Principal Professional Development (In Service)

The Bush Institute’s new studies look at effective ways to evaluate principal preparation and describe policies to get, support, and keep great principals.

This report highlights the very important role that states play in cultivating principal leadership talent. This paper speaks concern about improving human resources management at the state and district levels, doing quality control at the entry requirements, and give states tools and strategies to re-frame policies to bolster the principal talent pipeline. 

This paper offer a number of research findings and action steps drawn from policies and practices that have been shown to be critical to the success of educational reforms at the local, district and state levels.

The U.S. Department of Education Office of Educational Technology published this brief that summarizes research on the role of online communities of practice and social networks in supporting the professional performance of educators.

Intended as a text, this book emphasizes practical techniques of clinical supervision in working with teachers to help them improve their classroom teaching. It is divided into four units. The first provides necessary background for understanding techniques of clinical supervision. The next two units describe specific techniques for conducting clinical conferences and collecting observation data.

This literature review aims to provide district leaders with an understanding of the research and best evidence regarding the components of effective principal talent management systems.

This report addresses the implementation of principal evaluation and related support as of 2015, viewing implementation in the context of districts’ aims, constraints, and capacity. Principal evaluation is part of the Wallace Principal Pipeline Initiative design, intended both as a means of assessing novice principals’ performance against clear standards and as a roadmap for tailoring professional development and one-on-one support to identified areas of need.

The objective of this study is to investigate and characterize principals' backgrounds, individual and school level factors associated with leadership stability, and principal career paths and exit behaviors in Missouri. 

Using statewide data from Missouri and Tennessee, we employ a difference-in-differences model with a matched comparison group to estimate arguably causal effects.

In order to inform discussions and decisions among policymakers, researchers, and parents, the 2008-09 Principal Follow-up Survey (PFS) was initiated as a nationally representative sample survey of public, private, and Bureau of Indian Education-funded (BIE) K-12 schools in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

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. 

This paper seeks to estimate the effect that Career Leader (CL) program has had on teachers’ career decisions, specifically their decisions to stay in a specific school district or to remain in the teaching field.

CEELO reviewed data on 21 states’ principal licensure requirements, conducted structured interviews with experts on principal preparation and professional development in 7 states, and spoke with staff at the National Association of Elementary School Principals and the National Institute for School Leadership.

Districts and states establish minimum eligibility requirements for individuals serving as principals in public schools. The intent of these requirements—which include mandated degrees, prior teaching and/or administrative experience, and certifications—is to ensure a minimum quality standard in the principal candidate pool.

This report tells policymakers what metrics they must track in order to make the best decisions regarding the supply and training of school leaders.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the factors influencing school systems’ decisions behind crafting, developing, and revising differentiated pay plans that require districts to abandon the practice of providing only across-the-board salary increases for experience and advanced degrees by adding at least one additional criterion for compensating educators.

The concept of strategic leadership has been in the discourse of corporate governance and
management but in recent days, strategic leadership has become a concept in education
literature. Strategic leadership is also relevant in education more especially in a PK-12
educational setting.

Principal evaluations can be important tools for improving leadership practice, but evaluations have often described by principals and researchers as unsystematic and lacking timely and actionable feedback. This study examines principal perceptions of the Texas Principal Evaluation and Support System.

This report describes how Denver Public Schools hired people to coach and evaluate its principals.

A growing body of research recognizes the critical role of the school principal, demonstrating that school principals’ effects on student outcomes are second only to those of teachers. Yet policy makers have often paid little attention to principals, choosing instead to focus policy reform on teachers. In the last decade, this pattern has shifted somewhat.

This paper explores the implementation of a professional development program (PDP) for school principals. Two methods for measuring fidelity of implementation of the PDP are examined

This paper describes a continuous learning model of principal and superintendent support. The model places a premium on engagement at all levels of the system on shaping a focused culture of instruction within their schools.

The purpose of this study is to reveal the extent to which different leadership models in education are studied, including the change in the trends of research on each model over time, the most prominent scholars working on each model, and the countries in which the articles are based. 

In this article, the authors put forth a new set of standards with equity at the core. They seek to advance the conversation about why standards centered on equity are needed—particularly in light of a proposed standards refresh—and what implications would follow from equity-focused standards.

Effective school leaders, particularly principals, are associated with better outcomes for students and schools. Principals help set school vision and culture, which support teacher effectiveness and ultimately can help improve student achievement.

The role of today's principal is changing, as is the principal workforce. The new generation of principals is younger with less teaching experience, and is more mobile, working more hours, and experiencing more job stress. Understanding how to better prepare new leaders for the role of principal is an urgent policy concern.

This Story From the Field examines how Denver and five other school districts have constructed and are using these systems as they seek to better train, hire and support school principals.

This report describes how Denver Public Schools hired personnel to coach and evaluate its principals.

Principal supervisors are a potential point of leverage for supporting and developing principals' effectiveness, but little is known about the effectiveness of this approach. The overarching hypothesis of the PSI was that changing the role of principal supervisors from overseeing operations to developing principals' instructional leadership practices could drive improvement in principal effectiveness.

An analysis by The New York Times of the city’s signature report-card system shows that schools run by graduates of the celebrated New York City Leadership Academy — which the mayor created and helped raise more than $80 million for — have not done as well as those led by experienced principals or new principals who came through traditional routes.

This paper investigate the most commonly used exam, the School Leaders Licensure Assessment (SLLA), using 10 years of data on Tennessee test takers. This paper found that although candidates with higher scores are more likely to be hired as principals, we find little evidence that SLLA scores predict measures of principal job performance, including supervisors’ evaluation ratings or teachers’ assessments of school leadership from a statewide survey.

For purposes of the Ontario Leadership Framework (OLF), leadership is defined as the exercise of influence on organizational members and diverse stakeholders toward the identification and achievement of the organization’s vision and goals. For aspiring leaders, this framework provides important insights about what they will need to learn to be successful. Those already exercising leadership will find the framework a useful tool for self-reflection and self-assessment.

This article presents results from a study of leadership coaches who worked with novice principals in a university-based induction program for a 3-year period.

This publication seeks to help answer those questions by bringing together findings from four reports commissioned by The Wallace Foundation to inform its development of a potential new initiative regarding university-based principal training.

This research suggests that the effectiveness of principals in managing the recruitment and advancement of teachers will contribute to improvements in student learning. One of the key ways these managers influence performance is through human capital management: the attraction, development and retention of the employee talent the organization needs.

This article examines the salary trajectory of teachers as they move up the career ladder into leadership positions.

This brief describes: (1) The need for more and better principal professional development to improve principal effectiveness, decrease principal turnover, and more equitably distribute successful principals across all schools; (2) The research on the importance of principals and how professional development can improve principals' effectiveness; and (3) Options and examples for leveraging current policies to revisit and refocus efforts concerning principal professional development.

This module will not focus on the empirical challenges to developing measures of principal effectiveness and their accompanying reward systems, but rather will focus on what is known and will provide guidance on those issues upon which there is agreement.

This study focuses on the experiences of ten novice principals involved in a principal mentoring program in a large urban school district to examine the connections of theory and practice from training received in their administrative preparation program. It sought to understand the impact of receiving support and mentoring in retaining principals. Three themes emerged from the data: (1) the importance of networking with other principals, (2) individualized support with mentors, and (3) continuous development and professional growth. The research presented will contribute to the agenda of retaining quality administrators in the field.

This paper examines research on what we know about the causes and impact of principal turnover.

The lived experience of principal supervisors in Long Beach Unified School District consisted of an intentional and aligned system of principal evaluations, coaching, and principal supervisor professional learning community. Principal supervisors also identified practices such as increased visits to schools and classrooms with principals, central office departments focused on teaching and learning, and the traits of creating an environment of vulnerability and growth mindset as an important skill set.

This study used Hierarchical Multivariate Linear models to investigate relationships between principals' behaviors and district principal evaluation purpose, focus, and assessed leadership activities in 13 school districts in Michigan. The study found that principals were more likely to engage in learning-centered leadership behaviors when the purposes of evaluation included principal professional development, school restructuring, and accountability; when the focus of evaluation was related to instructional leadership; and when evaluation addressed leadership in school goal setting, curriculum design, teacher professional development and evaluation, and monitoring student learning.

Effective preparation and professional development programs build the capacity of principals to lead across their full range of responsibilities, fostering school environments where adults and students thrive. Research points to several key building blocks of strong preparation and development programs. 

The T-PESS process incorporates a series of actions and activities that should be applied on an ongoing basis. While the T-PESS process results in your annual summary assessment, it's better to think of it as an annual process of activities that help you self-assess, establish performance goals, collect and analyze information, and provide constructive feedback, improving your quality and effectiveness as the school leader.

The U.S. Department of Education Office of Educational Technology published this report that details the results of exploratory research on how to design and manage online communities of practice for educators.