The Professional Learning Needs of School Principals

The purpose of this qualitative research was to identify the preparation needs of principals through the lens of school superintendents in the southeastern United States. This research was based on a collaborative university, multi-school district partnership. Superintendents were interviewed to determine their perceptions regarding the professional learning needs of principals. Three themes emerged from the analysis:(a) principal perception of community matters, (b) formal support is necessary, but challenging to schedule and scope, and (c) instructional and operational leadership are differentiated. These findings present several implications for university and district-based leadership preparation programs, both individually and collaboratively.

Teacher Tenure in Tennessee: An Examination of Principal Perceptions Post–Race to the Top

This quantitative study examined perceptions of K-12 public school principals toward the Tennessee teacher tenure law under Senate Bill 1528 and how principals perceived that the law has affected their ability to evaluate and retain effective teachers. The Tennessee Teacher Tenure Principal Perception Survey was adopted and slightly modified from Davidson’s (1998) study of principal perceptions of teacher tenure in Tennessee. Quantitative results found that principals characterized the teacher tenure law as having a positive impact on their ability to evaluate and retain effective teachers. Results from this study highlight that future research and reform should focus on the use of stakeholder and principal perception data in policy initiatives and education agendas at the school building, community, and state levels.

Examining US principal perception of multiple leadership styles used to practice shared instructional leadership

Purpose – Decades of research on different leadership styles shows that effective school leadership is the degree of influence or synergy between teachers and principals around the core business of schools, instruction. While various styles, such as transformational, instructional, shared instructional, point to the similar measures of high organizational quality, the inconsistency in how these styles are defined and relate make it unclear how principals systematically improve schools. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – This study used the 1999-2000 schools and staffing survey, n=8,524 of US principals, since it includes a nationally representative sample of administrators who responded to a comprehensive set of leadership measures around a time of school restructuring reforms. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to identify different styles, and to measure the extent of their relationship. These factors were used to test a theory about why principals practice each of these styles to a different degree based on levels of shared instructional leadership. Findings – Based on the theoretical framework, principals should have a similar high influence over resources, safety and facilities regardless of degree of shared instructional leadership since these tasks address foundational school needs. However, principal and teacher influence over these resources differed across levels of shared instructional leadership more than principal-directed tasks of facilitating a mission, supervising instruction and building community. Originality/value – Differences in the practice of styles by shared instructional leadership did not fit changing, higher ordered needs as theorized instead seemed to vary by a hierarchy of control, the way in which principals shared influence with teachers.