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New report finds, 'An effective principal’s impact is stronger and broader than previously thought'

 

April 1, 2021

The Wallace Foundation recently released How Principals Affect Students and Schools: A Systematic Synthesis of Two Decades of Research.

In announcing this release, it is noted:

This groundbreaking synthesis of research on school principals finds that effective principals have positive impacts on student achievement and attendance, as well as teacher satisfaction and retention. Among key findings and recommendations:

  • Studies using new data and methods show that the importance of principals may not have been stated strongly enough in earlier work, given the magnitude and scope of principals’ impacts on students and schools.
  • A principal in the 75th percentile of effectiveness yields an increase in student learning in reading and math of about three months, nearly as much as the four months of increased learning generated by a teacher at the 75th percentile, but across an entire school. The principal’s effects on students are largely indirect, coming in good measure through teachers, with the principal influencing factors including teacher hiring and development as well as the conditions for sound learning.
  • Evidence links four domains of principal behaviors to positive outcomes for students and schools—and they include but go beyond engagement with instruction.
  • The principalship needs continued reorientation toward educational equity.
  • Given the strength and scope of the impact of an effective principal, investing in successful strategies is likely to have a very large payoff.
  • We need renewed attention to supporting a high-quality principal workforce.​

The report serves as a wide-ranging update to a landmark 2004 literature review, How Leadership Influences Student Learning, which helped establish the importance of principals after concluding that school leadership was second only to classroom instruction in school-related impacts on student learning. Both reports were commissioned by The Wallace Foundation.