A recent study on the implementation of revised teacher evaluation systems reveals implications for education policymakers across the country. It describes characteristics of evaluation systems that focus on growing instructional practice.
The role of the principal is rapidly changing. Gone is the idea of the principal as building manager. Today’s successful principal is a public relations professional, curriculum expert, data specialist, talent manager and — most importantly — an instructional leader.
School systems across the country are trying to adapt to this changed reality. But how do central office leaders think about these changes? What challenges and opportunities do they see? And are there key practices that create the right conditions for principals to succeed?
Principal supervisors can be an important resource for school improvement when they emphasize principal growth and learning. But transforming the role of principal supervisors and building the tools and support structures to help them grow principals' instructional leadership skills is a challenging task.
In a new white paper from the University of Washington Center for Educational Leadership (CEL) and the District Leadership Design Lab (DL2), authors Drs. Lydia Rainey and Meredith Honig describe the initial efforts of 11 school systems that are redesigning principal supervisor positions, highlight common trends and share emerging best practices. The school systems all participate in the Leading for Effective Teaching (LET) project, a partnership between the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and CEL.
Researchers from Vanderbilt University and the University of Washington have received a grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences to refine and expand the use of the Center for Educational Leadership’s (CEL) 5D Assessment tool. When finished, the newly developed and validated online tool will measure school leaders' capacity to observe and analyze the quality of classroom instruction, provide feedback to teachers, and plan professional development for teaching staff.
Participants in CEL’s 5D Assessment currently watch a video of classroom teaching and then write a response to three questions about their observations and interpretations, and their thinking about professional development. This response is scored by CEL raters and reported to school districts.
