CCSSO State Consortium on Educator Effectiveness scee.groupsite.com

As a member of SCEE and CCSSO's liaison to the Wallace Foundation's Principal Pipeline Initiative - Leader and Teacher Evaluation PLC, I recently had the opportunity to participate in the Chicago convening of the members of the Gates Knowledge Project: Supporting Principals as Instructional Leaders.  School/District attendees included Prince George's County Public Schools, Memphis City Schools, Hillsborough County Public Schools, Montgomery County Public Schools, Denver Public Schools, Tulsa Public Schools, Pittsburg Public Schools, Atlanta Public Schools, Shelby County Schools, Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools, Green Dot Public Schools and PUC Schools.

A work team from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and researchers from the University of Washington facilitated the meeting and shared a draft of a new tool called "The Principal Support Framework".   This framework was a response to their partnership sites and other school systems that designed and implemented new systems to measure and improve teaching effectiveness.  These efforts raised important questions about the role of principals as the primary instructional leaders responsible for continuously improving teaching effectiveness and student learning and highlighted the need for central offices to intentionally develop principals as instructional leaders.  The draft framework is intended to help central office leaders and principals:

• Assess a school system's current approach to supporting principals as instructional leaders;
• Identify strengths to build on;
• Surface technical assistance needs; and
• Highlight areas for inquiry, discussion, and next-stage policy development.[1]

The tool consists of four action areas that identify key ideas and possible evidence.  The action areas are:

1.      The school system has defined, clearly and in detail, what it expects principals to do as the instructional leaders of their schools, and it selects and evaluates principals based primarily on whether they can successfully execute those practices;

2.      The school system has created a system of supports for principals, at the forefront of which are dedicated central office leaders - "The Instructional Leadership Directors"[2] (ILDs) - who are responsible for helping principals grow as instructional leaders;  

3.      The school system has established that the primary work of ILDS is to develop principals as instructional leaders, and that is reflected in the way they are selected, evaluated, and in their daily work; and

4.      The school system has made it possible for instructional leadership to be the primary job of principals.[3]

Based on the research findings shared at the convening, I was struck with the reciprocal relationship that exists between the central office leaders and the principals in these districts.  As districts move to transform their central offices to support principals' instructional leadership by providing just-in-time, differentiated support to each principal, what are the implications for SEAs?  Do we know enough about what districts need to effectively support principals and teachers in order to determine the role SEAs can play in supporting districts in this work? 

As they work towards finalizing this tool, I will share it with you and we can discuss the implications it might have for SEAs.  At our November 1 & 2, 2012 Topical Meeting on Leveraging Professional Learning to Increase Principal Effectiveness we will facilitate conversations with state teams consisting of a state education agency representative, a school district leader, school principal, and teacher leader in order to gain deeper understanding of the key behaviors of effective principals and the role school leaders play in improving teaching and learning.  A specific focus will be the implications of implementing the new common core standards and evaluating and supporting teacher performance and how the SEA, Central Office, and Teacher Leaders can best support them.

[1] Introductory remarks from the Gates Foundation Knowledge Project: Supporting Principals as Instructional Leaders, Principal Support Framework (Draft June 27, 2012)

[2] Honig et al define ILDS as executive-level staff who spend as close as possible to 100% of their time helping principals grow as instructional leaders, by working with principals one-on-one and in principal networks.  (Honig, M.I., Copland, M.A., Rainey, L., Lorton, J.A., & Newton, M. (2010, April), Central office transformation for district-wide teaching and learning improvement.  A report to the Wallace Foundation. Seattle, WA: The Center fro the Study of Teaching and Policy.)

[3] Introductory remarks from the Gates Foundation Knowledge Project: Supporting Principals as Instructional Leaders, Principal Support Framework (Draft June 27, 2012)