What Principals and District Leaders are Learning About Instructional Leadership

1
What 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

2
Context

• 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

3
Research 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?

4
The 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

5
The Literature

• Instructional leadership
• District professional development for principals
• Dynamics of change within educational
  organizations

6
Defining 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)

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Why 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

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The 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)

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How 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)

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Why 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)

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What 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)

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The 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.

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The 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)

14
Methodology

• 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

15
Data Collection/Analysis

• Interviews
• Observations
• Document and artifact study
• Within/cross-case analyses (Merriam, 1998)
• Member checks (Mills, 2005)

16
Findings

• The importance of assessment
• The positive impact of content-loading and
  teacher observations
• The importance of central office leadership
• The power of context

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The 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

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The 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

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The 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

20
The 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

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A 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

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Implications

• 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

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Limitations of this study

• Short data collection timeline
• Mixed levels of contact with principals
• I worked in this district- bias
• Small sample size

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Questions 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?

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A 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)