Principals Matter, Let’s Invest In Them

When I was first on the school board in Walla Walla, I didn’t understand just how important principals were for the success of our schools.

I had gone to school. I was the parent of a child in school. I understood that there were lots of things that principals did every day in our schools. But I only knew what they did, not what they meant.

My overall vision of school improvement was both top down and bottom up. At the district leadership level, we would tackle the accumulated underinvestment in curriculum, technology and facilities. We’d make sure everyone was pointed in the same direction through the discipline of a focused strategic plan. Thus equipped, our teachers would then work in community to improve their collective efficacy and better the outcomes for our kids.

Principals were the skipped-over middle of all that.

But since those early days, I’ve seen how some buildings move forward and others don’t. I’ve seen the difference a great principal can make. I’ve also seen the downsides that come from frequent building leadership turnover.

This point came up to me again while reading this story in Chalkbeat about a new study of high-performing teachers who received bonuses for moving to higher-need schools:

But in fact, in their new schools, these great teachers transformed into merely pretty good teachers. This reflects a profound and sometimes underappreciated fact about teacher performance: It’s not just about the inherent skills of an individual. It’s also about the school environment. Teacher effectiveness is dynamic,” says Matthew Kraft, a Brown University professor and coauthor of the new paper. “Teaching is a team sport.”

There’s a glass-half-empty reading of the results, which is that this is yet another promising education intervention that didn’t work as well once it was removed from its original context.

I would argue for a much more positive framing, which is that if school-level factors can have this big an impact on teacher effectiveness, imagine how much progress we could make if the conversation focused not on “fixing” teachers but rather fixing the conditions within which they worked.

Which brings us right back to principals. 

Education policymaking at the state level in Washington has been extremely well-intentioned the last few years. It has also been inconsistent, contradictory, and – most importantly – operating without a broad and broadly accepted vision for improvement.

I am convinced that investing deeply in principal preparation, development, and retention is one of those powerful levers the legislature can pull. And we can do that within our medium-term budget constraints, because each dollar invested per principal is a heck of a lot cheaper than each dollar per teacher or per student.

But this isn’t just about pushing down some more money for professional development. This is about elevating principals’ role within our education system and truly empowering these educators to lead their buildings.

Students come to our classrooms with very different levels of preparation for school. Once they arrive, I really believe the most important predictor of their success is the quality of the teacher at the front of their classroom.

But the most important factor in the success of that teacher just may be the principal in their buildings.