How Principals' Instructional Feedback Practices Changed During Race to the Top

• In Event: 34.065 - Leaders and Change in Policy and Practice

Abstract

We investigated how K-12 public school principals in a Northeastern U.S. state described their processes for providing instructional feedback and coaching to teachers during Race to the Top (RTTT). We used a semi-structured interview format to address the following research question: 1) How did public school principals change their instructional supervision and feedback practices in the context of high-stakes teacher evaluations? Our findings indicate that the 12 principals in our sample relied heavily on data-driven observations to provide more honest and frank instructional feedback to teachers. Compared to their past instructional supervision practices, principals described how the evaluation system provided research based criteria that enabled them to have specific dialogue about teachers’ instruction and performance.

Authors

• Douglas M. Wieczorek, Iowa State University

• Brandon Clark, Iowa State University

• George Theoharis, Syracuse University