Education Week - April 16, 2014 - 15

states, researchers found that a
1-percentage-point increase in a
student's score on the engagement
index was associated with a 6-point
increase in reading achievement
and an 8-point increase in math
achievement scores.
Mr. Busteed conceded that Gal-
lup's annual student survey is not
a perfect representative sample
of all U.S. students, but the large
pool of participants is diverse and
reflective of demographic trends,
he said.
The new findings highlight how
school leaders can influence students'
sense of engagement in
learning, Gallup says.
Schools' Role
In a finding described by the organization
as highly significant,
students surveyed in 2013 who
said they strongly agreed with two
statements-"My school is committed
to building the strengths
of each student," and "I have at
least one teacher who makes me
excited about the future"-were
30 times more likely to be classified
as "engaged" than students
who strongly disagreed with
those statements on the one-tofive
scale.
To build engagement, districts
should encourage students to discover
and apply their strengths,
Gallup says, and teachers should
take a differentiated approach to
building hope, focusing on what
motivates each student as an individual.

Mr. Busteed provided the exam-
ple of a 1st grade teacher he once
saw on a school tour, who called out
the first name and desired future
occupation of each student as she
called on the student to answer a
question.
"It was a simple and powerful ac-
tion," he said. "She didn't need to
teach every student something different-she
needed to spread different
bits of motivation throughout
the discussion."
Making Opinions Count
Gallup recommends that principals
address teacher engagement
to help students succeed.
Teachers' engagement levels at
work are similar to those of the
general workforce, according to
a 2012 Gallup poll of 70,000 U.S.
employees, including 7,200 K-12
teachers. Gallup measures employee
engagement through an
index that incorporates responses
to 12 questions related to their
perceptions about feedback, encouragement,
and support from
supervisors in the workplace.
Researchers classified 31 percent
of teachers as "engaged" at work
under that index, compared with
30 percent of respondents overall.
The share of workers described
as "not engaged" among teachers,
however, was slightly larger than it
was for the general workforce-56
percent versus 52 percent.
And, among all the occupations
tracked in the survey, teachers
were the least likely to say that
their opinions counted at work.
"If this is pointing toward any
improvement we need to make,
it's in the improvement of
the leadership of schools," Mr.
Busteed said.
To build engagement among
teachers, the report recommends
that principals ask them questions
about curriculum, pedagogy,
and scheduling, and incorporate
their feedback into decisionmaking.
School leaders should also
pair engaged administrators and
teachers to collaborate and generate
enthusiasm for student-centered
projects, the report says.
The authors also recommend removing
disengaged teachers from
the classroom for brief periods of
continuing education.
JoAnn D. Bartoletti, the executive
director of the National Association
of Secondary School
Principals, said the Gallup report
validates that a "highly skilled
principal is the linchpin to schoolwide
success."
Principal behaviors that encourage
collaboration and meaningful
relationships "don't happen by
chance," Ms. Bartoletti said in a
written statement. "They emerge
from a defined set of knowledge,
skills, and attitudes, which requires
dedicated and ongoing development."

Ms. Bartoletti also called for additional
federal funds for professional
development for principals.
Message to the Public
A lack of public understanding
of what happens in schools may
also contribute to a weak school
climate, Mr. Busteed said.
In the 2013 Phi Delta Kappa/
Gallup poll, 36 percent of parents
of public school students ranked
a lack of financial support as
the biggest problem their local
schools must deal with. Among less
common answers given, 4 percent
answered that testing and regulations
are the biggest problem,
and 3 percent said the problem
was difficulty finding good teachers.
Mr. Busteed said parents might
not understand how educators
interact with students on a daily
basis, or how school policies affect
what happens in the classroom.
A school climate that promotes
academic achievement requires engaged
students, empowered teachers,
encouraging leaders, and a
public to hold the system accountable,
he said.
"What most of the world thinks
of as very soft measures are indeed
great drivers of these [achievement]
factors that we have focused
on so much in education," Mr. Busteed
said.
Scan this tag with your
smartphone for a link to
the Gallup study.
www.edweek.org/links
National Board
Poised to Scrap
Principals' Effort
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
a year after meeting their final deadline and submitting
elaborate portfolios that detail, for example, their
instructional leadership, their family- and communityengagement
strategies, and the data that show how they
are impacting student achievement, none of the principals
has received any feedback on how they stacked up.
And though officials at the National Board insisted earlier
this month that no final decisions about the program's
fate had been reached, many principals in the pilot group
had major doubts. In the days leading up to the board
of directors meeting, many of them inundated National
Board officials with emails and letters that made passionate
pleas to keep the program intact.
"This is really devastating," said Jack Davern, the principal
of Elon Elementary School in Elon, N.C., and one of
about 120 principals who made it through the pilot. "I had
a choice of doing this or starting my doctorate, and I did
this. I involved my entire school community and have had
the support of my district leadership."
Looking for Answers
Another North Carolina principal in the group, Glenn
Reed, said all the leaders in the pilot understood that
the process could have some bumps along the way and
that delays were likely. What's made
him angry, he said, is the lack of
communication from the National
Board about where things stand.
"They won't even talk to us," said
Mr. Reed, the principal of Stateside
Elementary School in Jacksonville,
N.C. "It's like we got a divorce and
I lost all my work in the divorce
agreement. We are all so frustrated."
Officials from the National Board
declined to directly answer questions
about the status of the principal-certification
program. The organization's
president and executive director, Ronald
Thorpe, had been out of the country
and unavailable, Ms. Aparna said.
Instead, Andy Coons, the organiza-
"
Soon after, the National Board completed work to define
what skills and characteristics school leaders need
to be effective, and followed that up with developing
specific standards that principals would have to demonstrate
mastery of to be considered "accomplished."
Once the National Board was ready to start piloting
in 2011, the vast networks of NAESP and NASSP went to
work recruiting strong, willing candidates to test-drive
it, said Dick Flanary, the deputy executive director
of programs and services for NASSP. Mr. Flanary also
served on the advisory panel that worked closely with
the National Board to develop the standards.
"Our message to our state affiliates was that principals
who agree to do the pilot get to do the process for
free, and that the end result could be advanced certification
that would be recognized as an incredible achievement,"
Mr. Flanary said.
Joseph A. Aguerrebere, who was the executive director
of the Arlington, Va.-based board when the advanced
certification for principals was launched, said there was
broad support for the endeavor, including from some
district superintendents who said they would pay for
principals to go through the process of becoming certified.
(Many teachers pay for much or all of the process to
receive advanced certification in their profession, which
can cost at least $2,000.)
"They thought it would be powerful professional
development and transformative for schools," said
Mr. Aguerrebere, who left the National Board in 2011 and
is currently the associate director for teacher education
and public school programs in the California State University
system's chancellor's office. "We also had a strong
cadre of nationally board-certified teachers around the
country who were saying we should do this. That helped
convince a teacher-dominated board that we should do it."
Robert N. Farrace, the spokesman for NASSP, expressed
dismay that the years of work put into national principal
certification could be scrapped.
"This is disappointing," he said.
They won't even talk
to us. It's like we got a
divorce and I lost all
my work in the
divorce agreement. We
tion's chief operating officer, emailed
a statement to Education Week: "We
are now working with technical advisers
to review the entries that have been scored to inform
our next steps," he wrote. "This issue will be taken up by
our Board of Directors at its upcoming meeting [April 1112].
Until then, no official decision has been made about
the future of the program. We value the commitment that
field-test and pilot participants have made on behalf of
the profession to inform this work. We are committed to
continue working with our partner stakeholders, such as
[the National Association for Secondary School Principals
and the National Association for Elementary School Principals],
on ways to support efforts in this area."
Promising Start
The National Board's launch of an advanced principal
certification was announced with great fanfare in late
2009 in Washington and came after nearly a decade of
behind-the-scenes agitating from national school leadership
organizations to create one.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was there to
endorse it. So was Penny Pritzker, who at the time was a
member of the Chicago Board of Education and is now the
U.S. Secretary of Commerce. The project had a $1 million
earmark in the federal budget, and another $2 million in
total from foundations such as the Chicago Public Education
Fund to help get it off the ground. The two national
professional associations for school leaders-the National
Association of Elementary School Principals and the National
Association of Secondary School Principals-had
long been pushing for national principal certification and
were strong backers.
are all so frustrated."
JACK DAVERN
Elon Elementary School, Elon, N.C.
"NASSP invested a lot of energy to
create the standards for this, and
categorically, we stand by those standards.
It will be a huge loss and a big
disservice to the field if those disappear."

'Worth the Time'
For the principals in limbo-several
of whom shared the letters
and emails they have sent in recent
weeks to National Board officials
with Education Week-the main
question is whether they will ever
know how they measured up. The
only explanation the National Board
has offered them for the long delay,
the principals said, is that people
trained to do the scoring have been difficult to come by.
Mr. Davern, of Elon, N.C., said he can't wait much lon-
ger before explaining to his school staff members and
his bosses what is going on with the program.
"Everyone in my school community knows about this
because many of them contributed to the work I had to
do," said Mr. Davern, who earned his national board certification
as a teacher earlier in his career. "They fully supported
me in this."
Of the roughly 1,600 school leaders selected in the ini-
tial call for pilot participants, only 120 endured through
the intensive process, Mr. Davern said.
Similar to the teachers' certification process, the pilot
principals had to reflect on their leadership practices
and write about them. They did surveys and conducted
focus groups in their school communities and prepared
demographic profiles; and they had to submit videos
that introduced their schools and showed them leading
a meeting of their school leadership team, Mr. Reed, of
Jacksonville, N.C., said.
Many of them, from districts such as Chicago;
Springdale, Ark.; and the Atlanta suburbs, expressed
in emails and letters that they benefited greatly from
participating.
In his letter to the National Board, Dan A. Sims, the
principal of Tri-Cities High School in Fulton County, Ga.,
wrote: "Simply put, the process was amazing for me. I do
hope that you consider all of us strongly as you render any
final decisions on the program. We spent numerous hours
and sacrificed much to commit to what we thought was
worth the time. It was."
EDUCATION WEEK | April 16, 2014 | www.edweek.org | 15
http://www.edweek.org/links http://www.edweek.org
Education Week - April 16, 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - April 16, 2014
