Title: What Principals and District Leaders are Learning About Instructional Leadership
1What Principals and District Leaders are Learning
About Instructional Leadership
- Anthony A. Byrd, Ed.D.
- Assistant Superintendent
- Teaching and Learning Division
- Edmonds School District
- Presentation at WERA
- December 4, 2008
2Context
- Washington district
- 20,000 students
- 24 elementary schools
- 71.1 white, 13.9 Asian 7.7 Latino 5.8
African-American 1.5 American-Indian - 27 free and reduced lunch
- Leaders with a wide range of experience
3Research Questions
- What are principals and district leaders learning
about instructional leadership in the context of
a district reform effort? - What district practices support or inhibit
principals learning about instructional
leadership? - How can this study inform district administrators
regarding principals professional learning?
4The Problem of Practice
- Districts will not close achievement gaps until
classroom instruction improves - Schools must have exceptional instructional
leaders who understand change - District leaders must understand how to support
principals within these contexts
5The Literature
- Instructional leadership
- District professional development for principals
- Dynamics of change within educational
organizations
6Defining Instructional Leadership
- Creation of vision (Leithwood and Riehl, 2003)
- Understand powerful instruction (Stein and
Nelson, 2003) - Support professional development to meet the
instructional goals - Provide opportunities for reflection (Schon, in
Blasé and Blasé, 1999) - Provide quality feedback to teachers (Blasé and
Blasé, 1999)
7Why district leadership matters
- We join a growing number of researchers and
analysts who conclude that, for better or worse,
districts matter fundamentally to what goes on in
schools and classrooms and that without effective
district engagement, school-by-school reform
efforts are bound to disappoint. - - McLaughlin and Talbert, 2003, p. 5
8The Role of District Leaders
- Clear focus on instruction (Resnick and Glennan,
2002) - Understand the instruction they want to see
(Resnick and Glennan, 2002) - Strong learning community at district level
(McLaughlin and Talbert, 2003) - Understand what schools need (Burch and Spillane,
2003)
9How districts can be supportive
- Routine and centralized learning opportunities
for principals (Elmore and Burney, 1997) - Provide opportunities for collaboration (CFGs,
intervisitations, walkthroughs) (Wagner, Kegan,
et al., 2006) - On-site principal coaching (Fink and Resnick,
2001)
10Why this is all so hard
- If familiarity breeds contempt, unfamiliarity
breeds rejection. No one warmly seeks, let alone
embraces, significant intellectual and personal
change. - Sarason, 1996, p. xii - Change often affects a persons sense of worth of
competence, because change may imply something is
wrong with the current state (Bolman and Deal,
2003 Evans, 1996)
11What makes change possible
- The political will (Tyack and Cuban, 1995)
- Creating a sense of urgency (Kotter, 2002)
- Significant interruption of the current state of
affairs (Sarason, 1990, 1996) - Trust and relationships (Bryk and Schneider,
2002 Barth, 2001) - Vision (Kotter, 2002)
- A clear theory of improvement (Elmore, 2004)
- Involvement of those affected (Sarason, 1996)
- Learning in context (Elmore, 2004)
12The research context
- District concerned about student performance in
literacy - Build teacher capacity to teach effective
literacy practices - Build principal capacity to lead the work
- Focus on the workshop structure
- If teacher leaders and principals understand
specific content, and principals learn how to
integrate that content at the site level,
effective practices will root themselves in
classrooms and student learning will improve.
13The Collaborative Literacy Project
- Principals and teachers learning side-by-side in
content sessions led by PEBC - Cross-classroom/cross-building observations
- Instructional coaches
- Principal leadership sessions (some)
14Methodology
- Action research
- Qualitative case study approach
- Searching for a thick description (Merriam,
1998) - Nine district staff and one consultant
- Purposeful sampling/maximum variation (Merriam,
1998) - Four schools
15Data Collection/Analysis
- Interviews
- Observations
- Document and artifact study
- Within/cross-case analyses (Merriam, 1998)
- Member checks (Mills, 2005)
16Findings
- The importance of assessment
- The positive impact of content-loading and
teacher observations - The importance of central office leadership
- The power of context
17The Importance of Assessment
- Disconnect between vision and action plan
- Lack of clarity about instructional needs of
principals - Varying definitions of instructional leadership
- Limited knowledge about principals effectiveness
at instructional leadership
18The positive impact of content-loading and
teacher observations
- The content loading sessions have really helped.
I have more craft knowledge now to provide the
professional development we need. - principal - It is always nice to go out and do the site
observations, as it provides a visual of what the
instruction should look like. - principal
19The Importance of Central Office Leadership
- Vision- It would be great if we had one set way
we were headed as a system. That way all of this
work would tie together. - principal - Central office leadership- I would love to have
my assistant superintendent sit down with me
every couple of weeks and say, okay, lets start
planning some professional development. -
principal - Support structures for principals- Principals
need more time to talk about how to lead the work
in their buildings. They need more time to hear
from other principals. - principal
20The Power of Context
- The principals are all over the place, just like
in the classroom. We have a handful of
principals who are really working to try to do
the work and some, for whatever reason, are not.
- district leader - Every school is so different. Every principal
is so different in what they know and what they
feel comfortable with and what they admit they
want to know. - literacy coach
21A reflection
- Fundamental changes in patterns of incentives
occur not by engaging in ambitious, discontinuous
reforms, but rather by pushing hard in a few
strategic places in the system of relations
surrounding the problem and carefully observing
the results. Elmore, 2004, p. 29
22Implications
- Understand what is needed in the first place
(Bolman and Deal, 2003) - Central office leaders might spend more time in
buildings with principals- learning context - Create a definition instructional leadership
- Create a instructional leadership self-assessment
tool - Have a strong district vision around instruction
23Limitations of this study
- Short data collection timeline
- Mixed levels of contact with principals
- I worked in this district- bias
- Small sample size
24Questions for further study
- What would a prolonged study of the research
questions I put forth for this project indicate
about the work of instructional leadership? - Would a larger, survey-based study of all
principals give a broader picture? - What would an outside expert see?
- What would a deeper look at just one aspect of
this study reveal?
25A final thought
- Generally, districts spend more time with the
bureaucratic management of the system that with
the instructional core. (Elmore, 2002) - Direct involvement in instruction is among the
least frequent activities performed by
administrators of any kind at any level, and
those who do engage in instructional leadership
activities on a consistent basis are a relatively
small proportion of the total administrative
force. (Elmore, 2004, p. 17)