RAND Study: Top District Officials Nationally Agree on Importance of School Leadership and Strengthening Principal Pipelines

Taking Stock of Principal Pipelines: What Public School Districts Report Doing and What They Want to Do to Improve School Leadership

School district chiefs believe effective school leadership is key to improving education and many report their districts have elements of a comprehensive principal pipeline in place, but only about half are satisfied with the pool of candidates in their principal pipelines, according to this first-of-its-kind national survey.

Top-ranking administrators in large and medium-size school districts overwhelmingly agree that principals are central to school improvement, and they say their districts have put in place some features of a comprehensive and aligned principal pipeline. Still, only about half are satisfied with the diversity and competencies among the pool of candidates for the principal job. Those are three major conclusions from a RAND Corporation report commissioned by The Wallace Foundation and released this month.

The report, Taking Stock of Principal Pipelines: What Public School Districts Are Doing and Want to Do to Improve School Leadership, draws its findings from a first-of-its-kind national survey about the status of principal pipelines in school districts with 10,000 or more students. The study follows a groundbreaking 2019 report by RAND of six large districts that developed robust principal pipelines and then saw substantial reading and math benefits for students.

Comprehensive and aligned principal pipelines as defined by Wallace consist of seven major elements that are linked to one another: rigorous leader standards, high-quality pre-service preparation, selective hiring and placement, on-the-job evaluation and support through coaching and mentoring, principal supervision, data systems to track leaders' careers, and systems to sustain the pipeline.

Many of the 175 districts included in the survey already had some elements in place, according to the respondents. All districts had principal supervisors, and more than three-quarters had leader standards, principal evaluations tied to those standards, and coaching for all first-year principals. Far fewer had other pipeline elements or key aspects of them, such as principal hiring from talent pools. There was broad interest among leaders in strengthening their pipelines.

Moreover, 90 percent of respondents said their district's goals, strategic plans or initiatives tied school leadership to school improvement. At the same time, only 49 percent said they were either satisfied or very satisfied with the principal candidate pool in terms of demographic background and competencies. The findings are consistent with an earlier market research study that found wide agreement about the importance of principals.

To read the full report, click here.