The Fund’s recommendations to improve principal retention include:
• Reducing Compliance — Seven in 10 surveyed public school principals cited reducing compliance as one of the top three ways to improve job satisfaction. Spending more time on teaching and learning — coaching teachers, engaging with students, interacting with families — can help principals improve their schools, and it can make them more satisfied in their position.
• Providing Tools to Leverage Resources — While the state and district afford principals authority in a number of areas, public school principals often lack the support and know-how to use it. More than 40 percent of surveyed principals feel unable to organize school resources to advance school goals despite having the authority to do so. Actionable tools and targeted coaching would help principals, especially new ones, lead positive change in their schools.
• Personalizing Professional Development — Like other professionals, public school principals benefit from personalized support in order to develop and learn new skills. Unfortunately, less than 25 percent rated current professional development offerings as “very good” or “excellent.” The most commonly cited way to improve it: more responsiveness to individual needs.
• Challenging Them to Stay — New opportunities and continual learning is what keeps these top-performers engaged. Currently, only a few dozen Chicago public school principals each year are recognized for their excellence and challenged to keep growing. Increasing flexibility, expanding leadership opportunities and creating meaningful chances for peer-to-peer learning could help more high-achieving leaders stay motivated and in their schools.
Chicago’s focus on public school principals over the past several years has yielded a more than 30 percent increase in the number of top principals in the city. The Fund’s report is a challenge to Chicago to retain its top principals.
“Solutions to the challenges our schools face exist. This report shines a bright light on the next phase of work supporting Chicago’s principals: keeping them,” said Anichini.
“Even through times of transition or resource reduction, great principals help retain great teachers, which benefits students, schools and communities enormously,” said Anichini. “If consistent school success district-wide is our goal, we must all rally around our school leaders.”
The Chicago Public Education Fund is a nonprofit organization working to increase the number of great public schools in Chicago by supporting talented principals and enabling effective educator teams to reinvent classroom learning.
Material from a press release was used in this report.
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