Principal Outreach

The purpose of this analysis is to examine data from the National Schools and Staffing Survey on principal years of experience on the job.

This toolkit is designed to help structure principal’s thinking about the return to school, in whatever form that takes. The toolkits is structured to point and direct administrators to where to find help. The guidelines offer context for the use of the tools and tip sheets, and suggestions for actions you might consider. 

In this chapter of "Distributed leadership: Different perspectives" the authors take a small step towards addressing such questions by investigating the association between the distribution of leadership to teachers and instructional change in schools.

In this paper, we study how providing improved information to principals about teacher effectiveness and encouraging them to use the information in personnel decisions affects the composition of teacher turnovers.

This study examined the conditions and concerns of principals in Virginia to see what their experiences and perceptions are of the growing shortage in the principalship. Findings suggest that principals do not feel that they have sufficient authority and resources to get the job done and that they are working long hours to fill the gap.

Principals are in a paradoxical position. On one hand, they're called on to use research-based strategies to improve student achievement. On the other, they're increasingly required to micromanage teachers by observing in classrooms and engaging in intensive evaluation. The authors point out that these two positions are at odds with each other.

The Principal Follow-up Survey (PFS), first conducted in school year 2008-09, is a component of the 2011-12 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). The 2012-13 PFS was administered in order to provide attrition rates for principals in K-12 public and private schools. The goal was to assess how many principals in the 2011-12 school year still worked as a principal in the same school in the 2012-13 school year, how many had moved to become a principal in another school, and how many had left the principalship.

This study hypothesizes that school working conditions help explain both teacher satisfaction and turnover. In particular, it focuses on the role of effective principals in retaining teachers, particularly in disadvantaged schools with the greatest staffing challenges. 

Using multiple measures of teacher and principal effectiveness, the authors document that indeed more effective principals see lower rates of teacher turnover, on average

Using findings generated from a large-scale survey of 1,400 Ontario principals, this paper reports on the influence of opportunities for school–community involvement on the work principals do on a daily basis and details how involvement in such activities influences and impacts their workloads.

In this study the authors use longitudinal data from one large school district – Miami-Dade County Public Schools, to investigate the distribution of principals across schools.

Building on the analysis that was first reported in School Leadership That Works, the authors of Balanced Leadership identify the 21 responsibilities associated with effective leadership and show how they relate to three overarching responsibilities: 

Drawing on normative, empirical, and critical literatures, this review explores the role of school administrators in responding to the needs of diverse students. Three administrative tasks are highlighted: fostering new meanings about diversity, promoting inclusive school cultures and instructional programs, and building relationships between schools and communities. 

This 4-year longitudinal study, funded by the National Science Foundation and the Spencer Foundation, is designed to make the “black box” of leadership practice more transparent through an in-depth analysis of leadership practice. This research identifies the tasks, actors, actions, and interactions of school leadership as they unfold together in the daily life of schools. 

Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to identify different types of principals across the U.S. The authors analyzed the 1999-2000 Schools and Staffing Survey as it presents a unique opportunity to study the different types of U.S. principals since it contains leadership measures not found in other national surveys or administrations. A final sample of 7,650 public schools and principals were included in the analysis.

The purpose of this study was to examine various factors that are often present in principal–teacher interactions and teacher–teacher relationships to see how those may have an impact on teachers’ classroom instructional practices.