Professional Development of Public School Principals

A new Statistics in Brief report, Principal Professional Development in U.S. Public Schools in 2017-18, examines professional development topics and activities reported by public school principals. The report highlights the following findings: In 2017–18, most public school principals (95 percent) with at least one year of experience at their current school reported participating in professional development during the prior school year. The most prevalent type of professional development activity reported by these principals was participating in workshops or conferences in which they were not a presenter (94 percent), and the least prevalent activity was taking university courses related to their role as principal (19 percent). Principals in city schools more often reported participating in visits to other schools designed to improve their own work as principal than did principals in suburban, town, or rural schools (78 percent compared with 59 to 69 percent). Principals in city schools also more often reported participating in mentoring and/or peer observation and coaching of principals than schools located in other types of communities (59 percent compared with 45 to 51 percent). Common professional development topics among public school principals included supporting effective instruction (92 percent), analyzing and interpreting student achievement data (86 percent), and safety or school climate (85 percent). Principals in city schools more often reported learning about school improvement planning (83 percent compared with 74 to 77 percent), school management and policy (72 percent compared with 62 to 64 percent), and human resource management (60 percent compared with 40 to 50 percent) than did principals in schools located in other types of communities. This report uses data from the 2017-18 National Teacher and Principal Survey Public School Principal Data File.