Just as it is important for kids and teachers to stretch, it's also important for me. I feel responsible for making sure that the things I do and the decisions I make have a solid base. And to do that, I have to keep learning.—An elementary school principal in Virginia
Recent efforts in school reform have focused more attention on the professional development of teachers than on the learning needs of school leaders, especially principals, who direct the process of change. Before principals can take on the dynamic challenges of school reform, however, they must become active learners (Erlandson, 1994), willing to change their own thinking and practice as they lead others in implementing reforms.
How can a principal change and grow on the job while simultaneously leading the processes of change in a school? Airline flight attendants always tell passengers to put on their own oxygen masks before assisting others. If principals want to assist others in growing through change, how do they first gain access to their own oxygen supply?
How Do Principals Learn?
Principals need both preservice preparation and ongoing development throughout their careers. Formal preservice programs do exist, but not all school districts have structured induction programs or ongoing plans to support the learning needs of school leaders. Most principals do not fully understand the job until they are in the midst of it; as one principal remarked, "You don't learn to be a principal until you are one" (Erlandson, 1994, p. 14). Content knowledge is insufficient for dealing with increasingly complex social changes and school reforms, so principals must develop professional habits of learning (Hart & Bredeson, 1996) to link knowledge and actions.
Since the early 1980s, increasing numbers of school administrators have participated in both voluntary and mandated professional development. Universities, professional and state organizations, and individual principals have sponsored regional principals' centers, but the centers have received little local support and often have relied on the initiative of the principals (Hallinger & Murphy, 1991; Murphy, 1992). Meaningful strategies for providing ongoing support throughout principals' professional lives are still lacking.
Principals Need . . .
- Information that challenges their thinking. Principals have a limited amount of time for their own learning, so they often focus only on what they need to know to keep up with practices in their school or district. They may be inclined to read only what they agree with, but they need access to information and ideas that challenge their beliefs. Local universities can offer principals syntheses of research on topics that are important to principals, and a clearinghouse center or hotline staffed by graduate students can compile reviews of the literature on key topics affecting schools. The Web site of the Commonwealth Educational Policy Institute at Virginia Commonwealth University (<LINK URL="http://www.edpolicyvcu.org">www.edpolicyvcu.org</LINK>), for example, provides policy briefs on a variety of education topics, and the School Leadership Center of Greater New Orleans (<LINK URL="http://www.slc-gno.org">www.slc-gno.org</LINK>) provides individualized literature reviews and research briefs for principals in that region.
- Feedback. The isolation that many principals feel often hinders their ability to learn. Feedback from colleagues within the district is often not objective: The staff may fear retribution, the central office may not understand the principal's perspective, and other principals in the district may be competitive. Principals need objective, safe feedback and the security of knowing that there's someone else to call before they need to call the superintendent. Principals can receive valuable feedback from peer-coaching relationships developed through a regional network of principals or from university faculty in a school-university partnership. The Maine School Leaders Network (<LINK URL="http://www.mdf.org/msln">www.mdf.org/msln</LINK>), for example, creates colleague-critic teams of three or four school leaders. These teams provide ongoing mentoring and support as each member develops an individual leadership development plan and practices new skills.
- Interaction with colleagues outside of the local school district. Aside from needing feedback, principals also crave a chance to discuss their concerns with colleagues. As one principal remarked: You wrestle with other practicing professionals. It's the impromptu discussions with other people that really put a situation in perspective.Principals in small, particularly rural, districts may feel removed from opportunities for such conversations. In some school districts, a principal may be the sole administrator for a specific grade level and have few opportunities to network and share ideas.Regional networks or principals' centers offer opportunities for building relationships among colleagues in an environment removed from the immediate demands of the district. The Principals' Center at Harvard University (<LINK URL="http://www.gse.harvard.edu/principals">www.gse.harvard.edu/principals</LINK>), for example, provides study groups for principals from diverse districts to meet regularly to discuss topics of mutual interest.
- Time for reflection. Principals need opportunities to examine assumptions, assess responses to challenges, and work through problems. Finding time for reflection is often difficult in the hectic pace of a typical principal's day, yet principals need this time to learn from their day-to-day experiences. Describing her need for a reflection coach, one principal said, "I want eyes and ears that can help me ask the important questions."District support for principals to attend regional, state, and national conferences allows time for reflection away from the school day. Regional networks or principals' centers can offer peer group programs in which principals have time to reflect through discussion and writing. Such programs as these need to offer ongoing connections, not one-shot sessions.
- Access to resources. Principals may have limited budgets or may give their own need for professional development a low priority among other staff development needs. One principal said, "I don't often go to a national conference because I can't afford the time and money." Nonetheless, principals need to stay current with developments in curriculum and instruction, have access to research on best practices, and seek out experts who can introduce new concepts or translate theory into practice. Local districts should pay attention to the individual needs of their principals and provide them with financial and material resources, moral support, and release time. Some school districts near the Principals' Center at Georgia State University (<LINK URL="http://www.principalscenter.org">www.principalscenter.org</LINK>), for example, purchase center memberships that provide their district principals access to a wide array of programs and services.
- Hands-on learning experiences. Principals are often responsible for implementing new writing or math programs and need to learn firsthand about the purposes, methods, and assessment strategies of these programs and the staff training that they require before introducing them. Principals want to develop their roles as practical instructional leaders. One principal commented, "I keep looking for the practical, hands-on things that I can do with teachers that will make a difference the next day in the classroom."Professional development should focus on hands-on applications. To learn how to analyze school test scores, for example, principals can use their own school's data rather than a packaged set of data provided in a workshop. The local district can look for these practical implementations when planning new initiatives, and school-university partnerships can also help address the needs of local districts and individual schools. Several school districts in the East St. Louis, Illinois, area, for example, are establishing a homegrown school reform process that provides ongoing, intensive professional development for school leaders to learn how to use data from their own schools for local school improvement.
- Opportunities to teach others. Making presentations at workshops and conferences or teaching at area colleges and universities can help principals find renewal in the process of teaching others. One principal commented, "It created a spiritual reawakening of the teacher within me, and I think that has to help me be a good principal." In the process of helping others, principals also develop their own professional expertise. Another principal observed:Teaching makes me keep my ideas organized, stay current, think about how theory transfers into practice, and communicate that to other people. Even though on the surface those things benefit others, they really improve my professional development, too.Teaching outside of the immediate school context also puts principals in contact with other educators and issues.By collaborating, college and university faculty and principals also develop new ways to connect theory and practice. Many universities ask principals and other practitioners to serve as adjunct faculty and guest lecturers for principal preparation courses, and leadership or principals' centers often involve principals in the design and delivery of center activities. In one partnership, a university professor exchanged jobs with an elementary school principal for a year, allowing each to experience the other's work and contribute to their own and others' professional development (Whitaker, 1998).
- An integrated approach to professional development. Any one of these components is insufficient by itself to support ongoing learning for principals. One principal explained:It is those experiences in combination that work. . . . It's the connections that you make between and among those things that make them meaningful for your work in your school.
A piecemeal approach to professional development will not work as well as thoughtful, individualized planning and the deliberate integration of activities and experiences.
The Leadership State of Mind
Principals, school districts, universities, and professional organizations can work together to develop ongoing, meaningful, structured learning opportunities for principals. School districts need to recognize the demanding nature of the job and to limit external demands on principals that disrupt their work.
Professional development for school principals should focus on developing qualities of active learning, reflection, and leadership. Emphasizing only the technical nature of the job—for example, skills that are easily packaged into a training session—is not sufficient. As one principal commented:I've become more aware that being an effective principal is as much a state of mind as it is a set of skills. . . . It's not enough to have just good, efficient, effective decision making, but thoughtful, reflective, vision-driven decision making is important in the principalship, too.
