Accountability, autonomy and stress: principal responses to superintendent change in a large US urban school district

Abstract

This study investigates how principals in a large US urban school district responded to two different superintendents who employed contrasting leadership styles and utilised divergent organisational schemes. We originally conducted interviews with principals in 2007, when the district's superintendent asserted fierce performance demands and limited principals’ site-based discretion in favour of protecting and exerting central office power. We conducted interviews again in 2013 after a new superintendent had relaxed school test score expectations and distributed the central office's previously tight, centralised control into largely self-directing sub-regions. Our findings demonstrate that superintendent change noticeably affected how principals understood and encountered accountability, autonomy and stress. To help make sense of our findings, we employ a three-part conceptual framework drawn from the study of educational leadership. We conclude by considering implications, including the notion that unrelenting stress has become a permanent part of the modern urban US principalship.

Keywords:

• leadership
• management
• principal autonomy
• principal accountability
• principal stress

Notes on contributors

Deborah L. West is an Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership at Eastern Kentucky University. She has served as an Assistant Editor and is currently on the Review Board of the Journal of School Leadership. Her research investigates topics related to school leadership, school change, equity in education, and rural communities. Her publications have appeared in the Journal of School Leadership, Education and Urban Society, Education Leadership Review, and Educational Administration Quarterly.

Craig M. Peck is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He is a former high school principal, and he has served as an Assistant Editor of Education Leadership Review and as an Editorial Review Board Member for the Journal of School Leadership. His research examines principals, school change, and the history of educational reform. He has published in journals such as American Educational Research Journal, Educational Administration Quarterly, Phi Delta Kappan, and Urban Education.

Ulrich C. (Rick) Reitzug is a Professor of Educational Leadership at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he also serves as Chair of the Department of Educational Leadership & Cultural Foundations. His research investigates democratic education and topics related to school-based leadership. He is a former editor of the Journal of School Leadership and has also served as an Associate Editor for Educational Administration Quarterly. His publications have appeared in the American Educational Research Journal, Educational Administration Quarterly, Education and Urban Society, Educational Leadership, and other journals.

Elizabeth A. Crane recently earned her Ed.D in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from Eastern Kentucky University where she is currently an adjunct professor. She has served in secondary schools for 25 years as principal, assistant principal, dean of students, department chair, teacher, and coach. Her research interests include school site leadership and student achievement, mathematics education, and teacher evaluation.