Education Week - April 10, 2019 - 18

Where Districts Spent on Principals, Scores Rose
By Denisa R. Superville
Principals who've had attention
at every point in their development
as a school leader-including selection, preparation, hiring, placement,
and coaching after they are on the
job-were linked to stronger reading and math achievement and to
longer tenures in their jobs at the
helm of schools.
Those clear findings-from a
new study of six school districts
that made heavy investments in
strengthening their cadre of school
leaders-underscore the key role
principals play in their schools'
academic success. The report, by
researchers at RAND Corporation,
looked at the six-year, $85 million
"principal pipeline" initiative supported by the Wallace Foundation.
(Coverage of education leadership in
Education Week is supported in part
by the Wallace Foundation.)
Schools that got new principals in
2011-12 as part of the pipeline initiative outperformed other schools
in their states that were not in the
program by 6.22 percentile points in
reading and 2.87 percentile points
in math three years after the new
school leader was hired, researchers
found.
RAND also found that new principals in the pipeline districts were
5.8 percentage points more likely to
stay in their schools for two years
than new principals in non-participating districts, though there was
variation among districts.
Perhaps most significantly, the
report found statistically significant
academic growth in the schools that
were among the lowest-performing
in the pipeline districts that had
gotten new principals. And while
new principals who were products
of the initiative posted the most
growth, other school leaders in the
pipeline districts also saw gains.

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That specific finding exceeded
the Wallace Foundation's original
hypothesis on how effective principals could boost achievement
when it launched its initiative to
work with districts to thoughtfully
prepare, select, place, and support
principals.
"What these results say is that
principal pipelines are a strategic
and systemic approach to create
districtwide student achievement"
growth, said Jody Spiro, the director
of the foundation's education leadership program.
"All principals in the district benefitted...," she said. "They benefitted
from having clear leader standards.
They benefitted from these more rigorous hiring procedures, from being
better matched to their schools,
from having evaluation systems
that the research tells us the principals perceived as fair and useful.
It became bigger than...a 'training
program' for principals. It became a
whole system approach."

'Bang for the Buck'
The districts in the program were
Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C.; Denver; Gwinnett County, Ga.; Hillsborough County, Fla.; New York City;
and Prince George's County, Md.
Their results mirror what's happened in Chicago, where school leadership has been an improvement
strategy for 20 years, said Heather
Y. Anichini, the chief executive officer of The Chicago Public Education Fund.
One of the validating findings in
the RAND analysis was the academic gains among the lowest-performing schools-those most in need
of effective principals, Anichini said.
"That's something we've been seeing here for a while, too, but it isn't
necessarily something that's focused
on a lot in the literature," she said.

"If it is the kind of strategy that
can really make a difference, not
just generally, but specifically in
places where students are struggling, then it's something we must
pay more attention to."
That finding may seem to fly in
the face of research and conventional wisdom suggesting that newly
minted principals shouldn't lead
struggling schools, said Doug Anthony, an associate superintendent
in Prince George's County.
But in the pipeline districts, new
principals went through rigorous
selection, got relevant training,
and were matched based on their
strengths and the school and community's needs, and they were provided with mentor and other support systems, said Anthony.
"I think this actually dispels that
to some extent, and that if you actually equip people and build leaders who have already come with a
certain skill set and sharpen that
skill set and are particular about
how they are developed and identified and supported, you can actually see bang for the buck in student
achievement even in your toughest
schools,"Anthony said.
Prince George's County made
dramatic changes to its school
leadership program. It revised its
standards for leaders which guide
how it evaluates and supports aspiring and sitting principals. It
created data systems to track principals' performance and expanded
partnerships with university-prep
programs.
The RAND researchers said they
know of no other districtwide improvement strategy that yielded
such significant academic results on
such a large scale.
Collectively, the districts in the
pipeline initiative serve nearly 1.7
million students.
The effects of the pipeline were

evident early, another key finding,
Spiro and others said.
And districts can start reaping
the gains right away.
While setting up a preparation
program takes time, districts can
get early wins by sharpening leader
standards, matching principals'
skill sets with the needs of schools,
and retooling the work of administrators who manage principals.
"Every district has something of a
pipeline because they all hire principals, but it's a matter of if it's systemic," Spiro said.
The program was also relatively
affordable for districts, the report
found. Over five years, the initiative
cost $210 per student if looking at
its impact districtwide and $373 if
looking solely at students in schools
with principals who received the full
"treatment" of the initiative.
RAND's research did show varied
results. Math scores in one unnamed
district, for example, were negative
and researchers found positive but not
statistically significant effects in math
achievement in two others. There was
also variation in the study's findings
on principal retention.

Return on Investment
Glenn Pethel, an assistant superintendent in the Gwinnett County
schools, said that districts and state
education agencies should pay attention to the report.
"It should cause districts to stop
and reflect and think about where
they are making investments,"
Pethel said. "I hope that it would
cause them to see that investing in
a principal pipeline does have a significant return on investment."
That's not always an easy pivot for
districts, which tend to focus, understandably, on teachers. District leaders also gravitate to programs that
can yield quick results. And build-

Selling to Principals Without
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Alienating
District Leaders
Alienating District Leaders
Many K-12 companies want
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Manyalso
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anger
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individual
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anger
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central-office
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principals,
and win decisions
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routed through
How
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gueStS
* Matt GaMbino,
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gueStS
Skills Development
* Matt GaMbino,
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* KEcia
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EdWeek Market Brief
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INVESTING IN
PRINCIPALS PAYS
OFF
Schools that got new principals in an initiative to improve
hiring, training, and mentoring
of school leaders had stronger
reading and math performance
than similar schools in other
districts in their state.

Math
2.61

2.87

Year 2

Year 3+

Reading

6.22

4.94

Year 2

Year 3+

Comparison school
Target school
SOURCE: RAND Corporation

ing pipelines relies on relationships,
which pose a challenge in a sector
susceptible to frequent turnover.
Cultivating leadership has always
been a district priority in Gwinnett
County, Pethel said. The district's
superintendent, J. Alvin Wilbanks,
has been in his position for more
than two decades, and the district
is always looking to spot and shape
new talent.
When Pam Williams moved from
Palm Beach County, Fla., to Gwinnett County in 2006, she was not
looking to become a principal.
But her principal quickly spotted her talent in the classroom
and her knack for team-building.
He brought her onto his leadership
team and steadily supplied her with
books on instruction and leadership.
He urged her to apply for the district's aspiring principals program.
Williams is now principal of
Bethesda Elementary School, which
was among the bottom 20 percent of
the district's schools when she took
over in 2013.
In the last two years, it's consistently landed in the top 20 percent
of the district's schools and among
the top Title 1 schools in Georgia.
Williams credits the district's two
preparation programs in which she
participated-which were developed
during the pipeline initiative and
featured experts from the district's
curriculum staff, sitting principals,
and other building leaders, and the
superintendent as lecturers.
Her mentor during her first two
years on the job was "priceless,"
she said.
While she had her own ideas on
how to turn around the school, its
success is mainly due to the preparation program and district support,
she said.
"Anything that I've implemented
was definitely not straight from my
brain, that's for sure, she said. "It
was definitely ideas that I learned
from the program."

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Education Week - April 10, 2019

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