What it means to be a good principal today

Remarks of Hayes Mizell at The Middle School Principals Institute, "Focusing the Middle School: The Principal's Role." The Institute was held in Louisville, Kentucky on July 14-15, 1994 and sponsored by the Jefferson County Public Schools. Mizell is Director of the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation's Program for Student Achievement.

The New Principal

All across America, new schools are in the making. On the outside, these schools may not seem new at all; most people who pass by them notice no difference. These schools are not new because they are new buildings, but because they have a new purpose and operate differently than what we increasingly refer to as "regular" schools.

New schools go by many different names. Some are magnet or choice or charter schools that describe their new focus by including in their names words like "academic," "traditional," "ecology," "African-American," "fine arts," or "technology." Other new schools are the result of joint ventures between school systems and the private sector. In San Jose, the settlement of a school desegregation case called for all middle schools to pattern themselves after Henry Levin's Accelerated Schools.

Other urban school systems have launched new schools based on James Comer's School Development Program, or on Ted Sizer's Coalition of Essential Schools, or Mortimer Adler's Paideia Schools, or the Montessori or the Total Quality Management models. In Corpus Christi, the school system "disestablished" a failing school. All the school's faculty had to resign, and if they wanted to teach there next year they had to reapply to do so. The school reopened with a fine arts theme, a new principal, and a mostly new faculty.

There are many reasons for this national movement to create new schools, but the primary reason is that more and more people are concluding that existing schools, operating under existing rules, are not educating most young people very well. Perhaps creating new schools is the only means to shake some schools out of their unproductive routines and complacency.

The process of establishing new schools provides the opportunity to start over, establish a new vision and mission, and create new structures and operational norms. Over the next decade it will be interesting to observe whether this movement to create new schools gains momentum. One would hope that most schools are not so dysfunctional or unyielding to change that they will reform only if they become new schools similar to the ones I have described. Yet, there is little doubt that all schools need to pick up the pace of reform and intensify their focus on enabling students to perform at high levels. All schools need to become "new," whether or not they have a different name or special status.

Achieving schools require a new kind of principal

There is at least one thing that the new schools and regular schools have in common. In both cases the principal is central to shaping the direction and climate of the school. Newly created schools often begin with a new principal because school systems know that if parents and students are to believe the school is truly "new," the principal must be new also. It is not yet clear whether school systems can only reform regular schools by appointing new principals, but it is clear there will be no reform unless principals become new. The phrase, "new principal" refers not only to a different person in the building who holds the position of principal, it means a principal who behaves and leads differently.

The new principal does not exercise control through hierarchical authority, but forges consensus and mobilizes talents to enhance student performance.

Who is "the new principal?" The new principal may not even be called the "principal." He or she may be called the "building coordinator," "the school team leader," "the co-principal" or some other name that communicates the person does not exercise control through hierarchical authority, but forges consensus and mobilizes talents to enhance student performance.

According to education researcher Ulrich Reitzug, the principal should be "asking questions and suggesting a variety of alternatives that expand conceptions of how organizational tasks might be accomplished, rather than telling organizational members how these tasks must be accomplished...The principal's role shifts from prescribing substance to facilitating processes in which substance can be discovered."

This does not mean the principal does not lead, or is not responsible for carrying out certain tasks, but the new principal knows that he or she can control very little. The new principal succeeds only to the extent that he or she empowers teachers and students to succeed.

The new principal has a tight grip on reality

In what other ways is the new principal "new"? The new principal has a tight grip on the reality that faces students when they graduate from high school. Middle school principals worry about the futures of their students just as much as do high school principals. They know that among high school graduates in the 1970s who did not go on to college but looked for jobs, 16 percent were still unemployed in October after they graduated in May. The new principal knows that this proportion of graduates who could not find work immediately after high school increased to 21 percent in the 1980s and to 24 percent in 1993.

The new principal understands that the nation's economy is producing two million new jobs a year but that these jobs typically come with wages below $16,000 a year, and, according to the New York Times, "without health benefits, much opportunity for promotion or promises that the jobs will last." But what about students who pursue post-secondary education? In 1991 the earnings advantage of persons having attained only some college was 32 percent greater than those with only a high school diploma. The earnings of college graduates were more than double those of persons with only some college education.

Over this data, the new principal lays an understanding of the world students will enter as young adults. The economist Peter Drucker believes we are now in a period of transition, from the Age of Capitalism and the Nation-State to the Age of the Knowledge Society and a Society of Organization. In the new age that is now emerging, Drucker believes, "Most, if not all, educated persons will practice their knowledge as members of an organization. The educated person will therefore have to be prepared to live and work simultaneously in two cultures -- that of the 'intellectual', who focuses on words and ideas, and that of the 'manager' who focuses on people and work"

Drucker's analysis is not a vision of the distant future; it describes the world today's middle school students will enter. Just yesterday, the human resources director of the Bic Corporation was quoted in the Wall Street Journal, describing the qualities she seeks even in entry-level employees: "Smarts, speed, flexibility, the ability to handle risk and ambiguity, knowing how to find out what you don't know and how to teach others what you do know."

The new middle school principal understands
the frightening but realistic picture of what
the future will be like for many students.

Unlike many principals who shrug off telling labor statistics or sobering predictions, the new middle school principal knows that, tragically, these data and analyses paint a frightening but realistic picture of what the future will be like for many students. Those who the school does not encourage and prepare to pursue some education after high school may find themselves among the 47 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds who earn less than the poverty wage even though they work full time.

Those whom the school prepares to obtain at least some post-secondary education will be better off than students who do not continue their education after the twelfth grade. While even college graduates' real wages have fallen in recent years, it is still true that the more education young people have, the better off they are likely to be. This is particularly true for racial and language minorities and those from low-income families.

If middle school principals do not understand these trends and what they mean for the young people in their schools, they cannot become "new principals." If they say they believe and understand these trends but continue to lead schools that are boring, uninspiring, and passive, their schools are merely factories, producing the raw material for what Secretary of Labor Robert Reich describes as "a society divided between the haves and have-nots or the well-educated and the poorly educated."

For the new principal, high performance always come first

The new principal organizes and leads the middle school so all young people are able to perform at the highest levels possible. For the new principal, this is the greatest commandment. The administrative and operational dimensions of the principalship are very important, but they are secondary to the task of creating a school where the emphasis is on academic performance. The new principal does not apologize for this priority and does not merely rely on words or admonitions to focus faculty, students, and parents on increasing student achievement as the primary mission of the school. Action is the key.

The new principal knows that how the school looks and "feels" communicates a great deal about its mission. Everything about the school directs students toward high levels of performance, and achievement beyond high school. By the door of each teacher's classroom is a name plate that lists the teacher's name, grade, subject, the name of the college from which the teacher graduated, the city in which the college is located, and the degree the teacher earned at the college.

Teachers are often seen wearing sweatshirts from their colleges. Once a month in the hallway by the office, representatives from different post-secondary education institutions sit at tables, informally providing students with materials and information as they enter and leave school, and then going into classes to make presentations to students or counsel them. Monthly, students write at least one essay about some aspect of a post-secondary education institution. The walls of the school are covered with students' themes, science and history projects, and math homework.

Just by walking down the halls, students know that the school is serious about achievement, and that their work really counts. They also know it because four times a year the new principal invites five business people from the community to come to the school, randomly select a total of ten students across all grade levels and spend several hours examining the students' portfolios, discussing them with the students, and counseling them about their futures.

The new principal constantly interacts with the school

The new principal is not hiding in the office nor merely "visible" in classrooms and hallways, but is constantly interacting with adults and students around issues of performance. Students know that every day the principal will randomly stop at least one student entering school, ask to look over the student's homework, and give feedback and a few words of encouragement. Students also know that at the end of every day, the principal will randomly invite one or more students to sit down a few minutes and discuss the classes where they are doing their best work, those where they are performing least well, and why.

In similar ways, the new principal daily interacts with teachers to provide support and gain insight into classroom and instructional issues that affect student performance. The new principal either teaches one class a day, or substitutes for at least 25 class periods a year. On any given day, the principal may volunteer to be a teacher's aide for a full class period, invite a teacher for lunch and informal discussion in the principal's office, or help a teacher grade papers after school.

The new principal wants to know, on a daily basis,
how students are performing, why they are performing well or not so well, and how the school can help
students perform at higher levels.

Significant interactions with the principal are not rare events; they are part of the new principal's routine, intentional acts to communicate to students and faculty that on a daily basis the principal wants to know how students are performing, why they are performing well or not so well, and how the school can help students perform at higher levels.

The new principal knows that every school year there will be at least several teachers who are teaching at the school for the first time. Whether these are persons new to teaching or experienced teachers, they come to the school without an understanding of its history, culture, academic standards, or the school's means of achieving them. The principal organizes a committee of veteran teachers at the school to provide the new teachers with support and mentoring throughout the year.

The new principal frequently meets individually with new teachers, making a special effort to understand each teacher's strengths, limitations, and goals. In this way, the new principal accelerates the teachers' integration with the school's culture, and better understands how to use the teachers to advance the school's emphasis on student performance.

Risk-taking is an everyday part of the new principal's job

The new principal understands that, inherently, teaching and learning involves risk. Every day students risk exposing what they do not know, their embarrassment at not knowing it, and their difficulty in learning quickly. Unfortunately, because so many schools do not create a culture that encourages and supports academic achievement, students who are serious about achievement may risk the ridicule of their peers.

Teachers also take risks every day. There is an absurd expectation in our culture that managing a classroom is a science that people can learn in teacher training institutions when in fact it is an art that teachers master, if they ever do, through hands-on experience in the classroom. Every day when teachers enter the classroom they take risks. They risk demonstrating that they do not know how to handle every situation, that their mastery of content or methods of effective instruction are not strong, or they risk showing that they are simply human, people who sometimes get tired, or discouraged, or even angry.

The new principal must enter this arena of risk, rather than stand outside it or ignore it. Students and teachers should know that the principal is taking risks to learn and grow. For example, when the principal demonstrates leadership by identifying a difficult problem for which there is no obvious answer, and facilitates discussion and debate among teachers and students about possible solutions, this establishes the principal as a fellow risk-taker.

The new principal acknowledges, directly or indirectly, that he or she may not know all the answers, but is
quick to seek answers inside and outside the school.

How the new principal acts as a teacher and learner is crucial. The new principal asks probing and difficult questions. What is the evidence that all our students have access to high content and high quality instruction? How can we change our schedule to give low-performing students more time for learning with better teachers? How can we use high-performing students as a resource to assist low-performing students?

The principal acknowledges, directly or indirectly, that he or she may not know all the answers, but is quick to seek answers from others inside and outside the school community. The new principal learns from mistakes and is determined in conceiving and applying alternative solutions to problems. The principal's actions send the message that not knowing is understandable, but not trying to know is unacceptable.

The new principal makes the school safe for learning

It is also the new principal's job to reduce the risk environment in which students learn and faculty teach. The term "reduce the risk environment" means not only assuring freedom from physical harm, but safety in a broader context, teachers feeling safe to express their opinions, safe to take initiative in solving problems, and safe to try, and try again, more effective ways to enhance student performance. It means students feeling safe to question, safe to explore, and safe to achieve.

The new principal establishes a reduced risk environment by developing a collaborative relationship with teachers that fosters trust, and enables the principal and teachers to identify school-based barriers to learning and honestly address them. The principal aggressively assists teachers in getting the high quality staff development they need to effectively engage students in learning. Always interested in whether staff development results in more effective teaching, the new principal is a frequent classroom visitor and seeks other opportunities to talk with teachers about how they are using their training to increase student performance, and what follow-up support they may need to better implement the training.

The new principal also develops an environment that is safe for learning by mobilizing teachers and parents to reach consensus on standards for student performance. Learning is at risk when teachers are moving in one direction, when parents are uninformed about what their children should be learning, and when students are able to keep teachers and parents isolated from one another, or worse, play one off against the other. The school is not safe for learning if teachers, students, and parents do not understand or agree on what students should know and be able to do.

The new principal keeps the focus on standards

The new principal believes that standards are important benchmarks that can help students advance along a continuum of learning. Standards can focus the teaching and learning process so the force that drives the school is not the state test but clearly defined statements of what students should know and be able to do as a result of their education. Students need to understand what the school expects them to learn and how the school will assess whether students can apply what they have learned. Parents need to understand the results they can expect to see from their children's education. The new principal mobilizes the school community to use content and performance standards for these purposes.

The new principal knows that content standards will have little meaning if the school is not able to assess whether students meet the standards, or are making progress in doing so. While the state-mandated test provides only limited information that is helpful to teachers in understanding what the school's students know and can do, the new principal organizes a committee of teachers to pour over the state test results and, in effect, become the school's experts on how the school's students performed on the test. At the new principal's urging, the committee devotes particular attention to disaggregating the test results and examining the performance of minority students and those from low-income families.

However, while the new principal understands that a large-scale assessment of student performance, such as the state test, is necessary for accountability, he or she worries that the school seems to be almost a captive of the state test. The school has become so obsessive about the state test that teachers and students have lost their perspective of what education and learning is all about.

The new principal accepts the value of the state test, but believes the school must seize the initiative to creatively use assessment in ways that promote learning.

It is the new principal's view that the school has two choices. It can either allow the state test to shape the school's agenda and sap its energy, or the school can balance the state test with school-based assessment initiatives that not only more accurately identify and document what students know and can do, but provide information teachers find useful for instruction, students find useful for learning, and parents find useful for understanding and supporting their children.

The new principal accepts the legitimacy and value of the state test, but believes the school must seize the initiative to creatively use assessment in ways that promote learning. The new principal shares this view with teachers and engages them in considering questions related to school-based assessment. What could the school do to enable teachers, students, and parents to better understand what students know and can do? What steps could the school take to systematically determine not only whether students meet academic standards, but also their growth in student performance?

How could the school -- not the state and not the central office, but the school -- seek to gain an accurate understanding of what students know and can do when they enter the sixth grade, what growth in their performance occurs each year because of school-based interventions, and the degree to which students meet academic standards at the end of grade eight? In other words, what can the school do to take control of its own assessment destiny?

The new principal helps take control of the school's own "assessment destiny"

This is a daunting task for the school, but because the new principal and increasing numbers of the school's teachers are committed to enhancing student performance, they take on the challenge. They believe that if they truly understand what students know and can do, and if students and parents understand it, the entire school community will take student performance more seriously, and the state test will take care of itself.

As a first step, the new principal and teacher leaders mobilize teachers from all grade levels in the school to participate in the assessment of every student who enters the sixth grade. This process begins in March before the school is even sure who will enroll in the sixth grade the next September. Not all students who participate eventually enroll, but most do and teachers are able to plan for the forthcoming school year with a more realistic view of the students they will be teaching.
The assessment of each student combines discussion between the student and a three-teacher panel (one from each grade level), a short essay, a brief multiple-choice basic skills test, and an exhibition developed by the student. The purpose is to gain insight into each student's level of performance, understand strengths and weaknesses, and determine how the school can best enhance the student's growth during the sixth grade. Each year, a similar process occurs before students move on to the next grade except that at the end of the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade, it includes an assessment of the students' growth in performance during the preceding year.

Teachers also agree to make greater use of student portfolios, even in math and science, and the principal obtains from the school system and the community resources to enable all teachers to participate in intensive staff development on portfolios. With the new principal's support, a small group of teachers interested in using portfolios to assess student performance seek additional training and thereafter serve as a resource to other teachers in the school. These teachers not only provide mini-staff development experiences for the faculty but periodically review the portfolios of students from other teachers' classes and provide feedback.

Not only does the new principal make sure that all teachers keep honing their skills in using portfolios as an assessment tool, but he or she prods teachers to experiment with other alternative forms of assessment. As a result, teachers increasingly create opportunities for performance events in which students demonstrate and exhibit their knowledge and skills, and receive critical feedback from the teachers, other students, and even guests from the community.

The new principal integrates standards into school life

Because the school's deepening use of alternative forms of assessment is highly organized and consistent throughout the building, rather than hit-or-miss, the new principal is able to institute two school-community events each year. The first event, held at night during the first month of school, focuses on interpreting to students' families what students will be learning during the school year. Through skits, displays, presentations, and handouts, teachers educate families about the specific content standards the school will prepare students to meet.

The second community event, held over three nights during the last month of school, combines formal programs at the classroom and school-wide levels with scheduled conferences involving families, students, and teachers. This event provides an opportunity for families to see what students know and can do as a result of their education during the school year. Families examine students' portfolios and discuss them with teachers. Every student makes a brief oral presentation and otherwise demonstrates what he or she learned during the school year.

The halls are lined with exhibits from the science fair in which all students participated, and there are other displays and booklets based on projects students completed during the year. Teachers schedule individual conferences with families to discuss how their children performed in relation to the content standards.

These changes at the school have not come easy. The shift in the school's mission to enabling students to meet high academic standards has occurred only because of the new principal's strong leadership and collaboration with teachers, families, and students. The principal knows that the most important part of his or her job is to focus the school on student performance, increase the expectations and skills of the faculty, and empower teachers to make reforms which will enhance student performance.

For the new principal, all reforms are not equal

The new principal has standards. All reforms are not equal and the new principal asks tough questions to determine whether proposed reforms are likely to enable students to perform at high levels. The school begins no new program and launches no new reform without a process for assessing its effects, and without making someone accountable for conducting this assessment and reporting the results.

The new principal believes that real reform at the school is necessary if most students are going to meet the academic standards. Unlike many other principals, the new principal constantly engages teachers in conversations about reforms the school needs to make to enhance student performance. The new principal is open to practically any scheme that will produce more time for students to learn and more time for teachers to improve their skills, plan, reflect, and assess students' performance as well as their own.

The new principal is open to practically any scheme that will produce more time for students to learn and more time for teachers to improve their skills, plan, reflect, and assess students' performance as well as their own.

The new principal knows there are no shortcuts to learning; not entertainment to instill motivation, not lower standards to create opportunities for what some people call "success." Instruction, practice, feedback, correction, practice. Instruction, practice, feedback, correction, practice. This is the drumbeat of most formal learning experiences, and while it does not have to be joyless, it is often hard work.

The new principal believes if low-performing students, or any students, are going to meet high academic standards, it will require more time and effort. Half the battle of enhancing student performance is to intensify students' and teachers' focus on learning. For students to write better, they must write much more frequently and think more critically and deeply about how and what they write. The students' teachers, all teachers, not just English or language arts teachers, have to take the time and make the effort to read what students write, make corrections, and help students understand their errors and how to avoid repeating them.

This is why the new principal is so determined that teaching and learning must be the school's focus, and why the principal acts to protect and expand time for hard-core learning. There are no assumptions about the school organization the principal holds dear, except those that directly advance student learning. No aspect of the school's structure or operations or schedule is so precious that it cannot be changed -- yes, even radically reformed -- if it will focus teaching and learning, and provide more time for both.

The new principal is both caring and tough

Because the new principal is serious, really serious, about student performance, he or she is not always popular with teachers, parents, students, or the central office staff. On the other hand, they respect the new principal and cannot argue with the fact that increasing numbers of students are meeting the academic standards. They know the principal cares more about the school preparing students to meet high academic standards than about maintaining comfortable routines.

Teachers sometimes wish the new principal's personnel reviews were not so thorough and candid, but they know the principal is in their classes enough to have a good understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. At the same time, they see ineffective teachers move on because the new principal carefully documents their deficiencies and insists that they improve. If they do not, the principal does not hesitate to initiate steps leading to the dismissal of these teachers. The school's quality teachers also know the new principal works hard to recruit outstanding new teachers and frequently fights with the central office when it sends the school teachers that do not meet the principal's high standards.

This is what it means to become a "new principal." The call is demanding and the challenges are great. It is understandable that not all principals want to make the effort to become new, and the fact that so few do so is reflected in the performance of many children in our nation's schools. This is one reason school systems are now creating new schools, because many believe it is the only way to get the quality of leadership that students must have to perform at higher levels.

I still believe that principals of regular schools can become new, but it will take a lot of effort. Two thousand years ago, the apostle Paul wrote to the churches of Galatia, "So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest-time, if we do not give up." The harvest that awaits you is not in the afterlife, but in this life.

The harvest is students who can perform at the levels of which they are capable, who seek and obtain as much education as they can, and who, in a new and different age can earn enough to keep themselves and their families out of poverty. Only new principals will reap this harvest, but only if you do not grow weary, only if you do not give up.

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