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¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2004 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2009: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims¶

q2 i? From a list of 25 possible roadblocks, principals identified six as most common, with agreement among LAUNCH, new, and veteran principals; relatively fewer LAUNCH principals cited test-score pressure. → Penny Bender Sebring 2004

Evidence¶

Penny Bender Sebring 2004¶

Penny Bender Sebring, Susan Sporte, Stephen Ponisciak, Elaine Allensworth. (2004). Principal and Teacher Leadership in Chicago: Early Evidence on Two Initiatives. Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago. https://consortium.uchicago.edu/publications/principal-and-teacher-leadership-chicago-early-evidence-two-initiatives

q2 · i? · associational · r2

Principals' self-reports on the CCSR 2003 principal survey (Table 9) about factors preventing school improvement; the article reports that "principals identified six as the most common." Internal factors included lack of planning time and difficulty removing poor teachers; external factors included community social problems and apathetic parents.

"From a list of 25 possible roadblocks, principals identified six as the most common. T wo- thirds to three-quarters of them considered these road- blocks as a serious factor or somewhat of a factor."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• The same four roadblocks to school improvement topped principals' rankings across ten years of surveys, with subgroup contrasts in emphasis — related
• Elementary principals in low-achieving schools spend more time on instruction while those in high-achieving schools spend more on external management — related
• Administrators in eight of nine rural SIG schools reported rural-setting factors, chiefly long teacher commutes (six schools) or isolated communities (four), that hampered teacher recruitment or retention — 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
• 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
• 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
• High school, new, and low-achieving-school principals perceive significantly more difficulty recruiting and hiring the right teachers — related