Opportunities and Challenges in Illinois

Illinois’s principal reform journey is evidence that policy change and implementation take time. Even though it has been almost 10 years since the law passed, it is still too early to tell whether the reforms have achieved the goal of improving student learning. After all, it takes a few years to redesign programs, a few years for candidates to enroll and graduate, and sometimes years for them to be hired as a principal. To make evaluation more difficult, the 2016 implementation study by the Illinois Education Research Council and the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research found that “less than a quarter of programs report collecting any data on retention in principal or AP [assistant principal] positions, performance data for principals or APs who graduated from the program, or feedback from principal or AP supervisors,” let alone data on student outcomes.¹

In interviews for this report, stakeholders shared a general feeling that the reforms are on the right track. For example, Victor Simon, superintendent of schools in Gower School District 62, sees a cultural shift: “You used to be able to typecast a principal as a law and order keeper of rules with a whistle around their neck and a clipboard in hand. Now they are instructional leaders and are able to execute across a wide variety of elements linked to the school while building the capacity of their teachers.” And while Jason Leahy, executive director of the Illinois Principals Association, feels the reform was “a bit of an overcorrection,” he added, “I do think there’s more of a focus on what it takes to lead a learning organization now, versus what it takes to just manage one. It’s more than just making sure the buses run on time. There is more of a focus on continuous improvement.” The 2016 implementation study found that candidates are now “perceived as being stronger overall, more committed to careers in the principalship than those from previous programs.”²

Many stakeholders agree with the sentiment that preparation is now a “mile wide and an inch deep” and that programs have “so much ground to cover.”³ Not everyone thinks this is positive. According to Leahy, “We’re asking programs to do a lot that I think takes away from school leaders exploring more essential requirements.” Stephanie Bernoteit, deputy director for the Illinois Board of Higher Education, said, “While many see the value of the early childhood requirement, there are concerns about the content load and perceptions of prescriptiveness” of the reform.⁴

But Erika Hunt and Lisa Hood at ISU said programs “should reflect a realistic world. Principals don’t have to be deep experts in every area.” Sara Slaughter, who led McCormick’s involvement in this work agrees. “Not every principal needs to be an expert on every topic. But they all need basic knowledge, including child development,” she said.⁵ She likened it to all doctors needing to know how the cardiovascular system works even if they end up specializing in dermatology. Hunt and Hood feel that when it comes to early education, it is most important for principals to understand the complexity of early childhood funding, the alignment between grades, and the importance of early interventions.

“Not every principal needs to be an expert on every topic. But they all need basic knowledge, including child development.”

A challenge with implementing the new requirements has been that preparation programs and school districts are coming to this work from different starting points. For instance, faculty in many principal preparation programs do not have knowledge of early learning or child development. The McCormick Foundation’s LINC initiative has tried to address this by creating and sharing resources on how to incorporate this content into coursework.⁶ One solution LINC identified is to build relationships across university programs to take advantage of expertise. There may not be early education expertise among existing program faculty, but this expertise likely can be found elsewhere in the university. This aligns with the National Academies of Medicine recommendation in the 2015 Transforming the Workforce report to “build an interdisciplinary foundation in higher education for child development.”⁷ The report recommends that “institutions of higher education, including leadership, administrators, and faculty, should review and revise their programs, policies, and infrastructure so they support child development as a cross-departmental, cross-disciplinary foundation that feeds into specialized degree and certificate programs for multiple specific professional roles.” The report suggests that governments, grantmaking bodies, and accrediting agencies play a role in incentivizing institutions to do this work.

Another challenge with the early education requirement is that some districts do not have early education programs or they are consistently relying on the same few programs for internships and field experiences, which can be burdensome. In 2016, the Illinois School Leader Advisory Council, convened by ISBE and IBHE and funded by the McCormick and Wallace Foundations, released a five-year plan for successful implementation. One recommendation was to “determine geographic boundaries for school districts to access regional partnership ‘hubs’ to optimize and equalize resources throughout the state, including opportunities for principal candidates to access high-quality preparation programs.”⁸ This could enable more programs and districts to benefit from partnerships. Another option is for preparation programs to partner with community-based organizations or privately run early education classrooms.

Disparate resources across programs and school districts are aggravated by limited funding. The 2008 Illinois School Leader Task Force report said, “School districts will need varying levels of state funding to establish extended, supervised residencies for those principal aspirants who are not already in administrative roles that could serve as full-time, rigorously assessed residencies for as long as an academic year.”⁹ It also listed other aspects of the reform that would require more funding for institutions of higher education. Not only did districts and institutions receive no new state funding to support the redesign, but a two-year budget standoff in the state led to deep funding cuts for public universities.¹⁰ Hunt believes that part of the pushback from institutions is that many are struggling financially.

Institutions are also making less money from principal preparation programs since the reform. Enrollment in most programs has dropped substantially since 2010 because they now exclusively serve aspiring principals as opposed to leaders more broadly. “Before, some universities viewed their leadership programs more as cash cows. Now institutions really have to put in money and support to do it right. In some universities this is hard, and they are questioning the value of these programs,” said Hunt. Multiple people interviewed for this paper were concerned about an impending principal shortage as a result of the reforms.

Resource disparities can help explain why implementation has been inconsistent across programs. The 2016 implementation study concluded that “highly-engaged partnerships accrue significant benefits to both the program and the district partners, but they require substantial levels of investment in terms of funding, time, and personnel.”¹¹ Districts are not equally equipped to make such investments. As a result, the full-time, year-long residency like that offered at UIC is not the reality for the vast majority of candidates.

Additional funding, whether it comes from the district, the state, or external grants, may be key to ensuring that principal candidates across programs have meaningful internship experiences. Title II of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, which can be used to fund principal preparation and development, is a potential source that the state could tap.¹² Tozer said, “The challenge isn’t in learning how to do this in one program, although that is challenging. The real challenge is taking what we are learning and putting it to work at scale. We know how to create a successful school for low-income kids, and we know how to produce strong school leaders; the challenge is doing both of these at scale.”¹³ As of now, lacking resources stand in the way of scaling up best practices, which has implications for long-term impacts of the reform.

The 2016 implementation study found that programs were more likely to cover early childhood in both coursework and internships post-reform, but raised the important question of whether this coverage is sufficient. Analyzing the benefits and drawbacks of how and when early childhood is included is an important next step. For instance, is incorporating early childhood into a few courses sufficient? What aspects of early childhood are most critical for principals to know? Is one site visit to a pre-K program enough exposure for an aspiring high school principal? Or should all candidates be immersed in a variety of settings for an extended time? These are crucial questions on which the field does not have consensus.¹⁴

Another important discussion for state policymakers is determining where to include which content. Reaching principals through preparation is important, as it ensures that they have the knowledge and skills they need from day one on the job. But principal development cannot end there; it must continue throughout the principal pipeline. In an interview, Leahy said, “We are asking prep programs to do a whole bunch and cram it into a short period of time … some topics are better suited to mentoring, induction, and professional learning, especially technical aspects.” He suggested that early childhood may be better suited for another part of the pipeline. He said the state passed a bill in 2006 requiring principals be mentored for a year, “but it is contingent on state dollars. The law is on the books, but there is still no appropriation for that.”

While the 2016 implementation study found that early learning is now more incorporated into programs, it is not clear whether the connection between early learning and K–12 has strengthened in practice. Joyce Weiner, a key early education advocate on the state task force, said one goal of incorporating early learning was to “better connect principals with the communities that their children and families live in, encourage engagement with relevant community-based organizations, and have them think about supporting effective transitioning practices before children enter their building.” Bridging the relationships between early childhood programs and K–12 more broadly, not just equipping principals to lead pre-K classrooms in their buildings, was also a clear goal for the McCormick LINC Advisory Group.¹⁵ This is an area for further exploration, whether by institutions of higher education or policymakers.