Lately, it seems that the education reform world is addicted to poorly researched and misleading reports. Most of these reports coming from think tanks pushing their agenda. Where's the critical thinking? Where's the scholarly, researched-based work to back up these miracle claims? It appears that facts aren't needed in the education reform world.
Just last week, there was the release of the National Bureau of Economic Research working paper on teacher value-added measures of teacher effectiveness. Because of sensational headlines, it caused much ado about nothing in a front page story from The New York Times.
Was it just another front page story that jumped to conclusions about another shoddy report?Who knows? The report hasn't been peer reviewed.
The Times seems to be specializing in this kind of reporting.
This week, Terry Orr, a professor at Bank Street College of Education, released a review of the Center for American Progress (CAP) report, Gateways to the Principalship: State Power to Improve the Quality of School Leaders.
Orr is a professor of educational leadership and has done extensive research in the field.
Her review was done as a part of the Think Twice think tank review project by the National Education Policy Center with funding from the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.
Orr’s review finds that the original CAP report makes several unproven claims and misleads readers. In fact, some of the suggested reforms have yet to be implemented.
The report ignores a large and well-developed body of research from the educational leadership preparation and leadership development fields.
Additionally, she finds fault with recommendations that states follow "leading" states as examples and make changes accordingly.
In the "leading" category, we [CAP] include some of the states that won the first two rounds of Race to the Top federal competitive grant program.
From the get-go, you can tell that their determination of "leading" isn't definable by objective standards. The RTTT federal competitive grant program was anything but objective.
Orr continues:
While the report argues that the leading states’ policies are the types that can improve student achievement scores, no evidence of any sort is presented to justify this claim. In fact, several policy examples are still under development and not yet enacted, so no outcome evidence would be possible.
Forgive me if I sound like a broken record: More unproven reforms.
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The CAP report begins with several problematic statements about the importance of effective principal leadership.
Successful schools that provide positive, productive, and vibrant teaching and learning environments do not occur by accident. Instead, the most effective schools are led by principals who are equipped with the skills and possess the attitudes required to be exceptional school leaders.
Research shows that principals account for a quarter of a school’s total impact on student learning. But this finding understates the full impact principals have because they play an essential role in hiring and developing teachers who account for the largest share of a school’s impact on student learning.
While a single effective teacher can have a major impact on a student’s achievement, this impact can "fade out" if that child is not taught by similarly effective teachers in subsequent years. The person best positioned to ensure consecutive years of effective teaching for a child—thus influencing a child’s overall academic achievement—is the principal.
Conversely, Orr finds:
While it would be difficult to disagree with some of these abstract recommendations, it is just as difficult to know what these diffuse characteristics mean in practice and whether they are necessary or preferable to other, possibly stronger, policy options.
School leadership and effective principals do make or break schools. Those of us who have worked in education long enough, have seen good ones and bad ones come and go. Unfortunately, finding good leaders is hard to predict or replicate, much less build a policy around.
The report [from CAP] concludes:
The good news is there is a growing research base that clearly defines the dispositions, skills, and knowledge needed for effective school leadership today. The disheartening news is that few educators are being measured against these criteria prior to becoming principals.
The bad news is that there is very little research provided for the report to be of any use to policymakers or anyone reading the report.
Orr writes:
Very little in the way of supporting data is presented to justify [the report’s] claims.
The report ends with a series of unsubstantiated conclusions and recommendations that are not well linked to the limited evidence provided earlier in the report.
In addition, the report’s recommendations incorrectly imply a general absence of policy and practice akin to these recommended approaches. In reality, most of the recommendations parallel existing reform efforts.
So in short this is another unproven report that isn't peer reviewed, doesn't provide adequate links to research, and makes grandiose claims about education reform. It seems, this report fits perfectly with the rest of the education reform papers being released lately.
Orr concludes, it [the report] merely "distracts from more relevant and potent policy strategies to improve leadership preparation."
So much can be made about good school leaders and their role in shaping the learning environment, it seems such a shame that education reformers keep making the same mistakes.
