More Principal Training & Mentoring Required For State to Meet Reform Goals And Boost Student Achievement

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Changing demographics and new reform laws will require Illinois public school districts to provide principals with new kinds of support and training if they want principals to successfully implement new reform laws and boost student achievement.

This is one of the findings in a new, comprehensive report on Illinois' 3,600 public school principals. The report documents shifting demographic and turnover trends among elementary and high school principals; the areas in which principals are having a direct impact on student performance; and principals' own beliefs about their strengths and weaknesses as administrators. The report, released today by the Illinois Education Research Council (IERC), Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.

Key Findings from The Principal Report: The State of School Leadership in Illinois, include:


Principal Demographics are Shifting Rapidly

• The average age of principals is decreasing, due to a retiring baby boom generation.
• The proportion of female principals doubled between 1990 and 2008, and more women than men have led Illinois schools since 2005. The number of minorities serving as principals is also growing.

Certain Principal Experiences Correlate Closely with Higher Student Performance

• The number of principals with previous Associate Principal experience at their current school nearly doubled statewide since 2001 and increased fivefold in Chicago. IERC's analyses of this data confirms for the Illinois' elementary and middle schools what other recent research suggests: that principals who served as AP at their current school tend to show greater gains in student achievement
• The research also shows that principals who earned master's or doctoral degrees from more academically rigorous institutions tended to work in schools with higher student achievement.


Student Growth on Standardized Tests Currently Plays Small Role in Evaluating or Hiring Teachers

• Many Illinois principals report that they fundamentally disagree with using student test scores and gains as central measures of school and teacher success.

Principals cited school climate, student attendance and quality of teacher applicants as more important measures of school success. Even fewer principals said absolute student test scores were a very important measure of school success.

Principals Struggle to Prioritize Tasks and Feel Less Effective at Tasks Research Suggests are Most Important

• More than half of principals ranked instruction-related tasks like coaching teachers as their most important work, but less than a third felt very effective at doing it. Less than half of all principals felt effective hiring teachers or setting budgets, two tasks where principal effectiveness is crucial to raising student achievement.

Among the report's recommendations:

• Support and training to implement new teacher evaluation standards mandated by Illinois' Performance Evaluation Reform Act (PERA).
• More training in research-based practices for teacher hiring.
• Principal mentoring and other programs to help new principals hit the ground running.
• Encourage retention of principals by helping them create positive school cultures and by giving them the authority and autonomy to run their schools.
• Professional development in self-reported areas they identified as needing improvement, including data analysis and coaching teachers.