What Do Principals Need to
Know and Do?
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What Do Principals Need to Know and Do? |
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Principals need to understand the target for their school. If our end goal is to improve student achievement to meet AYP, then a critical intermediate goal is to determine where each of our students is in relation to the state content standards. While the logic is clear, most schools do not collect evidence of learning on an ongoing basis. We can't know what to teach students to take them to proficiency on indicators without knowing where they are on those indicators. Though we have a good deal of research to draw on in identifying what effective leaders do, translating the research into concrete, practical actions has been more elusive. Perhaps the researchers haven't experienced the day-to-day challenges of leading/managing a school. Whatever the reason for the void, this web site attempts to bridge the gap between research and practice. What exactly does a principal need to know and do to be successful in meeting their AYP target? Where should they put their finite time and energy? What can they do that will produce the greatest gains? How do they get a handle on where their students are on the content standard indicators? How do they lead their staff in monitoring student progress on the indicators? What capacity building do they and their staff need to be able to monitor student progress?
Why haven't schools hit the target? How do state standards change expectations for what happens in schools? Are we trying to hit a moving target? What do principals need to put in place? Monitor student progress Find time for and structure team collaboration Focus Build capacity of teachers What do teachers need to know and do to determine where their students are in relation to the content standard indicators? Why haven't schools hit the target? Schools are notorious for having an expansive list of priorities that change frequently, are monitored infrequently, and leave the teacher without a clear sense of what is important for them to emphasize in their classrooms. Given the competing agendas operating within schools and the mixed messages given to principals externally, it is always difficult to know what is most important at any given time. Most superintendents state clearly (and often loudly) that improving student achievement is the number one priority of schools. However, what principals are asked to do, how meeting time with principals is used, what A&S meeting agendas reflect, what professional development is mandated, and on what criteria principals are evaluated are often not aligned with a student achievement priority. As a middle school principal in a large suburban school district, it seemed that the central office priority for me was to keep my parent community satisfied and manage my school in a way that resulted in no complaints to central office. Though test scores were bemoaned or celebrated (depending on the scores) by the district, they never seemed related to what happened in schools on a day to day basis or to be the focus for an ongoing discussion about what should be happening in our buildings. However, as any current administrator knows, "the times they are a changing." The shift in focus from teaching to learning is central to standards-based education. If we're going to take students to proficiency on a set of content/skills, then we need to pay close attention to where they are and how they are progressing on those indicators. However, the collection of evidence of learning is a missing element in most schools. Instead we have report card grades which are a combination of test scores, assignment grades, project grades which rarely align with what students know and can do on a content standard indicator. [top] How do state standards change expectations for what happens in schools? Standards-based reform — already more than a decade old in many states — is really just starting to impact classrooms. Though it is clear that standards-based reform has not yet impacted most classrooms because, for starters, many teachers don't know the state standards, let alone have accepted the premise that they are expected to have all students attain the standards, it is also clear that The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act will impact classrooms at a much faster clip. I think it is important to recognize the huge shift that standards-based education requires of classroom teachers. Those of us who taught some time ago will remember the autonomy we had about what we taught and the expectation that as long as we delivered instruction to all students, we were not held accountable for all of our students learning it. Today's teachers are expected to take all students to proficient performance on a common set of grade level content standard indicators defined by the state. And schools have started to shift their focus from how well teachers are teaching to how well students are learning.
[top] Are we trying to hit a moving target? For the first time in my 35 year old career in public education, I believe we have a good shot at focusing in on a target that will be held in common by every public school within a state. NCLB requires each state to create annual state assessments that are aligned with each state's content standards in reading/language arts and mathematics. NCLB also requires that each state set an annual AYP goal for all students in and eight subgroups within the school. Every school will have the same target. NCLB also holds accountable school districts who do not meet the AYP targets. So it is in the best interest of the school district to both hold principals accountable and support them in achieving the AYP target. In this model, it does not serve districts well to only hold schools accountable. Since the district's target can only be met by their schools' attainment of the target, they will be vested in supporting your success. Everyone will be focused on the same content standards and the same AYP target. Never have we been in a situation where all the educational leaders in the same state will be focused on the same target. I'm hopeful. [top] What do principals need to put in place? According to Mike Schmoker in his book Results: the Key to Continuous School Improvement, the combination of three concepts constitutes the foundation for positive improvement results: meaningful teamwork; clear, measurable goals; and the regular collection and analysis of performance data. To put this in place, principals need to lead staff in analyzing state assessment data, develop monitoring plans to track student progress on the student achievement goals with classroom data, provide time and expectations that teams analyze monitoring data and examine student work on an ongoing basis, and identify key questions for the teams to address and end products that teams will produce. [top] Monitor student progress Both research and common sense support the notion that we need to monitor student performance on an ongoing basis. If we are ever to know how we are doing, we will need to know where our students are. But that is exactly what we don't know. Try asking school staff where each of their students is on the reading comprehension indicator "drawing inferences." Which students are proficient? What evidence do they have that those students are proficient? What evidence do they have to identify what their students who are not proficient still need to learn? If teachers do not know where their students are on the indicators they are expected to learn, then teachers don't know what they need to teach them and schools don't know what interventions are needed. [top] Find time for and structure team collaboration It stands to reason that if you need to take all your students to proficiency on content standards, then you will need all of your teachers working toward this goal. It will no longer be enough for individual teachers to know what they are teaching and what students are learning. It becomes critical that teachers on the same grade level or teaching the same course reach consensus on how they are defining proficiency on indicators. It is also important that teachers articulate vertically to make sure their instructional program is adding rigor across a continuum. Teams of teachers must regularly meet to analyze monitoring data, examine student work and teacher assignments, and reach consensus on what proficient performance looks like at their grade level. Having these discussions takes time and must be built into the school day as frequently as possible. Because some teams have formed a practice of using their team planning time for logistics and administrivia, this new use of team time to examine student work and monitor data may be a hard sell for teachers. Principals have found that structuring the team meeting with some guiding questions about student work will help teams understand the role of collaboration. Identifying end products gives teams clarity on what they need to accomplish, provides useful products for their classrooms, and provides useful information to the principal and other interested members of the staff about how students are progressing and what they're planning to do about students who aren't demonstrating proficiency. [top] Focus Effective principals understand the importance of focus and help ensure that all parts of the school community are aware of and in alignment with the school's efforts to improve student learning. They understand that all parts of the school and school district system are interconnected and that it is critical to align school goals with district and state standards and goals. The allocation of time is one of the truest tests of what is really important in any organization. The time devoted to an issue on both the annual calendar and within the daily schedule of an organization tells its people what is really valued. All resources need to be managed in alignment with student achievement goals. Successful principals keep the focus on school improvement efforts and align time, money, and staff development opportunities with the improvement goals. In most organizations, what gets monitored gets done. Staff learn what principals value by observing what they pay attention to. Paying attention to the core values and priority goals of the school is the most important way for leaders to communicate effectively. When a school devotes considerable time and effort to the continual assessment of a particular condition or outcome, it notifies all members that the condition or outcome is considered important. Conversely, inattention to monitoring a particular factor in a school indicates that it is less than essential, regardless of how often its importance is verbalized. Creating a collaborative environment has been described as the "single most important factor" for successful school improvement initiatives. Virtually all contemporary school reformers call for increased opportunities for teacher collaboration. Student achievement is likely to be greatest where teachers and administrators work together, in small groups and school-wide, to identify sources of student success and then struggle collectively to implement school improvement. Creating and sustaining change requires creating a critical mass of educators within the school who are willing and able to function as change agents. Principals also need to build the capacity of their staff to implement strategies by identifying staff needs and providing appropriate staff development opportunities. [top] Build capacity of teachers Just having state content standards and assessments is not sufficient to improve student achievement. The more challenging piece is changing teacher behavior. Teachers need to identify and understand the content standards that they are expected to teach. They need to understand how the content standards are organized into more discrete expectations and indicators. They need to understand how the state or the district has defined proficiency on the indicators related to the content standards; if an indicator has not been defined for teachers, they must reach consensus with their grade level team for what they will accept as proficient work. Teachers need to identify opportunities for students to demonstrate proficiency and understand how to interpret the student's performance. They need to monitor the progress of each student in their classroom over time and regularly examine the monitoring data to determine who is getting it and who is not. They need to use the data to make instructional decisions. Particularly painful for those veteran teachers who have developed years of lesson plans and activities, they must align classroom instruction and assessment with the state content indicators. Professional development for teachers needs to focus on building capacity in these areas. [top] What do teachers need to know and do to determine where their students are in relation to the content standard indicators?
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| How Have States Implemented AYP? |
| How Have States Designed Their Accountability Systems? |
| How Do States Report Progress? |
| How Do States Provide Technical Assistance to Districts and Schools? |
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