Help wanted: Principals who love change

New roles for principals key to education reform

2014-07-17

(Press-News.org) DALLAS (SMU) – Training principals for new roles is key to U.S. Department of Education school reforms, according to a new report by SMU researchers. But insufficient training and support for principals to meet the new expectations is leading to a leadership crisis. Twenty percent of newly minted principals leave the profession after two years and seasoned professionals are opting for early retirement.

Education researchers Lee Alvoid and Watt Lesley Black Jr. examine school districts at the forefront of supporting and training effective principals in their report "The Changing Role of the Principal: How High-Achieving Districts are Recalibrating School Leadership," published July 1 by the Center for American Progress. As former principals and current faculty members at SMU's Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development, both Alvoid and Black bring unique insight to the study.

Teacher evaluation is key to President Obama's Race to the Top education reform initiative, which in turn places demands on principals' expertise and time.

After analyzing six school districts across the United States with innovative support and training for principals, Alvoid and Black developed key recommendations for school districts.

Their recommendations include focusing principal training on coaching teachers, redesigning principal job descriptions to focus on teachers and student outcomes, and developing partnerships with universities to recruit and train future principals.

"Few reformers have paid attention to growing demands on principals and few districts have intervened to help reevaluate the tasks," says Alvoid, chair and clinical associate professor of education policy and leadership at the Simmons School. "The districts we feature in the report pay attention to the need of supporting practicing principals with deeper instructional training as they implement stronger teacher evaluation systems."

Strategies differ among school districts. The charter school district Uplift Education in Dallas added at each school an operations director, responsible for all non-instructional aspects of running a school, such as building maintenance and student nutrition.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools in Charlotte, North Carolina added a dean of students position to support principals with student issues. Other districts strengthened principal training, particularly on coaching teachers.

"The principal shapes the instructional vision and goals and is positioned to leverage his or her influence to effect substantial changes in instructional practice," says Black, clinical associate professor of education and policy at the Simmons School. "In short — though the teacher has the most direct impact on students — the principal has the most direct impact on the teacher.''

INFORMATION: The Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development at SMU reflects the University's vision of serving the most important educational needs of our city, region and nation, graduating students for successful careers in a variety of fields and providing educational opportunities beyond traditional degree programs. The school is committed to rigorous, research-driven programs that promote evidence-based, effective practices in education and human development. SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools.

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

CNIO researchers discover a gene that links stem cells, aging and cancer

2014-07-17

An organism is healthy thanks to a good maintenance system: the normal functioning of organs and environmental exposure cause damage to tissues, which need to be continuously repaired. This process is not yet well understood, but it is known that stem cells in the organs play a key role, and that when repair fails, the organism ages more quickly. Researchers from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) have "discovered one of the key genes that make up the maintenance mechanism for tissues" says Miguel Foronda, the first author of the manuscript. The study ...

First ab initio method for characterizing hot carriers

2014-07-17

One of the major road blocks to the design and development of new, more efficient solar cells may have been cleared. Researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed the first ab initio method – meaning a theoretical model free of adjustable or empirical parameters – for characterizing the properties of "hot carriers" in semiconductors. Hot carriers are electrical charge carriers - electrons and holes – with significantly higher energy than charge carriers at thermal equilibrium. "Hot carrier thermalization is a major source of ...

Untangling spider's webs

2014-07-17

For decades, the story of spider evolution went like this: As insects became more and more diverse, with some species taking to the skies, spiders evolved new hunting strategies, including the ability to weave orb-shaped webs to trap their prey. From that single origin, the story goes, orb-weaver spiders diverged along different evolutionary paths, leading to today, where several species weave similar – though not identical – webs. It's a good story, but there's just one problem – Harvard scientists now know it's not true. The largest-ever phylogenetic study of ...

Eye movements reveal difference between love and lust

2014-07-17

Soul singer Betty Everett once proclaimed, "If you want to know if he loves you so, it's in his kiss." But a new study by University of Chicago researchers suggests the difference between love and lust might be in the eyes after all. Specifically, where your date looks at you could indicate whether love or lust is in the cards. The new study found that eye patterns concentrate on a stranger's face if the viewer sees that person as a potential partner in romantic love, but the viewer gazes more at the other person's body if he or she is feeling sexual desire. That automatic ...

Atlantic salmon also show capacity to adapt to warmer waters

2014-07-17

Populations of Atlantic salmon have a surprisingly good capacity to adjust to warmer temperatures that are being seen with climate change, a group of scientists at the University of Oslo and University of British Columbia have discovered. The finding about Atlantic species adds to recent UBC-supported research on heat tolerance of Pacific salmon. The new study, a collaboration between Norwegian and Canadian researchers, was recently published in Nature Communications. Funded by the Norwegian Research Council, it addressed questions around how climate change might affect ...

Eating lean beef daily can help lower blood pressure

2014-07-17

Contrary to conventional wisdom, a growing body of evidence shows that eating lean beef can reduce risk factors for heart disease, according to recent research by nutritional scientists. "This research adds to the significant evidence, including work previously done in our lab, that supports lean beef's role in a heart-healthy diet," said Penny M. Kris-Etherton, Distinguished Professor of Nutrition, Penn State. "This study shows that nutrient-rich lean beef can be included as part of a heart-healthy diet that reduces blood pressure, which can help lower the risk for cardiovascular ...

Gut microbes turn carbs into colorectal cancer

2014-07-17

Colorectal cancer has been linked to carbohydrate-rich western diets, but the underlying mechanisms have been unclear. A study published by Cell Press July 17th in the journal Cell shows that gut microbes metabolize carbohydrates in the diet, causing intestinal cells to proliferate and form tumors in mice that are genetically predisposed to colorectal cancer. Treatment with antibiotics or a low-carbohydrate diet significantly reduced tumors in these mice, suggesting that these easy interventions could prevent a common type of colorectal cancer in humans. "Because hereditary ...

Brown fat found to be at the root of cancer-related wasting syndrome

2014-07-17

VIDEO: Many patients with advanced stages of cancer, AIDS, tuberculosis, and other diseases die from a condition called cachexia, which is characterized as a "wasting " syndrome that causes extreme thinness with... Click here for more information. Many patients with advanced stages of cancer, AIDS, tuberculosis, and other diseases die from a condition called cachexia, which is characterized as a "wasting" syndrome that causes extreme thinness with muscle weakness. ...

Obese women may have learning deficit specific to food

2014-07-17

Obese women have a deficit in reward-based learning, but only when food is involved. Importantly, say researchers who report their findings in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on July 17, those same women have no trouble at all forming accurate associations when the reward is money instead of food. The findings may lead to new, gender-appropriate ways to tackle the obesity epidemic. "Our study shows that obesity may involve a specific impairment not in the processing of food itself, but rather in how obese individuals—or at least obese women—learn about cues in ...

Study identifies molecular key to healthy pregnancy

2014-07-17

Scientists have identified a crucial molecular key to healthy embryo implantation and pregnancy in a study that may offer new clues about the medical challenges of infertility/subfertility, abnormal placentation, and placenta previa. Multi-institutional teams led by researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center report their results in Cell Reports on July 17. The authors found that uterine expression of a gene called Wnt5a – a major signaling molecule in cell growth and movement in both embryo development and disease – is also critical to healthy embryo ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

How rice plants tell head from toe during early growth

Scientists design solar-responsive biochar that accelerates environmental cleanup

Construction of a localized immune niche via supramolecular hydrogel vaccine to elicit durable and enhanced immunity against infectious diseases

Deep learning-based discovery of tetrahydrocarbazoles as broad-spectrum antitumor agents and click-activated strategy for targeted cancer therapy

DHL-11, a novel prieurianin-type limonoid isolated from Munronia henryi, targeting IMPDH2 to inhibit triple-negative breast cancer

Discovery of SARS-CoV-2 PLpro inhibitors and RIPK1 inhibitors with synergistic antiviral efficacy in a mouse COVID-19 model

Neg-entropy is the true drug target for chronic diseases

Oxygen-boosted dual-section microneedle patch for enhanced drug penetration and improved photodynamic and anti-inflammatory therapy in psoriasis

Around the world, children’s cooperative behaviors and norms converge toward community-specific norms in middle childhood, Boston College researchers report