Helping Principals Lead

December 2009

Parents know that a strong principal is the lynch pin to a successful school, and after years of burdensome, bureaucratic regulations, City principals now have unprecedented autonomy in running their schools. They have the freedom to hand-pick teachers, introduce new technologies and curricula, manage the budget, and hire support organizations.

As the cost of hardware plummets, Teaching Matters is helping City school leadership integrate new technologies into curricula.

In exchange for this freedom, school leaders are held responsible for improving test scores, particularly in reading and math. It’s a lot to handle for even the most seasoned school administrator, but principals are younger and less experienced than ever before—with 80 percent on the job less than eight years—and many are overwhelmed. There is help out there, but principals must ask for it. Kim Nauer, education project director at the New School’s Center for NYC Affairs explains, “The school is given a budget to buy services from one of eleven school support organizations, and is required to hire at least one, but it is up to the school to make use of those services, or not.”

Are Principals Getting the Help they Need?

In order to gauge whether schools are getting the help they need, a  $38,000 grant to The New School’s Center for NYC Affairs will fund an evaluation of the Department of Education’s (DoE) support system for principals in poorly performing schools. While experienced principals take advantage of the support, others are floundering. “We have found that oftentimes, it’s the principals who most need the help who are least likely to ask for it,” Nauer continued. “They think, ‘I should be able to do this, why can’t I handle this?’ The current system relies solely on the principal asking for help, but it’s not easy to get principals to say ‘this is what is working and what isn’t.’ When schools are in big trouble, some outside groups don’t want to help because it might look bad on their record, and so it really is incumbent on DoE to step in.” The Center’s report, which will be released in the spring, will include recommendations to DoE and excerpts from interviews with teachers, parents, DoE staff, and principals.

Helping Schools Harness Learning Technologies

Even principals who are on top of their jobs need help navigating the rapidly changing world of learning technologies. “Nothing convinces a principal that they can do something new more than seeing another principal do it,” says Lynette Guastaferro, executive director of Teaching Matters. Bringing principals into other schools to see technology at work is a central part of a $50,000 grant to Teaching Matters, which will work with leaders in 40 middle schools to create school-wide plans to integrate Internet research, open publishing, and other tools that improve students’ grasp of English, science, and social studies. A class in social studies might introduce students to a story about Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and then guide them in drafting and sharing their own writing about today’s human rights struggles in a citywide e-zine. Publishing for a general audience, rather than just their teachers, gets students more excited about writing. Guastaferro continues, “At night kids are voluntarily blogging about school projects and commenting on each others work.” In addition, tools for English language learners abound on the Internet, giving teachers more options in matching students with the right programs.

The cost of hardware has plummeted—“100 dollars per student per year will provide a laptop for every student in a school,” says Guastaferro—but getting principals to let students make full use of these computers is still a challenge. “One school was not comfortable with 7th-graders going online at school. I am taking their leadership to a South Bronx school where 3rd-graders are doing online research. If they can do it, 7th-graders can… But you don’t just send them on the Internet; you create a limited, structured learning environment that gives students some freedom but keeps them on task. Going online and finding connections to today’s world makes class work much more relevant for kids, who are always asking, ‘why do I have to learn this?’”

Building Relationships, Cutting Conflict

Poorly performing schools tend to have high leadership and teacher turnover, fostering poor classroom management and inconsistent disciplinary policies—which alienate students and exacerbate bad behavior. Bringing order and better attitudes to schools is the key to making them safer, friendlier, and more engaging places in which to learn. “Building a cohesive community within school walls, and strengthening relationships between and among students, teachers, and principals can transform schools into places where students are motivated to do their best and feel supported to succeed,” says Kavitha Mediratta, program officer for education at The Trust. “The first step to creating a more positive learning environment is to replace top-down punishment with student-led resolution when conflict occurs.”

With a $50,000 grant, the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative will lead a pilot program to develop strategies for relationship-building, conflict resolution, and mentoring in City schools. Above, students discuss classroom conflict and possible solutions.

With a $50,000 grant, the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative will lead a pilot program with principals, teachers, and other staff of over a dozen City high schools to develop strategies for relationship-building, conflict intervention, and mentoring. “If there are two students who are talking to each other a lot in class and disrupting the other students, the teacher may lack the tools and support to resolve the problem. Using the Initiative’s training, the teacher could assemble with the students in a circle and ask them to talk about how they might resolve the issue,” says the Initiative’s Liz Sullivan, “They might suggest sitting farther apart and making a list of ideas for how to stay more focused in class—simple solutions—but the fact that they proposed it themselves makes all the difference. When they participate in solving their problems, they are more likely to take part in the solution.” Sullivan went on to emphasize that these methods of community building work best when they are implemented consistently and school-wide. She continued, “The only way to get the whole school on board is to get the principals on board.”

“A big part of improving education for City students is to help principals with their spectrum of responsibilities, especially in schools that have a high percentage of English-language learners, students with learning disabilities, and high drop-out rates,” continues Mediratta, “It’s a tall order, but The Trust is committed to helping principals fill it, or at least figure out what responsibilities they need to delegate, and to whom.”