Principalship

A review of student discipline and suspension data disaggregated by race highlights how school leader biases influence disciplinary decisions. Yet, the majority of principal preparation programs have failed to develop structures and norms that result in critical conversations pertaining to race and racial inequities. This article is written from a stance that school leaders must move away from traditional leadership approaches and toward a social justice leadership orientation that creates critical spaces and discourses, empowers communities, and enables the adoption of social justice practices in all aspects of the school. After reviewing literature on critical race theory and social justice leadership, three leadership action areas are recommended to support principals and assistant principals in closing the racial discipline gap.

Brooks, J. S. & Kensler, L. A. W. (2011). Distributed leadership and democratic community. In F. W. English (Ed.), The SAGE handbook of educational leadership: Advances in theory, research, and practice (2nd Edition, pp. 55-66). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publishing.

Better understanding reform and the application of innovative practice has the potential to improve educational outcomes.  Principals, in particular, have been increasingly tasked and held responsible for implementing reform efforts as well as fostering climates that support innovative practices.  However, what remains understudied in the reform equation are the relationship between and among principals in underperforming systems.  In responding to this gap, we examine the relationships between perceptions of trust and innovative climate and the social networks of principals in three school districts that are engaged in reform efforts.  Findings suggest that perceptions of trust and innovative climate among the principals significantly explained the principals’ ability to effectively and efficiently connect to other principals in terms of exchanging advice related to reform.  This chapter offers a useful and unique contribution the broader trust and innovative climate literature as well as to our understanding of the relational patterns between principals.

This study examines what occurs when principals of urban schools meet together to learn and improve their instructional leadership in collaborative principal networks designed to support, sustain, and provide ongoing principal capacity building. Principal leadership is considered second only to teaching in its ability to improve schools, yet few principals entering the principalship have the skills and capacities to meet the myriad challenges that face urban, economically disadvantaged schools. Too often, principals are left without meaningful support and ongoing learning opportunities that continue to develop them into the instructional leaders needed to address today's achievement gap. Networking potentially bridges these needs by providing ongoing professional development for principals in collaborative settings. The sample studied was one network of fifteen principals and their facilitator in San Antonio, Texas. I used principal and facilitator interviews, six meeting observations, and shadowing of four sampled principals to describe principal learning experience, key factors that influence networking, and who benefits from network participation. My findings show network focus on student achievement increases principal experience of instructional leadership learning. Principals need focused learning in collaborative settings that engender trust and the formation of collegial relationships. They also prefer meeting with other principals who share a value of learning and represent diverse perspectives. Principals in the network increased their use of teacher teams, applied data-based approaches to improve student achievement problems, changed their classroom supervision practices, implemented texts used during networking with their teachers, and increased their engagement of faculty in tough conversations about practice.

Greater efforts are needed from educational stakeholders to recognize and disrupt
educational inequities. Educators engaged in social justice-oriented practices seek
to increase opportunity and achievement for all students, taking into account
subgroup identities, such as race, gender, sexuality, ability, language, religion,
and immigrant status. Collaboration between social justice-oriented school principals
and school counselors has potential toward these ends due to the unique role of the school counselor. The school counselor is positioned to engage with
students and families, address systemic inequities, and lend their expertise to
school-wide decision-making teams. However, it is important that the school
principal effectively communicate, collaborate, and create structures for the
counselor’s work in this regard. When done effectively, this collaboration supports
comprehensive school counseling. Through their collaboration toward
social justice, principals and school counselors seek to eliminate systemic barriers
to rigorous educational experiences for all students.
This chapter provides an overview of social justice leadership, and then is
divided into six related sections. The discussion of principal–counselor collaboration
for social justice is framed by critical theory. First, barriers that may inhibit
collaboration between principals and counselors who promote social justice in
schools are presented. Barriers to the school counselor’s ability to carry out
student-centered and standards-based duties are largely due to a lack of principal
knowledge about counselor roles, role diffusion which leads to ambiguity about
the role of the counselor, and ineffective or absent communication between
principals and school counselors. Second and third, an overview of the important
roles held by principals and school counselors are explained. Fourth, key concepts
for principal and counselor collaboration are explored. Opportunities for
collaboration include developing and working out of a social justice identity,
resource alignment to support the counselor role, principal–counselor communication
about roles and meetings to discuss progress, counselor communication
with staff about their role, and participation in school-wide leadership teams
involved in data-based decision-making. Fifth, a discussion of the collaboration
of principals and counselors for social justice in international contexts is interwoven
throughout. The sixth section provides an alignment of the National
Educational Leadership Preparation (NELP) standards for educational leaders
and the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) standards as a basis for
the collaborative work between principals and school counselors. The chapter
ends with implications for research and practitioners.

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to look across six first-year principals to investigate their engagement with and sensemaking of specific messages of instructional leadership around teacher evaluation.
Design/methodology/approach – This research project, a cross-case study, was carried out using in-depth qualitative observations and interviews of six first-year principals over one school year. Sensemaking theory was used to analyze both how and the mechanisms through which principals understood their roles as teacher evaluators.
Findings – The results demonstrate that first, principals received a variety of messages about how to conduct teacher evaluations, and second, that connections to specific individuals influenced their associations to specific messages they received about instructional leadership and how they enacted teacher evaluation practices on their campuses.
Research limitations/implications – This is an in-depth qualitative analysis, and therefore is not generalizable to all first-year principals, school districts, or principal preparation programs. However, it adds to the field’s understanding of the meso level of policy implementation, highlighting the process
of individuals’ sensemaking and the importance of their informal connections in the associations they make to messages about instructional leadership.
Practical implications – This research adds to the field of principal preparation and induction as it highlights what is important for first-year principals as they build their professional identities. Further, it highlights the variability in principals’ understanding and enactment of teacher evaluation policies, an important feature as this practice is coming to the fore both in current practice and research.
Originality/value – This study adds to an understanding of institutional theory by looking at the interaction between the organizational levels, and further explicates individual actors’ agency within a socio-organizational context. The findings also add to a dearth of empirical studies on the routine of teacher evaluation from the principal perspective.
Keywords Principals, Principal preparation, Teacher evaluation, Institutional theory, Instructional leadership, Sensemaking
Paper type Research paper

This paper presents findings from a theory building study that examines the nature of leadership capacities. In light of Elmore’s Theory of Reciprocity and his work on multiple accountabilities, this paper offers a typology for the kinds of capacities that high school principals report needing to fulfill their responsibilities. It includes personal, professional and leadership capacities developed in formal programs, through workplace experience and through personal history. Participants report that internal capacities almost invariably are developed through opportunities for trial, error and failure, and not from formal per-service or in-service training, or even from guidance from mentors. A typology of the types of leadership capacities that principals report being necessary for their effective practice is presented.

School systems and others trying to improve America’s public schools have been focused over the last decade on getting talented, trained school leaders into schools, among other reforms. However, as this report shows, the narrow focus on the principal pipeline has significant, unintended consequences. In short: Leaders are effectively being thrown into the deep end of the pool without adequate continued support, impacting schools, teachers, students and our country.

Among the many challenges facing public schools are high levels of principal turnover. Given the important role that principals play and are expected to play in the improvement process, concerns about principal turnover have resulted in a growing body of research on its causes and consequences. The purpose of this review is to take stock of what we have learned about the sources and consequences of principal turnover, and to identify what gaps remain. The final review included 36 empirical studies. It discusses and categorizes findings relating to the determinants and consequences of principal turnover. The review concludes with a discussion about the implications of those findings and the areas and kinds of research still needed.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) has set up guidelines to ensure that leaders are appointed from among those who are knowledgeable, skillful and competent but many related studies have found that some of the principals in Malaysia do not fulfil the criteria. On the contrary, there are High Performing School (HPS) with exceptional principals who have proven their leadership by sustaining their performance over several years. Thus, characteristics and practices of these HPS principals should be investigated and be used as a guide by other principals to attain success for their own schools. This study aimed to identify the characteristics and leadership practices of HPS principals. This study used a qualitative methodology with a case study design. The key subjects were three principals of three selected HPS in Malaysia. There were also three groups of HPS informants comprising a senior assistant, teacher, school staff, student and chairman of the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) from each school. Data were collected through interviews, observations and analysis of relevant documents and reports and analyzed through several stages of coding, categorizing, cross-case analysis and interpretation using N-VIVO10. The findings of the study revealed that the HPS principals practised Transformational Leadership by using strategies such as setting the direction, developing people, redesigning organization, managing instructional process or programme and high performing management.

Confusion among school leaders regarding how to interpret and implement special education legislation, and specific federal and state policies and mandates such as a free and appropriate public education (FAPE), in the least restrictive environment (LRE) at the school-site level has existed since the 1970s and continues to exist. This metasynthesis explores the literature surrounding sensemaking by which building principals adapt and transform policy as they enact it in their schools. Findings suggest that a phenomenon of internal forces had a more significant influence on the actions that took place throughout their sensemaking of LRE and FAPE.

Part of the 'Gateways to Leading Learning 2013' series, this monograph reviews the literature on Chinese principalship written in English and Chinese between 1998 and 2008. The first sections discuss the rationale for the research, the review process, and the state of education research in mainland China. The review findings are presented as a set of core patterns and contributory subpatterns, which flow from either the empirical or non-empirical literature. Two core patterns are identified from the non-empirical pieces – prescriptions and commentaries. Prescriptions focus on telling principals what they need to do to be successful, especially in the present reform environment. Commentaries focus on the key concerns and problems confronting principals. Three core patterns can be discerned from the empirical pieces – imported frameworks, indigenous investigations, and contextual influences. The final section offers a number of conclusions that look within and across the core patterns and pose questions to guide further research.

Traditional methods of supervision and appraisal often scare staff because these can sometimes be confrontational, prompt undue anxiety and be used as a manipulative tool to control teachers. This article argues for a change in focus - rejecting old notions of principal-led evaluations of teachers' work in favour of more collaborative and collegial methods. The challenge for school leaders - to engage all staff in meaningful and reflective professional development.

This paper contains a review of eight studies that examined the views and knowledge base of administrators regarding intervention and instructional methods for students with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Administrators’ views surrounding training and professional development in ASD instructional practices were also investigated. While administrators reported being knowledgeable about instructional practices, the need for a more formative evaluation of instructional knowledge combining self-report with observational methods of instructional knowledge was supported. Findings from the review point to added benefits to administrators when exposed to additional training in evidence-based practices for students with ASDs. Accordingly, administrators with a stronger knowledge of such practices may feel more prepared to act as instructional leaders. Research-to-practice gaps related to administrators’ views and beliefs about interventions, utility of methods for different age groups, and effective training and implementation of methods obtained through additional out-of-classroom training time were also supported. The small number of studies and limitations surrounding survey methodology employed in all studies warrants further research in this area. Suggestions for future descriptive and intervention-based research are discussed.

This was an investigation into the fostering of culture in Victorian government primary schools. It was written from an interpretive/constructivist perspective and used George Kelly’s RGT (repertory grid technique) and Edgar Schein’s PEMs (primary embedding mechanisms) to compare and contrast two groups of principals. One group, the TP (teaching principal) group, had significant classroom responsibilities. The other group, the NTP (non-teaching principal) group, had a significantly smaller teaching load. Eight school administrators, from the Hume Region of the State of Victoria in Australia, made up of four TPs and four NTPs were each asked to complete a suite of repertory grids as a part of the research. It was concluded from the research that there were differences in how culture is fostered by the two groups studied.

The TPs in this study had a managerial orientation and lead their schools through activities with a strategic focus. In the main theirs is a person culture which relies on them to be entirely professional in their interaction with their community (staff, students and parents). The TPs in this study felt their responsibility for students most strongly and used data to bring about change and drive the curriculum. As a group they tended to handle finances and resources bureaucratically and manage their students and staff. The TPs in this study valued the relationship with all adults with a positive link with the school.

The NTPs in this study were more likely to have a balanced administrative orientation (bureaucratic, managerial and leadership) where students and curriculum are dealt with bureaucratically and finances and resources are managed. Most NTPs have created a role culture where the plan is their mostly strongly felt responsibility. The NTPs in this study particularly valued the close personal and professional relationship with their immediate subordinate. Operationally NTPs can be distracted by mundane and/or the trivial activity.

Findings were also made which were unrelated to differences the operational models studied. These data suggest that transformational leadership takes place in a club culture environment where the administrative orientation seamlessly entwines both managerial and leadership approaches to school administration. Transformational leaders are concerned about task and relationship-maintenance with the professionals in their schools. In this study, individuals from both the TP and NTP groups demonstrated transformational leadership. Both leaders were found to be very experienced generally and to have adopted a variety of mechanisms to foster culture in their schools. At the other end of the spectrum were administrators working in school environments where there is no prevalent method of administrative orientation or the approach is predominantly bureaucratic, in these schools there was a dysfunctional relationship with a significant stakeholder and the style of leadership was transactional.

Both TPs and NTPs (who teach a little) have particular teaching situations in that they may either work in a multi-level classroom or deliver curriculum to multiple levels of the school. For those without specific experience in such environments, pre-appointment and on-going training may prove useful, and regional offices are best placed to provide this. Other useful training provided by regional office might include leading and managing change in schools, strategic planning, and how to distribute leadership; on-going contextually-sensitive coaching may help with these issues. NTPs, or their delegate, will especially benefit from training in case-management to help them cope with their welfare and behavioural management work, while all principals need proactive assistance to repair dysfunctional relationships. TPs need nuanced support to help them create adaptable curriculum to meet individual needs while NTPs would prefer curriculum better suited to meeting the needs of a large staff. NTPs need assistance to develop sophisticated data and financial management systems which will augment and underpin their planning processes contrasting with TPs who would appreciate a much simpler approach to data and financial management. Finally, it is particularly important that the second-in-charge of a school, irrespective of whether they are a member of the principal or leading teaching classifications, benefits from specific training in how to be effective in their role. This is a critical relationship, a PEM, and should not be left to chance and on-the-job training. 

Conclusions made from this study indicate that the context does matter. TPs and NTPs need differentiated support mechanisms to foster culture in their schools. Some of these mechanisms may suit pre-appointment while others may be on-going. I conclude that this has consequences for central and regional office staff, as well as personnel taking up new appointments. It was concluded that the implementation of a system-wide innovation by individual TPs will depend on how the innovation improves the educational outcomes of students in the school. In contrast, NTPs are more likely to ask how the proposed change makes running their school easier. With NTPs the education department in Victoria may be reasonably confident in promoting a one-size fits-most system PEM to a situation, but for TPs, not being too prescriptive might be the best way forward. I would assert that the adaptability of the PEM adopted by the system will be the key to its success or failure.

A doctor of education is a professional research degree so as well answering my research question I was very interested in the utility of RGT for studies of organizational culture and application of PEMs as an interpretive framework. The theoretical approach proved useful. My novel contribution to research methodology was in the use of the supplied elements (preferred and implicit poles) to identify how each participant was fostering culture in their school. These proved very useful in identifying the mechanisms by which school leaders demonstrate cultural and symbolic leadership. The evidence from this small study suggests using RGT and PEMs does not presuppose what might be done by an administrator but it does provide a method for identifying the authentic practices of that administrator. In this small study these authentic practices highlighted a focus on students and strategic planning, the maintenance of a close personal and professional relationship with a significant subordinate, and the challenge in resolving a dysfunctional relationship with any stakeholder in the school community.

The effectiveness of leadership preparation programs has been contested for a number of years. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the identified components that exist within a “high-quality” principal preparation program through the lenses of the members of a principalship cohort at a university-based leadership development program. Qualitative data were collected via online survey. Social Justice theme and the cohort model were identified as most influential factors on leadership development. Findings from this study may assist educational administration departments, program directors, and researchers when evaluating the effectiveness of their graduate-level administrator preparation programs.

The author, an experienced teaching-principal, used repertory grid technique to reflect on those tasks, professional relationships and school events impacting on his leadership. Use of supplied elements and a supplied construct facilitated the identification of the primary embedding mechanisms used to foster culture in his school, those factors most associated with his perceived effectiveness. Further reflection on these findings lead to the identification of future actions that might  be profitably undertaken at the author’s school.

This descriptive study of the ethical decision-making among a group of Canadian principals provides a rich portrait of how and why principals engage their moral agency through their decision-making processes. Using a leadership responsibility framework linking moral agency and transformational leadership, the researchers found that: modeling moral agency is important for encouraging others to engage their own moral agency in the best interests of all children; despite efforts to engage in collaborative decision-making, principals are often faced with the reality that they are the one to absorb the cost of the decisions; and principals tend to engage less often in transformational aspects of leadership as part of the decision-making process. More research is needed to understand how school leaders can engage more often and more substantially in transformational leadership among their teachers and staff and how they build moral agency capacity in their schools.

School principals are charged with complex responsibilities that can include developing a school vision and culture, supporting teacher effectiveness, managing challenges and crises, communicating with the greater community, and more. However, recent research and surveys of school administrators indicate that principal preparation programs do not adequately prepare graduates to cope with school realities. In response to concerns about the state of initial principal preparation, The Wallace Foundation established the University Principal Preparation Initiative (UPPI), a four-year effort to redesign seven universities' principal preparation programs according to evidence-based principles and practices. Each university collaborates on the redesign with high-need school districts and a state partner, and is supported by a mentor program. The report summarized in this document focuses on the implementation of UPPI in its first year, from fall 2016 to fall 2017. The authors report on UPPI progress and identify cross-cutting themes in the UPPI implementation effort that can help other university principal preparation programs and their partners undertake their own principal preparation system improvement efforts.

This paper presents the findings related to the vast variety of the multiple accountances that principals face (i.e., that for which they are responsible), drawn from a larger empirical study into the multiple accountabilities experienced by public high school principals. This study found 45 different categories of accountors, grouped into 11 super-categories. This range of accountances is far more varied than the set of roles usually ascribed to principals would predict, and the most important accountance category was not Academics or even in the Student Outcomes super-category. A new Principle of Variety is discussed.

Data usage-related reforms lead schools to different practices in terms of management. The conceptualization of data usage and data-based management will ensure that robust steps are taken for the future in terms of reforms made or to be made in the name of education. In this direction, this study is developed as a qualitative case study to determine the opinions of school administrators for data-based management on a school basis. The working group consists of 12 administrators, seven of whom are women and five of whom are men, who work in private and public schools. Purposive sampling method was used to determine the participants. Data from the working group were collected through the semi-structured interview form and themes were created by analyzing in NVino 11. In line with the established themes, the opinions of the administrators were also evaluated. According to the research findings, administrators mostly use data on “e-Okul” and “MEBBIS” modules. Administrators use the said data in decision-making processes, to meet the demands of senior management units, to work with stakeholders, to increase student success. While the administrators stated that there is not enough support or software products to use the data more effectively in the management process, they stated that there is a need for a series of trainings and that these trainings should be in the form of hands-on workshops. They also stated that there should be auxiliary personnel and support services for data analysis. Administrators who reported their problems with time management in accessing data stated that they were not proficient in data analysis and had problems with the motivation, quality, and workload of the personnel.

The purpose of the study was to understand the perceptions of the school administrators and psychological guidance
counselors towards guidance service for early childhood education. The main objective of the study was
to comprehend the perceptions of the administrators, and guidance counselors in regards to the psychological
services given in pre-school. This study was qualitative in nature and data collection was conducted using qualitative
methods. Data collection was conducted through the collection of personal information and open-ended
questions on a survey. A descriptive content analysis method was used in analyzing the data and each author
carried this out. The authors agreed on the main themes that emerged from the data. The findings suggest that
the psychological counselors and administrators had not received enough education to apply counseling to
pre-school child. Especially at the undergraduate level, courses were very limited and insufficient in preparing
counselors for that particular age group. Specific training is needed for that age level so that guidance counselors
feel confident that they may be able to provide knowledgeable guidance services in the early childhood age
group. This is crucial because we know that there are many advantages to early intervention. This type of service
is necessary if we want children to develop to their full potential.

Four experienced teaching-principals, two men and two women, administering very small schools in Victoria, Australia completed three repertory grids, which provide the means for semi-structured interviews about their work as leaders. The grids were concerned with work tasks, professional relationships and school events. The major finding was that these four experienced teaching-principals perceived themselves to be professional and related to their schools as communities rather than organisations, and this concept was underpinned by three ideas. Each participant strongly identified with the idea of themselves as classroom teachers, each was an extremely efficient and effective manager of time, and they each controlled and nurtured a shared school agenda. Sergiovanni’s stewardship model, with its emphasis on community and professionalism, has much to recommend it as a template for individuals appointed to a teaching-principalship. For these school leaders in the present study any system-wide innovation is likely to be anticipated in terms of what it may mean for their students, their current school priorities, and the effect it may have on their school community.

Purpose: Educational leadership is key to addressing the persistent inequities in low-income urban schools, but most principals struggle to work with parents and communities around those schools to create socially just learning environments. This article describes the conditions and experiences that enabled principals to share leadership with teachers and low-income Latino parents to improve student learning. Methods: This study used interviews, observations, and documents to examine the perceptions and experiences of the principals of three small autonomous schools initiated by a community organizing group in California. Data analysis was conducted in iterative phases using shared leadership, social capital, and role theories as lenses to identify themes, triangulate across data sources, and examine alternative hypotheses. Findings: Findings illuminate how a design team process initiated principals into a model of shared leadership with teachers and empowered parents that focused o...

This paper presents findings from an interview-based study investigating how a sample of New York City public high schools used the School-Based Option Transfer & Staffing Plan (SBO), which was designed to balance strict seniority with other school-determined criteria for teacher transfers. SBO also put other teacher hiring in the hands of school-based committees comprised of teachers, administrators and parents. The study finds that different schools implemented the SBO quite differently (some even entirely abandoning seniority as a consideration), that principals and administrators were well pleased with the program and that principals did not believe that the committee structure prevented them from hiring the candidates they desired. Thus, such a program might provide alternatives to seniority-driven systems that unions and districts can agree upon.

The paper presents survey research that examines how educational leadership capacity is developed by university programs and by practicing school administrators in the U.S. and internationally, and the influence of external mandates. To face adaptive challenges, we must more holistically support leadership development that builds on adult learning principles and the social-emotional dimensions of leadership in our preparation programs and in professional development that occurs at the school site.

This qualitative study of teachers in three low-performing elementary schools in Chicago reveals that transformational leadership behaviors were important to teacher motivation, affecting whether they believed that they could improve student performance as the accountability policy required. The findings suggest that principal leadership is critical to turning around low-performing schools. Implications include developing policies to hire principals with proven track records and increasing the capacity of current principals to ensure that they are able to support and motivate teachers in low-performing schools.