Beyond Instructional Leadership:
The Learning-Centered Principal
by Richard DuFour, Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development, Volume 59 Number 8, May 2002, Pages
12-15
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"When I entered the principalship a quarter century ago, the
research on effective schools warned that without strong
administrative leadership, the disparate elements of good
schooling could be neither brought together nor kept together. I
heeded the message. I was determined to rise above the mundane
managerial tasks of the job and focus instead on instruction—I
hoped to be an instructional leader."
Schools need leadership from principals who focus on advancing
student and staff learning.
I can summarize the most universally accepted conventional
wisdom regarding the fundamental role of the contemporary
principal in a single phrase: The principal must serve as the
instructional leader of the school. For more than 30 years,
research has described the principal in this way. The National
Association of Secondary School Principals (2001) defines its
mission, in part, as "strengthening the role of the principal as
instructional leader." State legislatures have mandated that
principals serve as instructional leaders, and school districts
have written their job descriptions for principals to include a
reference to instructional leadership. But allow me to offer a
radical proposal: The focus on the principal as instructional
leader is flawed.
Confessions of an Instructional Leader
When I entered the principalship a quarter century ago, the
research on effective schools warned that without strong
administrative leadership, the disparate elements of good
schooling could be neither brought together nor kept together (Lezotte,
1997). I heeded the message and embraced my role as a strong
leader with gusto. I was determined to rise above the mundane
managerial tasks of the job and focus instead on instruction—I
hoped to be an instructional leader. I asked teachers to submit
their course syllabi and curriculum guides so that I could
monitor what they were teaching. I collected weekly lesson plans
to ensure that teachers were teaching the prescribed curriculum.
I read voraciously about instructional strategies in different
content areas and shared pertinent articles with staff members.
But my devotion to the clinical supervision process at the
school was the single greatest illustration of my commitment to
function as an instructional leader. I developed a three-part
process that required me to be a student of good teaching and to
help teachers become more reflective and insightful about their
instruction.
During the pre-observation conference, I met with teachers
individually and asked them to talk me through the lesson I
would be observing in their classroom. I asked a series of
questions, including What will you teach? How will you teach it?
What instructional strategies will you use? What instructional
materials will you use? During the classroom observation, I
worked furiously to script as accurately as possible what the
teacher said and did.
During the postobservation conference, the teacher and I
reconstructed the lesson from my notes and his or her
recollections. We looked for patterns or trends in what the
teacher had said and done, and we discussed the relationship
between those patterns and the lesson's objectives. Finally, I
asked the teacher what he or she might change in the lesson
before teaching it again. I then wrote a summary of the
classroom observation and our postobservation discussion,
offered recommendations for effective teaching strategies, and
suggested ways in which the teacher might become more effective.
The observation process was time-consuming, but I was convinced
that my focus on individual teachers and their instructional
strategies was an effective use of my time. And the process was
not without benefits. As a new pair of eyes in the classroom, I
was able to help teachers become aware of unintended
instructional or classroom management patterns. I could express
my appreciation for the wonderful work that teachers were doing
because I had witnessed it firsthand. I observed powerful
instructional strategies and was able to share those strategies
with other teachers. I learned a lot about what effective
teaching looks like.
In Hot Pursuit of the Wrong Questions
Eventually, after years as a principal, I realized that even
though my efforts had been well intentioned—and even though I
had devoted countless hours each school year to those efforts—I
had been focusing on the wrong questions. I had focused on the
questions, What are the teachers teaching? and How can I help
them to teach it more effectively? Instead, my efforts should
have been driven by the questions, To what extent are the
students learning the intended outcomes of each course? and What
steps can I take to give both students and teachers the
additional time and support they need to improve learning?
This shift from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning is
more than semantics. When learning becomes the preoccupation of
the school, when all the school's educators examine the efforts
and initiatives of the school through the lens of their impact
on learning, the structure and culture of the school begin to
change in substantive ways. Principals foster this structural
and cultural transformation when they shift their emphasis from
helping individual teachers improve instruction to helping teams
of teachers ensure that students achieve the intended outcomes
of their schooling. More succinctly, teachers and students
benefit when principals function as learning leaders rather than
instructional leaders.
From Teaching to Learning: One School's Story
I became principal of Adlai Stevenson High School in
Lincolnshire, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, in 1983. One of the
first steps we took in our transition from teaching to learning
was to organize all staff members who taught the same course
into teams. For two years, each team worked together to
Clarify the essential outcomes of the course and the outcomes of
each unit of instruction within the course. A school's teachers
cannot make student learning their focus until they know what
each student needs to learn. The Stevenson teacher teams
examined state curriculum guidelines, the recommendations of
professional organizations, and competencies assessed by such
tests as the ACT and SAT to clarify the essential outcomes of
their courses. Teams limited themselves to 8–10 such outcomes
per semester. In effect, teams narrowed their focus and reduced
their curriculum by eliminating nonessential content.
Develop two common assessments per semester and specify the
standard of mastery for the assessment as well as for each
subtest within the assessment. Once a team had agreed on what
students should learn, its members turned their attention to the
question, How will we know whether students have learned the
essential outcomes? Teams developed at least two common
assessments each semester to give to all students enrolled in
the course. Typically, teachers teach, test, and hope for the
best. Stevenson teachers established standards of mastery for
these common assessments and for each subtest within a common
assessment. They set a bar for student performance and then
worked to ensure that each student could make it over that bar.
Analyze results and develop strategies for improvement on the
basis of the analysis. The common assessments provided the
teachers with valuable information. They saw how successful
their students were in meeting an agreed-on standard compared
with all the other students in the school who were attempting to
meet the same standard on the same test. A teacher whose
students struggled on a particular subtest could turn to the
team for ideas, strategies, and materials to improve student
learning. A teacher with expertise in helping students master a
particular concept could share that expertise with colleagues.
Finally, the team assessed the performance of the entire group
of students, celebrated areas of high performance, identified
areas of concern, and developed and implemented action plans to
improve the performance of all students.
As principal, I played an important role in initiating,
facilitating, and sustaining the process of shifting our
collective focus from teaching to learning. To make
collaborative teams the primary engine of our school improvement
efforts, teachers needed time to collaborate. Teachers,
accustomed to working in isolation, needed focus and parameters
as they transitioned to working in teams. They needed a process
to follow and guiding questions to pursue. They needed training,
resources, and support to overcome difficulties they encountered
while developing common outcomes, writing common assessments,
and analyzing student achievement data. They needed access to
relevant, timely information on their students' performance.
They needed help writing specific and measurable team
improvement goals that focused on student learning rather than
on their team activities. They needed encouragement,
recognition, and celebration as they progressed. They needed
someone to confront those individuals or teams of teachers who
failed to fulfill their responsibilities. All of these tasks
fell to me, the principal. Staff members' consensus to transform
our school into a learning community did not diminish the need
for effective leadership in the school, but the focus of that
leadership shifted from teaching to learning. In fact, I am
convinced that a school cannot make the transition to the
collaborative, results-oriented culture of a professional
learning community without a principal who focuses on learning.
A System of Interventions to Promote Learning
A focus on learning affects not only the way that teachers work
together but also the way that they relate to and work with each
student. Because a desire to ensure student learning drove the
team planning process, Stevenson teachers and teams focused on
the percentage of students achieving mastery rather than on the
average score of the group. This attention to individual student
mastery enabled us to identify specific students who were having
difficulty acquiring the intended knowledge and skills. The
staff then worked together to build an intervention system that
provided struggling students with more time and support during
the school day.
We assigned a faculty advisor to every incoming student to
monitor his or her learning. Counselors met with freshmen every
week. We issued academic progress reports in each course every
three weeks. When we identified a struggling student, his or her
advisor and counselor worked together to develop a plan of
response. First, the advisor and counselor might assign the
student to daily tutoring sessions with an upperclassman mentor.
Next, they might move students who continued to struggle into
small-group tutoring sessions with a certified teacher.
Sometimes they placed students in small study halls with 8–10
other students in which a supervisor monitored their homework
daily. Struggling students were also enrolled in special classes
that focused on study skills, note taking, time management, and
reading in the content areas.
This systematic response to those who were not learning made it
clear to both students and staff members that we expected all
Stevenson students to learn. Time and support varied—the
expectation that all students would achieve the intended
outcomes of their courses remained a constant.
From Instructional Leader to Lead Learner
Educators are gradually redefining the role of the principal
from instructional leader with a focus on teaching to leader of
a professional community with a focus on learning. One of the
National Association of Elementary School Principals' six
standards for what principals should know and be able to do
calls on principals to put student and adult learning at the
center of their leadership and to serve as the lead learner
(2001). The Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium, a
program of the Council of Chief State School Officers, has also
identified six professional standards for principals, one of
which calls for the principal to be
an educational leader who promotes the success of all students
by advocating, nurturing, and sustaining a school culture and
instructional program conducive to student learning and staff
professional growth. (1996, p. 12)
By concentrating on teaching, the instructional leader of the
past emphasized the inputs of the learning process. By
concentrating on learning, today's school leaders shift both
their own focus and that of the school community from inputs to
outcomes and from intentions to results. Schools need principal
leadership as much as ever. But only those who understand that
the essence of their job is promoting student and teacher
learning will be able to provide that leadership.
References
Council of Chief State School Officers. (1996). Interstate
School Leaders Licensure Consortium standards for school
leaders. Washington, DC: Author.
Lezotte, L. (1997). Learning for all. Okemos, MI: Effective
Schools Products.
National Association of Elementary School Principals. (2001).
Leading learning communities: Standards for what principals
should know and be able to do. Alexandria, VA: Author.
National Association of Secondary School Principals. (2001).
NASSP Background.
Richard DuFour is Superintendent of Adlai Stevenson High
School District 125, Lincolnshire, IL 60069;
rdufour@district125.k12.il.us. He is and the lead
consultant for The Principal Series (ASCD video series,
1998–99).
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