Quantifying the Impact of a Great Principal, by Anna J. Egalite

School leaders serve many important roles in our communities, with their reach often extending beyond the school walls and traveling across distance and time. For those toiling in the trenches, however, the workload can feel heavy and it's hard to know if you are making a difference or simply imitating Sisyphus. 

In a recent study published by the Wallace Foundation, we sought to quantify exactly how much a principal influences student achievement (as measured by standardized test scores). We combed through twenty years of academic research to identify the highest-quality studies that have been conducted in this area. What these six analyses share is a reliance on longitudinal, student-level data and a rigorous, quasi-experimental research design that permits the analysts to make causal claims about the impact of having an effective principal. Synthesizing these studies allows us to leverage data on over 22,000 principals residing in four U.S. states. What we learned will no doubt confirm what many have already long suspected but been unable to quantify with hard numbers: Access to an effective principal has a detectable effect on student learning in that school. In fact, replacing a below-average principal with an above-average leader, leads to an increase in student learning that's equivalent to about three additional months of learning in math and reading. 

In the comments section, it would be great to hear from current or former school principals about how you knew you were making a difference in your student's lives. Perhaps you received a thank-you note or a message from a former student or parent years later that let you know your efforts mattered. For you, how did you know the struggle was worth it? 

Check out the full study for yourself at http://WallaceFoundation.org/principalsynthesis.

Search Post

Label :

Navigating conflict (rd. 1)

With the pandemic continuing into a third school year, principals are in the unenviable position of facing both parental anger and staff fatigue. The issue of masks seems to be an especially divisive one—at this point a symbol of more than just public health—as principals are, in some cases, physically attacked or threatened with citizens' arrest by angry parents with zip ties. My colleague Lance Fusarelli noted, “I am sure that there were some principals that probably got some flak from parents about the common core and stuff like that. But they weren’t showing up with zip ties.” 

Lately, I've been thinking about how school leaders can navigate these highly polarized and divisive times, irrespective of their own personal feelings or opinions on an issue (e.g., masks, critical race theory, etc.). That is, what can school leaders do when they meet that angry parent, or burned-out teacher, or belligerent teenager?

An important first step is to check your mindset by asking yourself how you view the other person. In the book Leadership and Self Deception, the authors ask: do we see others as people: someone with cares, dreams, hopes, and views as legitimate as our own? Or, do we see people as objects: something that gets in our way, or takes our time, or ruins our routine, or makes us angry, etc.. They teach:

"One way, I experience myself as a person among people. The other way, I experience myself as the person among objects" (p.37)

Though all of us are susceptible to converting individuals into objects, I think principals are especially at risk for falling into this trap. For one, principals are overworked and at risk of experiencing burnout, especially during the pandemic. It seems like the more we learn about what it takes to equitably and effectively educate all students, the more we ask principals to do. The latest national standards, for instance, include 10 domains with over 80 elements. That's quite the job description! And with all that we expect principals to do, it's no wonder that they may be prone to start seeing individuals as objects. 

Additionally, principals are in a position of authority, power, and prestige — the top of the food chain within a school building. That comes with its own temptation to become proud and start viewing others as objects. As Anglican theologian John Stott succinctly argued: "The chief occupational hazard of leadership is pride." I would add that an important antidote to pride is remembering to view people as individuals and not objects.

Finally, principals work in an environment of high stakes accountability, which has created massive changes to principals work. As my colleagues Jason Grissom, Anna Egalite, and Constance Lindsay recently wrote in their stellar review How Principals Affect Students and Schools: 

"Accountability changes have also dramatically altered school leaders’ roles by increasing leadership time that must be devoted to the management of testing, focusing leaders’ attention on managing school personnel toward specific metrics, imposing accountability sanctions for previously overlooked subgroups, and encouraging stakeholders to focus on school performance judged by external benchmarks without necessarily increasing school resources and capabilities." 

These changes put pressure on principals to perform and create an environment where principals may be tempted to view students, teachers, and staff as cogs in a wheel—mere widgets in the performance machine. 

Ultimately, when individuals are converted into objects, our ability to navigate conflict becomes compromised. 

Alas! This post is already a little long. In a future post, I will continue to build upon this idea and outline additional ways that school leaders can navigate conflict.

Search Post

Label :

What is this blog about?

A few months ago I was listening to a podcast with Ted Gioia, an American Jazz critic and music historian who has been described as a "radiantly accomplished writer," "wonderfully erudite," and "provocative" -- well earned clichés, the The New Yorker wrote. At the end of the episode, he said:

 

"In your life, you will be evaluated on your output....But your input is just as important. If you don't have good input, you cannot maintain good output....I know for a fact I could not do what I do if I was not zealous in managing high-quality inputs into my mind every day of my life." --Ted Gioia

Since that time, I have worked on being more zealous in managing the quality of what I read, listen to, and watch. 

So what does this have to do with the blog? 

Well, I've noticed that as I improve the quality of inputs I consume each day—especially with respect to inputs related to my field of education leadership, policy, and research—I need a new way of sharing what I'm learning. And as I outlined in my first post, this blog offers a unique way to do just that. 

As I think about the inputs I've been drawing upon and organize them into categories, I've come up with three major topics that my posts will fall into:

1. Policy-relevant education news.
2. Compelling (and timely) research.
3. Leadership lessons, principles, and stories.

As the subtitle for this blog suggests, my target audience for each of these posts will be school leaders—both aspiring and current—though I hope anyone interested in education or leadership will find them interesting and informative. And while this blog will largely consist of short, written posts, I hope to explore additional media, including podcasts and videos. 

Alright—enough introduction. In the next post I'll dive into some content. 

Search Post

Label :

Why I'm starting a blog

The size of the digital universe is mind-boggling--currently estimated at about 40 zettabytes, or 40 trillion gigabytes. And within this digital universe there are about 600 million blogs. To give you a sense of scale: if you were to look at one blog every second, it would take you about 19 years to view them all.

 

So why am I starting my own? Why add to an already cluttered digital blogosphere? Well, I came up with a few reasons:

 

First, I often find myself saying, "Oh - this is really interesting. I should share this with my students (...or colleagues; ...or friends)." But up until now I haven't had a good way of doing this, outside of sending an email or text. It seems to me that a blog is a far more productive way to stay connected and share what I'm learning.

Second, I have the privilege of working with and learning from some incredible people--faculty, students, alumni, and educational leaders--and want to use this blog as a way to feature their voices and work. 

Finally, Seth Godin argued, "Everyone should write a blog...even if no one reads it. There’s countless reasons why it’s a good idea and I can’t think of one reason it’s a bad idea." While I haven't blogged in the past, I'm convinced that the discipline of writing a blog will make me a better person. It's far too easy to waste countless hours stuck in digital mires--for me, endless repeating patterns of checking the news, then twitter, then ESPN, back to the news, then Twitter, and on, and on, and on--endless searching with no productive purpose. Writing this blog will provide me a productive outlet to channel my reading, thinking, and writing. 

So what will this blog be about?

Stay tuned for the next post...

Search Post

Label :