the different theories and school leadership and how the results impact leaders.

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Interview Questions for Leaders (YouTube)

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Interview Questions for Leaders (YouTube)

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This video from YouTube provides a sample of questions that people may ask leaders during a leadership interview as they learn more about leadership in an organization.

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This resource provides helpful information as well as a template that you can utilize to help construct a leadership philosophy. The resource helped me navigate adjectives to use for my personal philosophy.

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This book was a highly interesting read on understanding what it takes to become an extraordinary leader. This book explains five leadership principles that ensure a highly effective leader.

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I came across this video on YouTube that presents ten leadership theories in five minutes. I believe this video provides an understanding of the different leadership theories that exist for leaders.