Understanding the Experiences of First-Year Principals in Urban School Districts

• In Event: Educator Effectiveness: Measurement, Leadership, and Policy Processes

Abstract

This paper examines the working conditions, practices, and outcomes for principals who are in their first year of the principalship in several urban districts across the U.S. The study provides a unique look at the actions and perceived working conditions of first-year principals, relating information on those factors to subsequent school achievement and principal retention.

Research reveals that districts around the country have a difficult time finding and retaining effective principals to lead high-poverty, low achievement schools. Students in such schools are more likely to have an inexperienced principal, and inexperienced principals have been shown to be less effective at improving student achievement (Loeb, Kalogrides, & Horng, 2010; Branch, Hanushek, Rivkin, 2009; Clark, Martorell, & Rockoff, 2009). In addition, principal turnover is highest among these low-poverty, low-achievement schools (Loeb, Kalogrides & Horng, 2010). However, little is known about the experiences of new principals and the factors influencing the outcomes they achieve.

This paper draws on surveys of 65 principals, case studies at 20 schools, and district data on student achievement and principal mobility from 519 schools in six urban districts to investigate the experiences of first-year principals. Scales from the survey items were constructed based on substantive considerations and exploratory factor analyses, and bivariate and multivariate relationships among these scales, principal retention, school achievement, and school contextual factors were examined. Value-added modeling was used to generate a school-level measure of achievement growth before and after the principal’s first year in the school. Case study data, which include interviews with principals and other school staff, are used to supplement the quantitative analyses.

The findings are consistent with other research that indicates a non-trivial rate of turnover among first- and second-year principals. Principals in our sample were more likely to leave if they were placed in schools that had been performing poorly before the principal arrived than if they were placed in higher-performing schools or in start-up schools. In schools that lost their principals after one year, all but one had shown declining performance in mathematics, reading, or both before the principal left. In schools where the first-year principal performed poorly and was replaced, a few turned around in the subsequent year, but the majority did not, and the schools that replaced a relatively well performing principal had declines in the next year.

Principals’ reports of how they spent their time, which included information about activities related to instructional leadership and management, did not differ as a function of school characteristics, including prior achievement at the school. Moreover, subsequent achievement in first-year principals’ schools was not related to principals’ reports of how they spent their time or their evaluation of their own skills, but it was positively related to principals’ evaluations of their teachers’ capacity and the cohesiveness of school staff. The paper addresses a gap in the literature about the experiences of first-year principals and the relationships between these experiences and the principal’s effectiveness as measured by value-added models of student achievement test scores.

Authors

• Susan Burkhauser, Pardee RAND Graduate School

• Susan Gates, RAND Corporation

• Laura S. Hamilton, RAND Corporation