Principals Under Pressure:
School Leaders and Standards-based Accountability Programs
Paul S. George
Professor of Education
University of Florida
Spring 2001
In 1998, Governor Jeb Bush initiated the Florida A+ Program, a harsh, standards-based accountability measure designed to assign grades from “A” to “F” to each elementary, middle, and high school. (Several other states are doing the same). The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) scores are the basis for grading each school’s success in inculcating the state’s new curriculum standards. The cumulative effects of new state standards, comprehensive assessment, and the rewards and punishments that accompany the accountability program have raised educators’ attention to academic outcomes, as measured by standards-based tests, to a level heretofore unknown in Florida. A careful look at 50 schools in Florida, in the spring of 2000, identified strategies being used by leaders to raise academic achievement scores. Though no leader fully utilized all the strategies, ten different strategies were evident.
School Leaders’ Strategies
In schools heading toward real improvement with standards, the planning process focuses on tasks that are urgent, compelling, immediate, and agreed upon. The tasks in this “breakthrough” process have a standards-focused goal achievable in weeks, or a few months, rather than years. The goals have concrete and measurable results, most often in terms of success with state standards. The project or tasks are those that the faculty feels ready to accomplish, and, the tasks of breakthrough planning are achievable with available resources and authority. Leaders know that, rightly or wrongly, they are under pressure to make identifiable progress almost immediately; a series of low school grades could, and does, result in the removal of the principal.
Schools that are improving noticeably (by annual school grade), are led by principals who know that standards-based planning cannot be haphazard or spontaneous. They know that they need attention, help, and linkages with the larger school system. They recognize that the work plan must be flexible and visible. They know that they cannot be successful without internal participation, trust, and problem-solving skills and procedures. And, they know they cannot do it alone. Consequently, among the first steps taken by turnaround principals are those concerned with strengthening school climate, building faculty cohesiveness, and improving student behavior management.
Strategy #2: Improving School Climate, Faculty Cohesiveness, and Student Behavior Management
In schools having difficulty with standards-based reform in Florida, new principals frequently begin the turn around to higher academic achievement with simultaneous work in two areas: faculty cohesiveness-- establishing a climate of collaboration and trust; and, correcting both faculty and public perceptions about the “seriousness of purpose” regarding implementation of standards-based reform at the school.
The first step is to develop a feeling of cohesiveness and commitment among a small group of school and teacher leaders and strengthen their loyalty to school leaders. Meals together, attending conferences as a group, and weekend retreats are the kinds of things that leaders use to develop this sense of community. Reorganizing a school’s strategy for decision-making in a way that gives greater value to the input of these teacher leaders contributes to the faculty’s sense of empowerment and involvement. At one school in the process of being “turned around,” every teacher served on one of three committees in line with the annual School Improvement Plan—safety, staff development, and student performance. Teacher leaders must be on board before the turnaround train goes further down the track.
Eventually, the principal and team leaders plan activities that build a sense of community within the faculty as a whole, and within groups like teams, grade levels and departments. Continued expansion of shared decision-making and faculty empowerment are especially important in low scoring schools, because faculty turnover is often high and morale is frequently very low.
After achieving a satisfactory level of faculty cohesiveness, principals work on faculty members’ views of student potential for achievement. Reinstating semester exams, or a new discipline plan, may help to re-ignite some disheartened teachers. Leaders also spoke of their willingness to go “nose to nose” with teachers perceived as less than eager to do their part in a renewed school mission. When teachers see that school climate and faculty cohesiveness have begun to change for the better, and that everyone is expected to do their part, their confidence in the principal encourages them to support additional steps toward standards-based reform in the school.
Florida principals have become data-driven organizational leaders. In the most effective schools, regular and skilled analysis of student achievement data has become a critical step in understanding how to break through the barriers of low achievement and low expectations.
Shared dissatisfaction. New principals are often assigned to low performing schools to serve as catalysts for school improvement. In such schools, teachers are often discouraged and many believe that their students are not capable of substantial academic improvement. There, effective principals use school achievement data to develop what is described as “shared dissatisfaction” among the staff. A principal might, for example, use data from FCAT at the state and district level to compare to the school level, relying on teachers’ pride to help develop a core of teachers ready to work for change. They might use data from the SAT test to show teachers that students have more ability than their achievement indicates.
Dis-aggregating data. Principals interested in using data to promote school improvement acquire student performance data dis-aggregated by race, gender, socio-economic level, subject, and grade level. Dis-aggregated data for different ethnic groups is particularly important in focusing attention on the achievement of minority students, now an essential element of the Florida standards-based reform. Middle school leaders use data from elementary schools to adapt grouping, curriculum, and instruction in 6th grade. Data from 9th grade assessments are used to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the 8th grade program regarding successful implementation of standards-based curriculum and instruction.
Some principals hold weekly data analysis meetings with department chairs and team leaders. Data are shared in department and team meetings, and eventually with the SAC. All the school’s stakeholders are involved in data analysis. Data analysis can help change negative attitudes of discouraged teachers resistant to contributing new increments of energy and time to the change process. Many schools also have training sessions for parents, and for school advisory councils, so they understand school data and the curriculum standards, assessment, and accountability that figure in. In Florida schools, everyone is involved in the analysis of achievement related data. A school’s effectiveness in achieving educational outcomes is no longer a secret; it is well-publicized news.
Strategy #4: Enhancing Professional Development
Florida educators know that effective professional development, demonstrably connected to standards-based reform, is also data-driven: student achievement data point to professional development needs for different subject areas, grade levels, and even individual teachers. Virtually every district has conducted training regarding the Sunshine State Standards, the Florida A+ Program, the theory and implementation of FCAT, holistic scoring procedures, and how to model good short answer and extended response questions. Most districts offer training on writing FCAT questions, selecting and using effective FCAT preparation materials, and on how teachers from every subject area can make a contribution to improved FCAT scores. For example, science and social studies teachers, in many districts, are receiving training to help them customize class and test questions to the FCAT format. Teachers in all subjects are being trained in how to use the textbooks in their classrooms to teach FCAT skills like marginal and two-column notes and reading strategies like visualizing, asking questions, and predicting. Teams in many schools are regularly given vocabulary lists of FCAT terms and jargon to infuse in all areas of the subjects on the teams.
Where in-service education was once a quite casual, even lazy, affair, it now takes on a sense of real urgency. Today, the focus is much more sharply on training that will lead unarguably and directly to improved test scores. The biggest change in professional development, however, may have to do with a new and pressing interest in higher order thinking skills for students. Since FCAT is a test that focuses on application and higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy, leaders are dong everything possible to prepare teachers to gear curriculum and teaching to levels of thinking that go beyond memorization and recall of factual knowledge. “Bloom training” is everywhere.
In high scoring schools, the role played by standards-focused curriculum alignment stands out clearly. And, the degree to which an alignment process has narrowed the curriculum to a strict attention to what appears on standardized assessments has become quite controversial. The statement “Every activity has been reviewed with regard to how it impacts the FCAT,” is, for better or worse, heard in many Florida schools.
School leaders are extremely busy with the monitoring and coaching necessary for effective curriculum alignment. At one school, counselors examine each student’s schedule for the year to see if they are taking enough of a rigorous program; many students were rescheduled into more rigorous work. In others, teachers must include specific plans for preparing for FCAT in their lesson plans. New curriculum materials, in many schools, are selected only if they fit FCAT and Sunshine State Standards.
Leaders monitor lesson plans with new enthusiasm, ensuring that Sunshine State Standards are addressed. Lesson plans might first be submitted to a team leader or department head who then reports on the team or department’s progress to the principal. In other schools, principals may check lesson plans directly. Some principals use random unannounced classroom visits to check on focus on standards and lesson plan checks. In one school, three administrators are each responsible for approximately 16 teacher classroom visits per week.
Departments meet more regularly than in the past, discussing school goals and implementation of standards as critical aspects of curriculum alignment. Teachers meet as teams and departments during the summer to write curriculum for FCAT-specific target areas, especially mathematics and language arts. District curriculum alignment manuals in mathematics and language arts are common.
Administrators confer frequently and closely with teachers who need help with curriculum alignment. In some districts, school principals then meet monthly with the area superintendent or their direct supervisor to engage in an examination of curriculum alignment at a school-wide level. So the curriculum alignment process is monitored at several levels.
Strategy #6: Finding Additional Time for Learning
One of the most common, and perhaps least desirable, methods for increasing the amount of time devoted to tested subjects is to decrease the amount of time devoted to those subjects not currently tested. In many schools, exploratory curriculum and guidance programs have been co-opted for basic academic purposes. Science and social studies may suffer.
Other strategies for finding time to devote to academics abound: required reading at home; adopting a block schedule that doubles the amount of daily and yearly time devoted to mathematics; creating an advisory period combining lunch and study hall so that students who need help in particular areas can meet with teachers in those subjects; counseling students who are identified as low-scoring to substitute an additional mathematics or language arts class for exploratory course; canceling science and social studies classes for severely low achieving students whose regular curriculum is suspended entirely until FCAT practice skills improve adequately.
Tutoring is everywhere; silent reading periods are common. One school replaced an elective class with FCAT strategies for the entire 8th grade. Many schools keep the library open during the summer for Accelerated Reader. In one district, January is devoted to FCAT preparation for 8th graders, no other curriculum is taught, no clubs meet; throughout the whole year, every Wednesday is devoted to FCAT practice in all three grades. Some schools use a “Saturday Academy” where students, referred by the counselor, attend with their parents, funded by A+ Program monies; high school students come to tutor, and counselors work with parents.
In one county, all of the middle schools have a 50 minute period daily for what is called ACE—Academic and Curriculum Extension—remedial work, independent study, additional exploratory, silent reading, etc. Another county requires a Critical Thinking elective in all 34 of its middle schools for a full year in 7th and 8th grades; the curriculum includes language arts, organizational skills, and assessment strategies. Several school leaders pay teachers to give their planning time to daily remediation and tutoring at Saturday School. Many schools have 9 weeks of reading required at every grade level, for students of all ability levels. Time, as the currency for increased academic achievement, is being spent much more narrowly in schools across the state.
Strategy #7: Implementing Special Standards-based Curriculum Programs/ Instructional Strategies
Schools use a mix of state-produced, commercial, and local curriculum materials targeted for improved achievement. Many schools use commercial materials, or those prepared by the DOE, designed specifically for new state standards and FCAT preparation. Among commercially produced curriculum programs and materials, CRISS (Creating Independence through Student-owned Strategies) and Accelerated Reader/ Accelerated Mathematics are clearly favored. CRISS supports students with a variety of tactics such webbing, KWL, and other independent study techniques, that can be used in many different subject areas. It is not uncommon to see school walls covered with the results of students working with CRISS or Accelerated Reader strategies.
Other strategies are quite creative, some more straightforward. A school has developed a special Web site with FCAT math problems for summer work. In another, students contribute to daily journals based on books students have chosen to read. In the same school, the first ten minutes of every math class is devoted to solving a math word problem on the board. Students put the problems in their math journal. Once a week, the problem is an FCAT problem. Students turn in the solved problems on Friday. Bloom’s Taxonomy gets a great deal of emphasis in the curriculum, Teachers are encouraged to work the upper levels of the Taxonomy into lessons whenever possible. Other models for teaching critical thinking are also popular.
Working with scoring rubrics has also become ubiquitous. Virtually every educator in Florida understands what a grading rubric is, and how it relates to state standards and accountability, and now so do most of their students. Teachers use rubrics routinely, in most classes. Many schools post FCAT Reading Rubric posters in each language arts classroom.
In many schools, leaders are quick to point out that they are able to maintain a healthy middle school program while they attempted to respond to standards-based reform. School leaders claim that the interdisciplinary team organization of teachers and students is particularly indispensable. Teams often meet weekly, sometimes daily, to allow teachers to compare evaluations of student work and to set team standards for consistency.
In a school in south Florida, where test scores have been going up steadily for the last three years, the principal asserted that departments are virtually non-existent, compared to the importance of teams. He attributed the rapidly rising test scores to the collaborative work that teams of teachers do on the implementation of standards-based curriculum and teaching. In this school, teams constantly meet to explore curriculum and find ways of reinforcing each other as regularly and efficiently as possible. Leaders often meet formally with teams at the beginning and end of the school year to set goals, discuss growth, and evaluate the year. The continuous presence of new data allows principals to talk with teams about each period’s group scores on an almost weekly basis. Without teams, such focused efforts would be difficult if not impossible. Teams are also at the center of efforts to “promote the test,” stressing FCAT by way of contests, brain bowls, etc. Interdisciplinary teams are clearly much more than a tool for getting to know students better.
The long-term effects of continuing standards-based reform on the middle school concept, however, are not clear. In some schools, educators claim that the middle school concept is the core of their response to these pressures; in others, educators claim that the middle school concept has been badly damaged by standards, FCAT pressures, and the A+ Program. In these latter schools, educators claim that standards-based reform has disabled teacher-based advisory programs, which have, they claim, become absorbed into the FCAT effort as additional teaching time. These educators also assert that exploratory curriculum programs have been badly weakened, as schools replace exploratory teachers with additional mathematics and reading teachers, and replace exploratory curriculum with additional basic mathematics and reading courses. Ability grouping is seen, in many middle schools, as an indispensable part of the effort to implement standards-based reform, in spite of decades of evidence suggesting the ineffectiveness of such practices.
In many schools, students, teachers, and parents are the targets of public relations efforts to persuade them of the overwhelming importance of standards and FCAT and of the contribution each person can make to the school’s overall success. Special incentives to motivate students toward improved performance are also common. Finally, efforts to bring community and business partners in to support school achievement have begun to increase.
One school has a very comprehensive recognition program connected with FCAT scores, with different prizes for different levels of scores. Students get prizes for moving to a higher score level on FCAT (300 Teddy bears) or maintaining a high score. Students at this school who score at the highest level receive a limousine ride to a luncheon destination of the students’ choice. “Most improved” students get new bikes. Students with very poor FCAT scores can be retained.
In many schools, the daily TV show features a set of math problems, with prizes for completion. In one school, a student reads a Math Problem of the Day over the PA system. Homerooms ring the office with their answers and the classrooms with the correct answer are given recognition via the PA. The homeroom with the highest amount of correct answers is given special recognition.
Leaders in a very few schools have attempted to reach out to community and business partnerships for support for standards-based reform. Some solicit help from churches, synagogues, mosques, and community organizations to increase family involvement in school. Others conduct outreach meetings at local churches and civic organizations. Leaders in one school left flyers at grocery stores near the school and put them on car windshields. Several schools have developed Web pages containing information about FCAT, practice tests, and important dates.
Strategy #10: Changing School Leadership Style
Florida principals now see themselves as instructional leaders; everything else is viewed as an irritating distraction from their responsibility for instruction. While the best leaders have always cared deeply about instruction, standards-based reform has mandated this change: Instructional leadership is now a professional survival strategy as well as the desirably central aspect of school leadership. It appears, however, that the A+ Program has driven many principals beyond instructional leadership to an all-consuming preoccupation with academic achievement. For many leaders, nothing matters as much as FCAT; for a few, nothing else matters.
Many principals speak candidly about their need to balance the needs of the state, and its insistence on academic achievement at any cost, with their own beliefs about education and what is developmentally appropriate for students. As a consequence, many factors related to achievement aspects of curriculum and instruction
( e.g., vision development, teacher training, teacher motivation, modeling important behaviors, an supporting teacher efforts to meet new expectations) have taken on new importance for school leaders.
In spite of all of these efforts, troubling questions remain. Is it possible that the majority of Florida teachers continue to rely on lecture, question/answer, and worksheets? Are the standards-based efforts undertaken in many schools so highly prescriptive and unimaginative that the best teachers in our schools are being driven away? How is standards-based reform influencing the quality of curriculum experiences encountered by students?
Many leaders note that they believe standards-based reform is deeply flawed and damaging to a developmentally appropriate education for their students. The most frequently mentioned concern -- a definition of school success that is exceedingly narrow. Test scores may go up in these classrooms, leaders argue, but they point out that, ironically, the academic quality may be going down. Another concern has to do with the tremendous pressure brought on principals, teachers, and students. Many, many principals report that teacher morale has never been lower, and stress has never been higher. In one school, a local hospital’s free comprehensive physical exams for teachers at its partner middle school determined that 60% of the teachers who were examined exhibited medically high levels of physical and emotional stress---and this was an A school!
Principals struggle with the perceived inequities of the standards-based reform. One administrator expressed it with this example from her district: “School 1 raised its students’ scores from the 18th to the 46th percentile, and got an ‘F’. School 2 raised its scores from the 51st to the 56th percentiles and got $80,000 in bonus money.” Another pointed to research that suggests that grades earned by schools in the A+ Program are directly correlated to aspects of socioeconomic status. One leader expressed his cynicism by asserting that FCAT test scores related more closely to square footage of homes in his school’s attendance area than anything else. Another, equally cynical, leader stated that test scores correlated more with the number of students in a school fitted with orthodontia than with other factors.
Some recent investigations sponsored by the state indicate that the results, at least in terms of academic achievement, have been positive, especially for students in previously low-achieving schools. Only the benefit of hindsight, provided by several years of experience with Florida’s standards-based reform will inform educators as to the total effects of the program on school leaders, their staff members, students, and parents. Eventually, we will all experience the consequences.