Most teachers have long known that they affect the life chances of children. But it took the work of economists to convince the world of public policy to take seriously what is now known as "teacher effectiveness."
Now one of those very same economists has turned to another subject that, to most teachers and principals, is similarly self-evident: Principals, like teachers, affect the life chances of children, too.
Last week, Stanford's Eric Hanushek -- who conducted many of the early economic analyses on teacher impact -- presented a new research paper at a conference in Washington, D.C., hosted by the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Educational Research. The findings show, in his words, that "principals matter."
How much they matter to kids still needs further study and depends on how you run the analysis. Do you control for the kind of schools principals lead? Do you control for how long they've been working in the school? On and on the methodological questions run, but no matter how Hanushek examined the numbers, he found that principals demonstrably affected student achievement.
In some ways, Hanushek is not saying anything new. Others, including Ken Leithwood at the University of Toronto, have shown this in large-scale studies, too. But education professors are easily and often ignored by policy makers. Hanushek is harder to disregard because his body of research is so intertwined with current policy discussions, particularly on teacher impact.
So if principals matter, it would be worthwhile to understand what highly expert and effective principals do that matters so much. Are they good at hiring and keeping strong teachers? Do they structure the work in such a way that ordinary teachers can improve their practice and be successful? Do they establish a climate and culture that encourages teachers to try new things, but ensure that those practices that aren't successful in improving student achievement are not continued? Do they set up systems that allow teachers to focus on the work of instruction instead of having to invent new solutions to every single problem that crops up on campus -- like what to do when the school ran out of paper halfway through the semester?
More broadly, do they establish the expectation that all children will be successful, and then engage all the adults in a school to be part of solving the problems that could thwart such an expectation from being realized?
When my colleague Christina Theokas and I studied the practices and beliefs of 33 high-performing principals who work in schools with substantial populations of low-income students and students of color, we found all of the above. The patterns were remarkably consistent even though each of the school leaders was immersed in idiosyncratic school situations: some rural, some suburban, some urban; some elementary, some secondary; some embedded in helpful districts, some considered pariahs within their districts. In general, these schools are not expected to perform well on standard achievement measures because of the demographics of their students. And yet, they all perform about as well -- or better -- than do white, middle-class schools. These are schools worth paying attention to, and can serve as an example for anyone interested in helping all students learn.
One of the comments during Hanushek's session was from an economist who said that, generally speaking, his field always assumes that managers are interchangeable. Maybe it is time to see that those who manage -- that is, lead -- schools are far from interchangeable. In fact, they are pivotal to our schools functioning as networks of opportunity for all children, and it is worth spending some time figuring out what they do that others can emulate.
@drjwmarquis
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Principals and superintendents who reduce their budgets by replacing great, experienced, teachers with built up added value earning say $50,000 per year or more, in the school district, with recently-graduated, inexperienced student teachers at $30,000 per year “saving” the district $20,000 per year immediately, $200,000 per teacher over ten years.
The method being used is to build a false claim of teacher inadequacy, through the principal-controlled, teacher evaluation process by targeting a teacher or two per school and give them false repetitive, negative, teacher evaluations, which then leads to either dismissal, or not renewing their contract for the following year.
Please look in on our efforts to raise awareness and fix this elementary issue. Please see: http://www.bestmethodsofinstruction.com/ and (in progress) http://www.globaladvancementofprofessionaleducation.com/
www.westernconnections.com
Now, you can bet that no other teachers will report bullying, even though Arizona has an anti-bullying law. That was the whole point of firing this teacher: intimidate others who might report problems. Teachers' careers are at risk and students won't be safe when the price for teacher response to bullying is this high.
At the district level, inspirational slogans and lofty strategic plans developed by high-priced consultants take priority over state law that requires "make all decisions in the best interests of the students." In Gilbert Public Schools, teachers can choose: report bullying and get fired, or not report bullying and then get fired if the bullying is reported in the press. Kids lose either way.
The only time we teachers see her is at the endless meetings she holds, or when she drops in for her unofficial and infrequent observations.
Sad, and I'm quite sure that my school is not the only one that has principals like this.