What Are We Learning?
District Insight on Supporting
Principal Effectiveness
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The Wallace Foundation
Principal Pipeline Initiative
In 2011, The Wallace Foundation launched a $75-million five-year
initiative to help six urban school districts develop a much larger
corps of effective school principals and to determine whether this
improves student achievement across the district, especially in
highest needs schools . The six districts are CharlotteMecklenburg; Denver; Gwinnett County; Hillsborough County;
New York City; and Prince George's County.
The Initiative focuses on four key parts of the pipeline:
1.Defining the job of the principal and assistant principal.
2.High-quality training for aspiring school leaders.
3.Selective hiring.
4.Leader evaluation and on-the-job support.
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Problem Statement
Almost every state and district in the country is attempting to develop
effective systems that evaluate teachers and school leaders in order to
improve instructional and leadership practice and increase student
learning. Developing effective evaluation systems are, in fact, a high
priority of both the field and the federal government. The key role of the
principal in teacher evaluation is one of the most important lessons from
the first generation of Wallace work. However, today’s principals are
struggling to find the tools, time, resources, and capacity to effectively
teachers and be strong instructional leaders.
If districts hope to develop effective evaluation systems, then what kind
of tools, processes, organizational structures and practices are available
that can help principals effectively evaluate teachers and be strong
instructional leaders?
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Project
• The first step of this project was to better understand
the contexts, promising practices and challenges related
to the role of the leader in teacher evaluation.
• The main data source were pipeline district leaders who
completed a 47-question survey and participated in
post-survey interviews during January and February of
2012.
• Participants included Directors, Chief Technology and
Information Officers, and their staffs.
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Project
Additional data included:
• CCSSO sent a 6-question survey to 24 states in the State
Consortium on Educator Effectiveness during January and
February of 2012 and received 13 responses.
• National SAM Innovation Project (NSIP) distributed a 17question survey at the 5th Annual SAM’s Conference in
January 27-30, 2012 to 249 principals and received 105
responses.
• Interviews were conducted with Jackie Wilson, Delaware
Academy For School Leadership and Carol Seid,
Representative on the NAESP and NASSP Committee on
Principal Evaluation.
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Strong Voices
“Think about what’s going to have the most impact on teaching and learning…
What is really going to get to the heart of what that teacher is doing every day in
the classroom with students.” (School District Administrator)
“…the strengths include a grassroots effort involving teachers, principals,
superintendents, parents, and education partners coming together to establish
guiding principles, common language and understanding, as well as collective
agreement on the purpose and intent of the effectiveness system.” (State Agency
Administrator)
“Throughout, what we have done is reversed the way we’ve always done business.”
(School District Administrator)
“You can’t fire your way to excellence, you have to develop it and our evaluation
system lends itself to doing that.” (School District Administrator)
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The System Matters!
Instructional Leadership
PLC Hierarchy
of Evaluation
Needs*
* With
Apologies
And
Thanks To
Abraham
Maslow
Time
Leadership Skills
Promising Practices,
Challenges, and
Ways To Overcome
Those Challenges
Exist At Every Level
OF The System
Organizational Support
Stakeholder Collaboration
Compelling Vision Of Evaluation
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The System Matters
Theme #1: Develop A Compelling Vision Of What Good
Evaluation Is And Why It Is Important
• A common understanding of the purpose of the new evaluation system
• Clear focus on teacher and leader effectiveness and student growth
• Strong integration between teacher evaluation and teacher and leader
professional development
• Use of multiple measures, including increased formative assessments
• Utilize tools that increase the time that principals spend assessing
instruction and developing teachers
• Adapt state evaluation instruments to the context of each district
• Collect student artifacts and student data as part of the evaluation
• Work with teachers to identify practices and behaviors in the classroom that
make a difference
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The System Matters
Theme #2: Establish Clear Communication And Strong
Collaboration Among All Stakeholders
• Include everyone (teachers, principals, community) in the design of the
evaluation system
• Take time to pilot, obtain feedback, and engage in continual improvement
• Keep feedback loops open between principals, teachers, district, and
other stakeholders
• Increase state and district collaboration so that districts have the local
flexibility to recognize context and encourage innovation
• Work with universities to develop instructional leadership skills in the
pipeline for aspiring principals
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The System Matters
Theme #3: Ensure Organizational Structures of Schools &
Districts Support Principals
•
•
•
•
•
Realign central office to support principals and protect principal time
Increase the effectiveness of principal coaches and supervisors
Streamline and make the evaluation process as efficient as possible
Move some administrative duties to the central office
Push school-based budgets to principals to give them more flexibility to
focus the resources on their priorities
• Identify ideal ratio of principal/assistant principal to teacher to conduct
evaluations
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The System Matters
Theme #4: Develop and Implement Effective Ways To
Strengthen Leadership Skills
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Increase the effectiveness of principal coaches and supervisors
Implement effective professional development for principals including strong
learning communities and networks
Provide on-going support rather than one-time training
Develop common language of effective practices (shared framework and rubrics)
Focus on calibration of observations so that there is strong inter-rater reliability
across principals
Ensure that principal coaches work with the principal in every stage of the
evaluation, including providing teacher feedback
For large school districts, train principals in small groups or networks
Start small by focusing training on just a few indicators within the framework used
to evaluate teachers
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The System Matters
Theme #5: Help Principals Manage Their Time Effectively
• Using the SAM process to successfully provide time and
conditions for teacher to improve teacher practice
• Use tools and technology to make the evaluation process
more efficient (e.g. Lawson, iPads, Truenorthlogic,
Dashboards)
Theme #6: Instructional Leadership
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Leading Change In Evaluation:
Need-By-Need
Using this Framework of Evaluation Needs helps us begin to
understand more about how states, districts and principals view
the promising practices, challenges and ways to overcome those
challenges at every level of the system.
Clearly, there is much more we need to know about the
promising practices and challenges throughout the system.
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Three Main Challenges
The Lack Of A
Compelling Vision Of
Evaluation
The Need For Stronger
Leadership Skills
Not Enough Time
Lack of clarity and
distrust about the
purposes of evaluation
Some principals do not know
what effective instruction
looks like
Principals have large case
loads and new evaluations
are time-intensive
Inadequate time paid to
instructional leadership
Principal’s time as
instructional leaders is
disrupted by management
responsibilities and central
office duties.
Implementing new evaluation
and common core standards
are over-whelming principals
Training for principals on
new forms of evaluation is
time-consuming
How to measure student
growth with validity &
reliability in all
grades/subjects
Lack of alignment
between state and
district evaluation
frameworks
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Some Promising Practices
Compelling Vision Of Evaluation
• A strong emphasis on teaching practice and support
• Includes observation tools , protocols, rubrics
• In-depth feedback to teachers
• Includes measures of student growth
• Includes multiple measures of teacher effectiveness
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Some Promising Practices
Leadership Skills
• Extensive, comprehensive and timely professional
development for principals
• In-person and virtual support to principals
• Training and support for principal coaches and supervisors
• Supporting principals with strong learning communities and
professional networks
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Some Promising Practices
Time
• Use technology to help with evaluation
• Remove management duties to allow focus on instructional
leadership
• Differentiated schedule for teachers receiving evaluations
• Implement the SAM process
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Hillsborough County
Public Schools
Organizational Support
Leadership Skills
Hire and train principal coaches to support and
develop principals
Provide weekly coaching with a released “full time”
coach for first and second year principals
Train principal supervisors in effective supervision to
include professional development and evaluation of
principals
Provide monthly leadership institutes with new
principals as part of a 2-year induction program
Create an administrative support center to field calls
to free up time for principal supervisors to be in
schools and to help principals solve parental concerns
Implement four development programs as part of our
principal pipeline (Future Leader Academy, AP
Induction, Preparing New Principals, and Principal
Induction) with a focus on instructional leadership
Plan regular calibration exercises for all observers
Monthly Principal PLCs to discuss and learn from
problems of practice
Include central office in observation training to
provide support to principals and use on-line system
for capturing observation data
Provide prescriptive professional development aligned
with evalaution results and principal professional
development plans
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Charlotte-Mecklenburg
School District
Compelling Vision of
Evaluation
Multiple measures of teacher
effectiveness being designed
by teachers for 2013-2014
implementation
• Content Pedagogy
• Hard to staff schools and
subjects
• Professional Learning
Community
• Student Learning
Objectives
• Student Survey
• Teacher Observation
• Teacher Work Product
• Value Added Model
Leadership Skills
Principal Induction Program
for principals in their first five
years
• Consultant Coach
• Education Leadership
Institute
• Innovation Institute
• Leadership Capstone
•
•
Time
•
SAM process
implementation
Strategic Coach for
principals who need
additional support
Zone Support Consultant to
help principals establish
strategic plans that align
with their evaluation
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Conclusions
• We need to know more about the promising practices,
challenges, and ways to overcome those challenges at
every level of the system.
• We need to find strategies, tactics and tools to help
strengthen the communication among states, districts,
principal, teachers and others involved in evaluation.
• The perspectives of principals is crucial and we need to
find ways to increase their participation in these
conversations.
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The Leader & Teacher Evaluation PLC
Name
Title
District/Organization
Anthony
Douglas
Director Office of Human Capital Management
Prince George's County Public Schools
Briggs
Kerri
Director of Education Reform
George W. Bush Presidential Center
Canole
Mary C.
Consultant/Facilitator
CCSSO
Cannon
Joanna
Chief Strategic Officer for The Division of Talent, Labor,
and Innovation
New York City Department of Education
Chapin
Florence
Executive Director, Office of School Leader Effectiveness
New York City Department of Education
Copland
Michael
Senior Program Officer
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Davis
Frances
Chief Human Resources Officer
Gwinnett County Public Schools
Eleusizov
Aiesha
Consultant
The Wallace Foundation
Everson
Keith
Director of Employee Evaluation Systems
Gwinnett County Public Schools
Grossman
Tabitha
Program Director, Education Division
National Governors Association Center for
Best Practices
Hendee
Roberta "Bert"
IL Coordinator, SAMs
Assistant Director, LUDA
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The Leader & Teacher Evaluation PLC
Name
Title
District/Organization
Jobe
MaryAnn
Director, Leadership Development
American Association of School
Administrators
Loera
Patricia
Senior Program Officer
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Martin
Anne
Director, School Leader Effectiveness
New York City Department of Education
Morgan
Rashidah
Director of Leadership Strategy
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools
Shellinger
Mark
Director
National SAM Innovation Project
Steele
David
Assistant Superintendent for Information and
Technology
Hillsborough County Public Schools
Stern
Jennifer
Executive Director, Teacher Performance Management
Denver Public Schools
Vu
Ky
Program Officer
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Winograd
Peter
Facilitator
NYC Leadership Academy
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Implications for Your Work
Small Group Discussions:
• Each group will spend 15 minutes reacting to what
we just heard using the following guiding questions:
1. To what extent do you agree with the promising
practices? Are there any you would add?
2. To what extent do you agree with the challenges?
Any to add?
3. Do you have additional suggestions for ways to
overcome the challenges?
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