In Context
Principal Leadership Under No Child Left Behind
Schools have always needed strong principals. But in recent years, expectations of "strong" leaders have changed significantly, as has the level of attention focused on which principals are and are not meeting them. As Davis, Darling-Hammond, LaPointe, and Meyerson (2005) point out, "the role of principal [in U.S. schools] has swelled to include a staggering array of professional tasks and competencies" (p. 4).
Principals are expected to be educational visionaries, instructional and curriculum leaders, assessment experts, disciplinarians, community builders, public relations/communications experts, budget analysts, facility managers, special programs administrators, as well as guardians of various legal, contractual, and policy mandates and initiatives. In addition, principals are expected to serve the often conflicting needs and interests of many stakeholders, including students, parents, teachers, district office officials, unions, state and federal agencies. (p. 4)
With the passage of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), many of these new roles have been written into law. Under Title II, principals are now mandated to serve first and foremost as "instructional leaders" in their schools, educational coaches who possess the "skills necessary to help teachers teach" and "help students meet challenging State student academic achievement standards" (Title II, Section 2113 (c) cited in Lockwood, 2005).
At the same time, new formulas for calculating adequate yearly progress (AYP) under No Child Left Behind have raised the stakes for many principals, narrowing the criteria for success and shining light on leadership areas that may have been less closely monitored in the past. Unlike earlier versions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in which a school's performance was measured according to student scores overall, NCLB requires that schools also report results separately for several traditionally disadvantaged and/or underserved "subgroups" of the student population. As Anderson (2004) notes, "AYP requirements [under NCLB] are satisfied when the school as a whole and each individual subgroup within the school meet or exceed the statewide goals, with an average of 95 percent of the students completing the assessments" (p. 3).
Principals whose schools do not meet AYP requirements can now be held directly accountable under the law. Under Title I, principals whose students do not perform as required are subject to a series of increasingly greater sanctions, from diminished control over school management, to dismissal, to dissolution of the entire school. Stepped-up requirements for parental notification under NCLB have increased public scrutiny of principal performance in many low-performing schools as well, increasing the pressure from school boards, community leaders, and parents to produce results fast.
Perhaps the central challenge school leaders face today, as Elmore (2000) notes, is communicating a "sense of urgency and support" to their staff members "around issues of standards and accountability" (p. 33). Principals who approach the heightened expectations of NCLB as an opportunity to focus more time and attention on galvanizing staff members around school improvement will be several steps ahead of the game.
