The same four roadblocks to school improvement topped principals' rankings across ten years of surveys, with subgroup contrasts in emphasis¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2008 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2013: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Pressure to get test scores up quickly, social problems in the school's community, difficulty removing ineffective teachers, and apathetic or irresponsible parents remained the top four roadblocks in every survey year; bottom quartile principals stressed community problems while top quartile principals stressed test-score pressure. → Stoelinga 2008

Evidence¶

Stoelinga 2008¶

Stoelinga, S. R., with Hart, H. and Schalliol, D. (2008). The Work of Chicago Public Schools' Principals: Leading in a Complex Context with High Stakes. Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago. https://consortium.uchicago.edu/publications/work-chicago-public-schools-principals

q2 · i? · associational · r2

Analysis of the 20-item roadblock rankings across 1997-2007 surveys (Table 2) found "the top four roadblocks remain the same in each of the survey years," with test-score pressure ranked first throughout; Table 5 shows bottom and top quartile principals rank these items differently.

"The pressure to get test scores up quickly was the roadblock most frequently chosen by principals across the survey administrations"

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Elementary principals in low-achieving schools spend more time on instruction while those in high-achieving schools spend more on external management — related
• Principals most commonly cited time for teacher planning, difficulty removing poor teachers, community social problems, apathetic parents, test-score pressure, and problem students as roadblocks — related
• Administrators reporting social problems in the school's community as a top roadblock grew from 31 percent in 2009 to 43 percent in 2017 — related
• Mistrust between teachers and parents remained a low-level roadblock in 2017, while lack of parental support had grown as a top roadblock for almost one-third of administrators — related
• Managing resources under student-based budgeting was the single most challenging roadblock CPS administrators reported since 1992, with 66 percent rating it a significant or complete roadblock in 2017 — related
• Latent class analysis of roadblock responses identified three roughly equally sized administrator groups—Limited, Moderate, and Considerable Roadblocks—differing in breadth and depth of concern — related
• Dot voting produced no single dominant category; teachers collectively prioritized motivation and buy-in, removing roadblocks, and building resilience — related
• Inhibitory social contextual factors include assessment pressures on teachers and emphasis on standardized curricula — related
• Accountability pressures overshadowed the survey's improvement potential without reducing its predictive power — related
• Parental support for student learning is substantially higher in top-quartile schools than in bottom-quartile schools — related
• Human-resource roadblocks rose sharply from 2009 to 2017: difficulty removing poor teachers increased from 39 to 48 percent, and concern over recruiting and hiring the right teachers nearly quadrupled from 12 to 44 percent — related