What it’s like to have principal after principal after principal
In the great push by school reformers to improve the quality of teachers, principals and school leadership have been ignored — and that’s an unhealthy oversight. There is research suggesting that school leadership is every bit as important as quality teaching. Yet principal turnover is high and increasing, with important consequences for schools. A 2012 RAND Corp. report said, for example, that about 20 percent of principals new to a school in urban districts leave that posting within one or two years, and the result can negatively impact achievement by individual students as well as the overall school. Writing about the issue is Jane O’Halloren, a six-year veteran teacher who has had an unusually large number of principals in her career. She plans to continue graduate work at the University of Minnesota or return to teaching next year.By Jane O’Halloren
Recently on NPR, I heard a segment about principal turnover and its correlation to student achievement. The program referenced Penn State University Associate Professor Ed Fuller, director of the Cener for Evaluation and Education Policy Analysis,and his research on the impact of school leadership on student achievement and teacher quality. I became somewhat familiar with this topic through my work as a graduate student at DePaul University in Chicago. But NPR’s four-minute report and Fuller’s research strikes a chord with me for another reason: I lived it.
I spent six years teaching in charter schools in Chicago—five years at CICS Northtown Academy and one year at Rauner College Prep, a Noble Network school. In those six years, I had six principals. If I had stayed in Chicago to teach for a seventh year teaching instead of moving out of state, I would have had a seventh principal.
Why is it so difficult for some schools—especially urban schools—to retain principals? And, arguably more importantly, why is the national conversation and policy surrounding educational reform focused on teachers, teachers’ unions, charter sc