School Autonomy and District Support: How Principals Respond to a Tiered Autonomy Initiative in Philadelphia Public Schools

ABSTRACT

A tiered autonomy policy was recently implemented in Philadelphia, where select principals were granted autonomy to manage school operations while others were promised greater district support to improve school functioning. This article provides evidence on how principals used their autonomy and the extent of district support for non-autonomous principals. Principals granted greater autonomy were more likely to change teacher professional development and curriculum and instructional strategies, while principals with longer tenures and more leadership training were more likely to implement organizational changes. Non-autonomous principals reported a misalignment between school and district priorities and limited district support for improving school functioning.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Laura Desimone and Sigal Ben-Porath for comments on earlier versions of this article and the School District of Philadelphia for providing the principal survey data for use in this paper.

Notes

^1. Other researchers (e.g., Grissom & Loeb, 2011; Robinson et al., 2008) suggest other categorizations of leadership practices, also referred to as dimensions. The categories used by different researchers do not align neatly with one another. We chose the categories used by Leithwood et al. (2008) because they are intended to capture the various dimensions used in many studies of school leadership.

^2. The School Performance Index (SPI) is a composite of five indicators. The SPI composite score is a discrete ranking from 1–10, inclusive of all indicators. The indicators include: (1) student academic progress—individual student annual growth on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA); (2) student academic achievement—based on the percent of students who are proficient (e.g., performing at Pennsylvania standard) on the PSSA, the percent of students who are below basic (crediting schools for helping move students out of the lowest level of proficiency), and the achievement gap (crediting schools for reducing the SDP’s ethnic achievement gap); (3) post-secondary readiness (for high schools only)—based on the graduation rate, ninth-grade on-track rate, SAT participation, and college enrollment; and (4) student attendance (used by the SDP as a measure of academic engagement) and (5) parent, student and teacher satisfaction (based on SDP survey results). Source: School District of Philadelphia, retrieved from http://webgui.phila.k12.pa.us/offices/a/accountability/school-performance-index-spi.

^3. The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) requires that schools, based on their adequate yearly progress (AYP) status under the No Child Left Behind Act, complete a school improvement plan.

^4. Potential turnaround models include the in-house model (i.e., district-managed turnaround schools, called Promise Academies), partnership with a Full Autonomy school, oversight by an education management organization, partnership with a community organization, an external turnaround model (managed by the Renaissance Charter Schools network), or charter school conversion (Nixon, 2012).

^5. Additional details about student achievement and disciplinary infractions, by a school’s autonomy status, are available from the authors upon request.

^6. Section One of the survey included questions about the principal’s school’s level of autonomy, current position, previous position, where she/he worked in the previous school year, number of years spent teaching, highest degree earned, number of years as a principal, number of years as an assistant principal, race/ethnicity, gender, year first became a principal, year became of principal at current school, and age. Section Two of the survey addressed principal attitudes by asking the extent to which they agree or disagree with the following statements: (a) Most of the time I feel satisfied with my job, (b) I feel responsible for making the school successful, (c) I feel good about my continuing career as an educator in Philadelphia, (d) My success or failure as a principal is due primarily to factors beyond my control, (e) I have been too busy dealing with other requirements to give curricular issues the attention they deserve, and (f) I feel loyal to the School District of Philadelphia. Section Three of the survey addressed the level of autonomy principals experienced by asking, “How much actual influence do you think you have on decisions concerning the following activities at your school this year?” The activities included the following: (a) Establishing curriculum and instructional programs, (b) Creating discipline and safety policies, (c) Determining the content of in-service professional development programs for teachers, (d) Deciding how your school budget will be spent, and (e) Organizing the school calendar. Returning principals were asked to compare the amount of influence they had in each of these categories to the amount of influence they had held during the previous school year at the same school. Section Four of the survey included questions about how many hours per week the principal works; how this time is allocated among various activities (Curriculum, Instructional leadership, Student discipline/safety, Teacher professional development, Budget, Schedule/calendar, Personnel [hiring, evaluation, etc.], Central and Region/Area Offices [meetings, task forces, etc.], Working with parents and community, Operational tasks [e.g. student transportation, maintenance], Other: _____); and for returning principals, whether the time allocated to each activity is more, the same, or less than the time spent in that activity during the previous school year. This section also included questions asking if, for each activity type above, the principal made changes from the previous year. For each “yes” response, a free-response section asked principals to explain the changes they made. Section Five of the survey asked principals the extent to which they agree or disagree with the following statements as they relate to their school: (a) Central Office priorities are consistent with this school’s priorities, (b) Often I find it difficult to agree with Central Office policies and procedures, (c) The policies and procedures of the Central Office help address important needs at my school, and (d) The Central Office does not interfere with our ability to make important decisions at this school. Items asked the extent to which each principal agreed or disagreed with the follow statements: The Central Office… (a) Respects local decision-making, (b) Clearly communicates its priorities, (c) Supports local innovation, (d) Is an impediment to this school’s improvement efforts, (e) Creates mandates without providing adequate support, and (f) Helps us get the resources we need. Items asked the extent to which each principal agreed or disagreed that the “Central Office provides quality support” in each of the following areas: (a) Establishing curriculum and instructional programs, (b) Creating discipline and safety policies, (c) Determining the content of in-service professional development programs for teachers, (d) Deciding how your school budget will be spent, and (e) Organizing the school calendar. In this section, returning principals were asked three free-response questions about how the support the Central Office provided this year differed from previous years, what they found most helpful about the Central Office’s support this year, and how they think the Central Office can improve the type of support it provides principals in future years. Section Six of the survey addressed principals’ feelings about the impact that teacher turnover and retention have on their school’s success by asking the extent to which they agree with each of the following statements: (a) Teacher turnover impacts my school’s success, and (b) Teacher retention is essential to my school’s success.

^7. Some SDP principals did not attend or were excused from the May 22, 2013 meeting, so the total number of principals (223) is less than the district total (of 239 principals).