Angela Urick

What Are the Different Types of Principals Across the United States? A Latent Class Analysis of Principal Perception of Leadership

Purpose: Effective styles of principal leadership can help address multiple issues in struggling schools, such as low student achievement and high rates of teacher attrition. Although the literature has nominated certain “idealized” leadership styles as being more or less effective, such as transformational, instructional, and shared instructional leadership, we have little evidence about how principals may or may not choose to practice these styles across U.S. schools. Research Design: Latent class analysis was used to identify different types of principals across the United States. We analyzed the 1999-2000 Schools and Staffing Survey as it presents a unique opportunity to study the different types of U.S. principals since it contains leadership measures not found in other national surveys. A final sample of 7,650 public schools and principals was included in the analysis. Findings: Instead of idealized leadership styles signifying variations in practice, the differences between types of principals were defined by the degree of principal and teacher leadership. Further, the school and principal context, such as school size, urbanicity, accountability performance, and principal background, predicted the three significantly different principal types: controlling, frequent principal leadership; balkanizing, high degree of leadership shared with teachers; or integrating, frequent principal leadership as well as a high degree of leadership shared with teachers. Conclusions: These types suggest that principals simultaneously practice leadership behaviors associated with multiple leadership styles in accordance with their background and school context. These findings provide support for the use of more complex models to assess school leader effectiveness.

What Influences Principals' Perceptions of Academic Climate? A Nationally Representative Study of the Direct Effects of Perception on Climate

Using a nationally representative sample of public high schools (Nu2009=u2009439), we examined the extent to which the principals perception of their influence over instruction, the evaluation of nonacademic related tasks as well as academic related tasks, and their relationship with the school district relates to their perception of academic climate while controlling for school-level covariates. Little attention has been given to date to the principals perception of their responsibilities and how it relates to their view of academic climate. The findings link academic climate with direct effects from principal perceptions of support and evaluation from the district.

Does High School Facility Quality Affect Student Achievement? A Two-Level Hierarchical Linear Model*

The purpose of this study is to isolate the independent effects of high school facility quality on student achievement using a large, nationally representative U.S. database of student achievement and school facility quality. Prior research on linking school facility quality to student achievement has been mixed. Studies that relate overall independently rated structural and engineering aspects of schools have been shown to not be related to achievement. However, more recent research has suggested that facility maintenance and disrepair, rather than structural issues, may be more directly related to student achievement. If there is a relationship, addressing facility disrepair from the school, district, or state level could provide a potential avenue for policymakers for school improvement. We analyzed the public school component and the facilities checklist of the ELS:2002 survey (8,110 students in 520 schools) using a two-level hierarchical linear model to estimate the independent effect of facility disrepair on student growth in mathematics during the final two years of high school controlling for multiple covariates at the student and school level. We found no evidence of a direct effect of facility disrepair on student mathematics achievement and instead propose a mediated effects model.

Examining US Principal Perception of Multiple Leadership Styles Used to Practice Shared Instructional Leadership.

Purpose – Decades of research on different leadership styles shows that effective school leadership is the degree of influence or synergy between teachers and principals around the core business of schools, instruction. While various styles, such as transformational, instructional, shared instructional, point to the similar measures of high organizational quality, the inconsistency in how these styles are defined and relate make it unclear how principals systematically improve schools. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – This study used the 1999-2000 schools and staffing survey, n=8,524 of US principals, since it includes a nationally representative sample of administrators who responded to a comprehensive set of leadership measures around a time of school restructuring reforms. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to identify different styles, and to measure the extent of their relationship. These factors were used to test a theory about why principals practice each of ...

The influence of typologies of school leaders on teacher retention: A multilevel latent class analysis

Purpose – While school leadership literature has searched for practices with the largest effect on outcomes, we know little about how these behaviors vary by context. Further, recent shifts to include teachers in leadership have prompted a need for purposeful distinction between teacher and principal perceptions and roles. Person-centered statistics offer a means to study differences in how teachers and principals perceive leadership by context, how these perceptions interact, and the extent to which this interaction influences teacher decisions, such as whether or not to remain at their current school. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – This study applies a two-level latent class analysis (LCA) with a cross-level interaction to the 1999-2000 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), n=35,560 teachers across n=7,310 US public schools. SASS includes a comprehensive set of leadership measures, not found in other surveys, collected when US schools restructured to include teachers...

Testing a Framework of Math Progress Indicators for ESSA: How Opportunity to Learn and Instructional Leadership Matter:

Purpose: To advance a framework of indicators that promotes implementation of math standards under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), we tested a conceptual model of the resources and processes within schools that influence the opportunity to learn mathematics (OTL) in the classroom using a recent administration of the 2011 Trends in International Math and Science Study (TIMSS 2011). There is potential benefit to state departments and system-level practitioners from more information about how schools might influence student access to college and career-ready curriculum. Such information has the potential to shape the kinds of indicators stakeholders put in place to target problems and formulate solutions for math learning. Research Design: To test the fit of our hypothesized model of math content and instruction OTL, we applied structural equation modeling techniques to school and classroom data from 425 fourth-grade U.S. math teachers in TIMSS 2011. Findings: We found a direct influence of instructional leadership on OTL math instruction in the classroom and teacher participation in math professional development. Content-specific resources indirectly influenced both OTL math instruction and content through teacher preparedness. Conclusions: The results of this study demonstrate a potential framework through which school leaders can support the preparedness of teachers in providing students with equitable access to coherent, focused, and rigorous math content.

Assessing International Teacher and Principal Perceptions of Instructional Leadership: A Multilevel Factor Analysis of TALIS 2008

ABSTRACT While research to date on school leadership has identified instructional leadership as an effective means to improve academic achievement, little is known about how teachers and principals view instructional leadership both individually and collectively. We analyzed the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) of 2008 of 59,152 teachers in 3,788 schools across 20 countries using multilevel factor analysis. Our findings suggest that while principals perceive instructional leadership in schools to be multiple factors of setting goals, professional development, and supervision of instruction, teachers perceive it to be a single dimension, which has a weak relationship to principal perception.

Secondary Data Analysis in the Field of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies

This chapter discusses secondary data analysis and identifies several of the most prominent data sets used in education policy and leadership research. Existing, generalizable data allow researchers to address pressing national and systemic issues in educational leadership and policy. These common data sets provide an opportunity for comparison and replication of findings across studies. These data sets also provide more options for advanced statistical analysis. Indeed, once researchers learn how to analyze one of these main data sets, this knowledge can be applied across additional years of the same data set, extended to other available national/international surveys, and can provide an example of how future original data collections may be shared with other researchers.