Takeaways for States Looking to Strengthen Principals as Early Learning Leaders

According to Erika Hunt and Lisa Hood at ISU, other states interested in reforming principal preparation have contacted them for assistance. However, they have yet to work with another state committed to incorporating early education into principal preparation, despite the fact that many states are investing time and money to improve their early learning systems. As states pursue reform in both school leadership and early education, they should look for opportunities to align these efforts. Here are a half-dozen takeaways from Illinois’s experience:

• Seat the right stakeholders at the table. Those leading this effort in Illinois included a variety of voices throughout the process. Ensuring that leaders across fields, including institutions of higher education, school districts, state government, advocates, philanthropic organizations, and practitioners were involved in multiple steps of the process helped get buy-in. Early education experts were given multiple opportunities to weigh in on the reforms. The fact that two state agencies, ISBE and IBHE, led this effort gave legitimacy and urgency to the issue. Illinois’s experience is evidence that states have the power to convene key stakeholders and the leverage to improve the quality of school leadership.
• Invest in order to scale up successful reforms. Illinois required programs and districts to make substantial reforms without additional state funding, exacerbating disparities in implementation. Districts with the ability to fund full-time internships can ensure their incoming principals have meaningful real-world leadership experience. In Illinois, grants from committed foundations were essential to guiding reform, supporting redesign efforts, and evaluating implementation in the absence of state investment. State funding should be used to incentivize best practices. The state could also choose to allocate federal funding in this direction, such as through Title II of the Every Student Succeeds Act¹ or Title II of the Higher Education Act,² both of which can be used for principal preparation.
• Monitor implementation progress. Illinois passed legislation almost a decade ago, but efforts to improve implementation are ongoing. For example, the McCormick Foundation made numerous investments to aid programs in the redesign process, including with the LINC initiative that helped institutions incorporate early education into their programs. The Wallace Foundation and McCormick Foundation also funded implementation studies to evaluate what is working and what stakeholders can do differently.³

  A continuous improvement mindset at both the state and program level are essential to achieving the long-term goal of preparing principals to support student success. UIC’s Steve Tozer said, “All of us have to work together to support the state in making this effort in high-quality principal prep because we are learning how to do this as we go.” UIC is one of the few programs that has been diligent about collecting student outcome data. Programs should be regularly evaluating and making changes to improve their quality, which requires better data, specifically on graduate outcomes.⁴

• Facilitate and encourage program partnerships with early education programs. To expand exposure to early childhood education, the state can support those responsible for coordinating internship opportunities and site visits in partnering with high-quality community-based programs. This would lessen the burden on school-based pre-K programs in districts with few classrooms, as well as help build connections across the birth-through-third-grade continuum. While it may require interagency collaborations, states can play a role in identifying high-quality programs for aspiring principals to visit. In the same vein, states can take steps to strengthen the relationships between early education programs and elementary schools more broadly so that teaching and learning are aligned. For example, the state of Illinois has created a Kindergarten Transition Advisory Committee to explore how schools can support children’s transition to kindergarten. Its framework includes recommendations related to principals as early learning leaders.⁵
• Incorporate early education throughout the principalship. All incoming principals should begin their jobs prepared to lead all staff and students in their charge. However, principals continue to need support and opportunities for development throughout their careers. On-the-job training allows them to hone in on the knowledge and skills specific to the population they are serving, such as young children. ISU has worked to integrate early education into the Illinois Principal Administrator Academies, a professional development opportunity offered throughout the state.
• Acknowledge that individual policies do not stand alone. In interviews for this report, numerous stakeholders mentioned how shifts at the national and state levels to prioritize the early years impacts leaders’ understanding of early education. Joyce Weiner from The Ounce explained that implementation of the Kindergarten Individual Development Survey (KIDS), a uniform statewide kindergarten entry assessment, helped focus administrators’ attention on pre-K and kindergarten. Superintendent Victor Simon said that when he became an elementary principal, the state accountability system for pre-K programs helped him to learn about best practice. He said, “ISBE audits pre-K programs and sends the school leader a report that details what it is looking for. I found that to be really helpful from a leadership perspective in terms of being able to compare to what was in place and what was expected.” Principal Apryl Lowe said her district added early childhood education as a “pillar of focus,” sending the message to educators, principals included, that the early years deserve their attention. Principals’ knowledge and priorities are impacted by countless policies beyond preparation requirements, and as a result there are numerous ways to expose principals to the importance of early childhood education.

While Illinois’s commitment to incorporating early education into principal preparation is unique, other initiatives exist throughout the country to ensure that elementary school principals are better equipped to support teachers of young children. To show how other policymakers are thinking about these challenges, New America released a blog series in June, “Building Early Education Leaders: A Closer Look at How States and Districts are Equipping Principals to Support Young Learners.” This series explores how two states and one district are investing in on-the-job professional learning around early education.⁶