The Education Gadfly Weekly

For the first decade of Fordham’s existence, starting in 1997, reviewing state academic standards was our bread and butter, but the pattern always seemed to be the same: A few states had done a commendable job of identifying the knowledge and skills—grade by grade—that their students needed to master to be on track for success after high school. But most state standards were horrendous—poorly written, disorganized, incomplete, and replete with dubious ideas. All that began to change in 2010, when we reviewed the final drafts of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Our State of State Standards—and the Common Core—in 2010 found that the CCSS were clearer and more rigorous than the English language arts (ELA) standards in thirty-seven states and stronger than the math standards in thirty-nine. Naturally, we encouraged those states to adopt the CCSS instead of starting from scratch.

But as readers know, by 2013 the country was engulfed in a full-fledged culture war over the Common Core, with a loose coalition of populist conservatives teaming up with educational progressives in a push to dump the standards and vanquish testing. Some states responded by “un-adopting” the Common Core; others tweaked, renamed, or rebranded them. In the end, the Common Core, as reviewed (and lauded) by us, was not very common.

So we find ourselves, once again, commissioning reviews of state ELA and math standards. The result is our new report, The State of State Standards Post-Common Core.

This turned out to be worth doing because even the most steadfast states have room for improvement. No matter how good they are, every state’s academic standards need to be updated periodically to reflect the latest advances in content and pedagogy, as well as lessons learned during their implementation. So the overarching goal of the present report is to provide helpful guidance to states as they look to update and improve their standards in the years ahead.

Because many states retained the Common Core (or a variant thereof), this report—unlike our previous state-standards reviews—does not formally review standards in all fifty states. Instead, it focuses on the states that have made the most substantive changes to the Common Core ELA and math standards, as well as those that never adopted them. In ELA, that led us to fourteen states; in math, to ten. By taking a close look at their current standards, plus a fresh look at the CCSS, we seek to identify those changes and ideas that are worthy of broader adoption, as well as mistakes to avoid.

With those ends in mind, we assembled two teams of highly respected subject-matter experts—one for ELA and one for math—with deep knowledge of the content standards in their respective fields. The teams worked independently, so their paths inevitably diverged, and we advise against comparisons between or across the two subjects. Ultimately, what matters most is where states go from here—and what they do with the information and recommendations in the report.

We assessed standards on a ten-point scale and assigned each set one of four labels: strong, good, weak, or inadequate. For the most part, we reviewed the officially adopted state standards and didn’t include supplemental documents that may accompany them. Although the latter may be quite helpful to teachers, they typically run hundreds of pages and include innumerable links, making it impossible to review them in sufficient detail.

In the end, no set of ELA or math standards received a perfect score, but the Common Core earned 9 out of 10 in each subject, reflecting the consensus among our reviewers that they are still a generally “strong” set of standards that states can and should continue to implement.

Texas, a “never-adopter” of CCSS, also had math standards deemed “strong.” Another three states—Indiana, Tennessee, and Virginia—earned “good” ratings in that subject. Seven did the same in ELA: Indiana, Kansas, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Of the standards in this latter group, our reviewers found Indiana’s to be particularly praiseworthy.

Further down the spectrum, five states earned overall scores of 5 or 6 in math or ELA, and were thus deemed to have “weak” standards: Minnesota, North Carolina, Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma for math; Arizona, South Carolina, Texas, Nebraska, and Tennessee for English language arts. Our reviewers recommend that these standards be significantly revised before educators and policymakers devote any more effort to their implementation. At the bottom, our reviewers judged Pennsylvania’s math standards “inadequate,” and reached the same conclusion for Missouri’s and Virginia’s ELA benchmarks. All three need a thorough overhaul.

After completing their reviews, our subject-matter experts identified positive and negative state trends in both subjects.

In reading, more states are prioritizing writing, including foundational writing skills such as printing, keyboarding, phonics, and spelling, and also emphasizing vocabulary development. Yet these positive developments are partially overshadowed by numerous persistent failings. For example, states have engaged in a marked retreat from rigorous quantitative and qualitative expectations for reading and for text complexity, a development that leaves educators in the dark about what types of texts students should be reading, and at what levels. And there’s a worrisome lack of standards showing how literacy skills extend beyond the English classroom into other disciplines such as history, science, and mathematics.

In math, reviewers identified several positive trends in state standards, all of them at least partly attributable to the enduring influence of the CCSS-M. There is, for instance, a stronger focus on arithmetic in grades K–5, more coherent treatment of key topics in middle school (including rates, ratios, and slope), and more appropriate balance among conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, and application.

All good. Yet, as indicated by the low scores that some states’ math standards received, there are exceptions to these trends. For example, some states do not explicitly require students to know their addition and multiplication facts from memory, while others make no mention of proficiency in the standard algorithms for the four major operations. Similarly, some states still have incoherent (or semi-coherent) middle school progressions that fail to make necessary connections between interrelated standards and topics.

The report offers specific recommendations for each state that was reviewed, as well as general advice, depending on whether a state kept the Common Core standards (or a close facsimile), or whether it markedly diverged or abstained from them. The former group tends to have stronger standards, and we recommend that they do three things going forward. First, focus on implementation, including subject-specific professional development. Second, undertake to address (carefully!) Common Core’s particular limitations in math and English language arts. And third, consider adopting specific enhancements that other states have made. California, for example, reorganized its high school math standards to be more concise and user-friendly. And Massachusetts added numerous examples in both subjects, making the standards easier to interpret.

For those states that made the most significant changes to the CCSS (or never adopted them), in nearly every case the simplest “fix” would be to adopt (or re-adopt) the Common Core. But because there’s little point in re-litigating that case, the individual reviews meet these states halfway by describing specific changes they could make to address the weaknesses in their current standards.

Our reviewers, as well as those of us at Fordham, believe that the Common Core standards have aged well. Still, we must remember that standards are only words on paper if they don’t inspire stellar instruction in the classroom. On that front, there is clearly much more to be done, as we have learned from various implementation studies, including Fordham’s own Reading and Writing in America’s Schools, published last month.

Confusion still reigns in too many places: Do the standards expect young students to learn history, science, and other subjects in order to become better readers? (Yes.) Do they require high school English teachers to ditch classic works of literature? (No.) Do they want young children to master their math facts? (Yes.)

The standards, we believe, are clear and on target, on these and other important points. But something is getting lost in translation. Fixing that problem is as urgent as ever.

Some authors get paid by the word. I’m so glad that I don’t. In mathematics, my field, a few words can describe a vast terrain. For standards there are four words that all evaluators, all policymakers, and all parents would do well to keep in mind: necessary but not sufficient.

This phrase means what you’d think. Suppose you want to paint a picture. You’ll need some paints, brushes, a canvas to paint on. They are each necessary. But they are certainly not sufficient. You need an idea, and you need skill. The raw ingredients are necessary—you can’t make a painting without them. But they are only the beginning. They are not enough to get the job done. They are not sufficient.

Standards too are necessary but not sufficient. Mathematics standards specify what material is to be taught: In sixth grade, students begin to learn about percentages, and they extend this knowledge in seventh grade. Since so many constructions in math depend on earlier ones (to work with percentages, you need to understand fractions), it really matters that things come in the right order. All sorts of educational decisions get rolled into the standards, and if they are done wrong, few teachers will be able to undo the damage.

But just having good standards is not enough. To make standards work, someone has to think about all the other ingredients that go into schooling. For math, that means communicating the standards in detail to teachers, finding good textbooks and other materials that follow the standards, supporting teachers in using them, designing good evaluation materials to be sure that kids are learning, and finding the expertise and resources to provide extra support for students who need it—such as students who did not learn prior material that reappears as the foundation for a new concept.

All these extra ingredients get mixed in with the standards themselves; they are not the standards, but they are related to them. This is part of why there has been such a vigorous national debate about standards. When a state asserts that kids should learn something in fifth grade, it’s reasonable to ask if they have done so. So testing enters the story (in fact, it is mandated by the U.S. Department of Education). Some policymakers, wanting to spend tax dollars wisely, then impose consequences for schools or teachers whose students don’t test well—though there is nothing in the standards telling them to do so. States might think it’s appropriate to require a certain level of achievement to graduate from high school. Schools and districts might or might not provide effective support for kids who are struggling. These are important educational policy decisions, sometimes made well, sometimes not, but all linked to the standards. Nonetheless, the standards do not tell you to test. They do not tell you to blame or reward. They tell you only what math a typical student needs to learn, at each grade level, to be well-prepared for college and career.

So when we evaluate math standards, we focus on the math content. Are the learning goals structured coherently? Are the most important topics given the most air time? Is there an intelligent balance among skills, understanding, and problem solving? If these elements are flawed, then it is time for changes. But once we have good standards, it is time to focus on something else—implementation.

What does it take to implement good math standards? The most important ingredient is clear: teachers. Teachers—who in each and every class make dozens of choices based on knowledge, observation, and experience—are the key to so much about student learning. They need the support of their communities, they need class sizes that are manageable in schools that are not falling apart, and they need support as teachers of mathematics. That is, math teachers need professional development that is specific to math, and they need the time to discuss student learning and approaches to teaching as a team of math teachers.

These content-specific kinds of support are critical. At the elementary school level, where many teachers are generalists (teaching English, math, science, and social studies), they need a deep knowledge of elementary math. Some of this is very specialized knowledge—for example, how to use student mistakes in ordering decimals to figure out what specific misunderstanding about decimals that student has. School districts should do more to provide cohesive ongoing support about math content. At the middle and high school levels, teachers are now being asked to teach more data and statistics. This requires training. And at all levels, teachers are being asked to do more to develop mathematical thinking, the kind of understanding that will allow kids to use math to handle a completely new problem. This requires sustained and content-based professional development, not a seminar on how to use a smart board or a lesson on kinds of student intelligence that is designed to appeal to all the teachers in a school.

Compared to top countries in math education, we are not doing nearly as much to enable another form of support: teachers supporting each other. Math teachers can form a professional learning community, in which they observe each other, plan lessons together, and discuss important aspects of pedagogy. These activities enable continuous teaching improvement, the sharing of good practices, discussions of the latest research, and on-going professional growth. But to participate in such a professional community, teachers need the time built into their workdays. Most of the countries that do the best on international comparisons provide this time, and so should we.

Good implementation requires real resources. So it is worthwhile to emphasize: Standards are only as good as the teachers, curricular materials, and school systems that implement them. Math can be taught merely as a bunch of arcane rules for solving different types of problems, or as a coherent set of concepts, skills, and reasoning that allow students to analyze today’s problems—and tomorrow’s. Getting to the latter, as envisioned by the best standards, requires people and institutions working together.

With its wide economic impact, investing in implementation is one of the wisest investments in our nation’s future that we can make. Indeed, research demonstrates a strong relationship between students’ math achievement and their subsequent earnings, while there is a clear link at the national level between math performance and GDP. And with data playing such an important role in everything from science to business, quantitative skills are becoming ever more important. For our nation to stay strong, we need to graduate more highly prepared math students than ever. The key to doing so is to invest in implementation.

As my coauthors and I document in Fordham’s new report, The State of State Standards Post-Common Core, the quality of state math standards still varies. But our findings are mostly encouraging—many states now have strong standards, standards that are suitable as the foundation for a high-quality K–12 math curriculum. In these states, further modifications of the standards would have at most a minor effect on student learning, and should not be a priority. Instead, we should remember that good paints alone are not enough to guarantee a good picture. Though good math standards are necessary, they are not sufficient to guarantee that our schools will graduate students who are well-prepared for today’s quantitative world. For the states with high-quality standards, it is time for our educational and political leaders to focus on their implementation.

Back in the 1930s, Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney always seemed to be putting on a show. They were going to be sent to a farm to work for the summer in Babes in Arms, but they wanted to go to Broadway instead—and they did!

I love that whole idea of Judy and Mickey with their teenage backs to the wall, singing and dancing their way to success (and into our hearts). Younger folks might prefer a more recent analogy—like Footloose—but then I’d have to be a younger blogger who is less than six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon.

I’m not the only one who appreciates the spunk and eventual success manifest in these films.

Just look at the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The idea was that American education was on the ropes, so let’s adopt high standards that will set college- and workplace-ready goals for U.S. schools and…

And hey, kids, let’s roll up those sleeves, dance and sing like crazy until the world is a better place and everyone can read and write well enough to learn and work and participate in our techno-centric civic and social life. Oh boy, I can’t wait for the big performance number at the end in which even the poorest kids get to raise their voices to show that they can read well, too. MGM would be very proud.

Unless they read the new report released this week by the Thomas Fordham Foundation, Reading and Writing Instruction in America’s Schools by David Griffith and Ann M. Duffett.

In 2012, Fordham surveyed America’s English language arts (ELA) teachers to determine what their CCSS-relevant instructional practices were. (That was when CCSS was first issued.) Now, eight years after wide adoption of these standards, they've surveyed teachers again.

Whether you think the education system is as audacious, exuberant, entertaining, and successful as Mickey and Judy (or Kevin) depends on which part of the report you read.

Sure, there are more teachers teaching reading with expository text and narrative non-fiction. There has also been an increase in the teaching of vocabulary. And more teachers are asking kids to support their answers with evidence from the texts. (Thank you, CCSS.)

But those were the simple shifts. America’s schools were already increasing exposition and vocabulary teaching in the reading curriculum during the decade leading up to CCSS, and asking kids to show where their answers were coming from is a pretty simple adjustment. (The first reading class I took in 1969 stressed that, too, so it’s not exactly revolutionary.)

What about some of the more challenging CCSS-inspired shifts? Teaching with complex text, having kids write about content, using ELA instruction to build kids’ cultural literacy and domain knowledge? Let’s just say that Judy and Mickey wouldn’t have been happy with our efforts. They’d be plowing and milking this summer instead of dancing and singing.

As Shakespeare wrote, “the problem is not in our stars but in ourselves.” In this case, the problem is not in our standards, but in our implementation.

Are teachers more focused on content writing (that is, having kids write about historical, social, and scientific ideas), or are they having kids write about personal stuff and what they already know? According to the report, teachers have doubled down on the personal at the expense of academic writing. (The report doesn’t give a sense that teachers have exactly embraced the idea of kids learning a lot about their world from reading, either, it is fair to note; in fact, they themselves expressed the need for more attention to that).

How about reading classical literature (the so-called “literary canon,” whatever that is these days)? Less, not more, according to the survey.

How about teaching kids to negotiate the complexity of grade level texts? Even more emphasis, according to the report, on teaching students with relatively easy texts that shouldn’t require much teaching. (Forty-two percent of the teachers were concerned that if you exposed kids to grade level texts, they’d just be discouraged.)

Judy Garland once sang about a place “Over the Rainbow” where “dreams really do come true.”

Sadly, our literacy dreams have not come true. We put on a show, and nobody came.

This isn’t surprising. Teaching is hard—even harder than putting on a good show.

There is only one thing that raises literacy levels: students’ academic experiences.

If you want to see higher levels of literacy, then you should increase the amount of teaching that kids receive (and the amount of reading and writing that we enage them in).

You need to make sure those academic experiences are focused on things that actually improve reading achievement, like phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, comprehension, writing, and content knowledge—rather than teaching test-question types).

Finally, you need to make sure that the teaching students receive is as efficient and powerful as it can be by teaching with books that are hard enough to present opportunities to learn and making sure kids—and teachers—understand the purposes of lessons.

The standards movement labors under a theory that postulates school achievement will improve if we adopt high learning goals, then align tests with those goals. Teachers will see those goals and be frightened enough by those tests that they’ll teach kids to read more successfully.

Past generations—you know, the ones that raised American literacy levels (Kaestle has described very steady growth in American literacy from 1776 until the 1970s when things stalled)—weren’t quite that fancy. They did crazy things like increase the amount of schooling that kids received, or brought populations into school that had not been enrolled previously. They increased the education levels of teachers. And they increased supports for them to teach well (look at the changes in reading textbooks in the 1930s, for instance).

If you want to raise reading achievement, kids will have to read more demanding texts. But that means teachers will need to know why that is and how to prepare them for and support them in reading those texts, instead of how to avoid such instruction. Kids aren’t necessarily discouraged by challenging text, but they are often insulted by the below-grade-level substitutes that teachers use in the place of such text.

If you want reading levels to rise, you’ll have to make sure that what kids are reading, and what they are doing with the texts they read, increases their knowledge of history and science and our literary culture.

Standards can only be a start.

States were wise to adopt such high standards. I just wish they would have matched that wisdom with an equal commitment of the energy and resources needed to implement them well.

Countries that have raised literacy achievement have adopted higher standards, but then they aligned their entire instructional system to those higher standards: instructional materials, tests, professional development, teacher and principal education, and parent and media expectations. Now that really can work.

Or you can put on a show… It worked for Judy and Mickey.

On this week's podcast, literacy expert Tim Shanahan joins Robert Pondiscio and David Griffith to discuss his review of states’ English language arts standards for Fordham’s new report, “The State of State Standards Post-Common Core.” On the Research Minute, Amber Northern examines the results of the 2018 Education Next poll.

Amber’s Research Minute

Albert Cheng et al., “Public Support Climbs for Teacher Pay, School Expenditures, Charter Schools, and Universal Vouchers: Results from the 2018 EdNextPoll,” Education Next (Winter 2018).

The simple phrase “college- and career-ready,” tossed around with abandon by education reformers and policymakers, hides a complicated reality. What does it mean to emerge from high school career-ready? The idea of linking high school more closely to career entry regularly resurfaces in reform circles, from the “life adjustment” movement of the 1950’s and the School-to-Work emphasis of the 1990s to today’s debates on career and technical education (CTE). Many reformers have long been fascinated with various apprenticeship systems, most evident in central Europe. Yet youth apprenticeship has never really thrived in America. A December 2017 report from Brent Parton of New America explores why—and looks to the future. Parton concludes that pushback against a one-size-fits-all approach to college enrollment, combined with employers’ growing need for skilled workers, may mean the time is right for youth apprenticeship finally to flourish in America.

Parton bases his findings on four sources of information: a review of literature; a scan of youth apprenticeship programs nationwide, particularly major state-led initiatives; interviews with experts and practitioners; and focus groups. The latter, conducted by the Farkas Duffett Research Group in Charlotte and Denver, aimed to assess the feelings of young adults, high school students, and their parents toward apprenticeship. Participants discussed their initial reactions to the idea of apprenticeship, as well as their feelings about specific program components.

Central to the programs, and perhaps also their greatest challenge, is the need for collaboration: Parton’s four-part definition of youth apprenticeship includes responsibilities shouldered by employers, high schools, a postsecondary partner, and a coordinating intermediary individual or organization. Students should begin the paid apprenticeship in high school and continue working for several years afterward while completing a related postsecondary credential, emerging prepared not for one job, but broadly qualified for successful employment in some industry or career path, with credits that can be applied toward further postsecondary education.

Focus groups demonstrated that this transferability is vital to the appeal of such programs. Those discussions highlighted college’s place as the accepted sequel to high school, but also revealed generally positive reactions to the idea of apprenticeship, particularly among high school students and young parents, who didn’t associate apprenticeship with blue-collar work like older participants. However, people’s interest hinged on key details, mainly around the benefits to students: How would this expand their opportunities?

Parton also reflects on what is needed to turn youth apprenticeship into a robust element of American education. The key is more programs, of course, but also more interest, involvement, and investment from employers and postsecondary institutions. States are well-positioned to coordinate and incentivize this involvement, as shown by the successful state programs that Parton highlights, such as those in Colorado, Wisconsin, and North Carolina.

The report is limited by its nature: an overview produced by an organization that supports youth apprenticeship, not an academic study or neutral analysis. Youth apprenticeship programs are presented as inherently worthy—no noting of potential downsides—and student success is assumed. For example, the author details several statewide initiatives but doesn’t note their completion rates or the percentage of students actually attaining jobs or credentials. Moreover, using only focus groups (for which demographic details are not provided), rather than a more comprehensive survey, restricts the scope and reliability of the student and parent opinions presented.

Ultimately, the report finds, the “piecemeal” system of youth apprenticeships in the United States is the inevitable result of an approach that primarily puts the onus on high schools or employers to develop programs. Parton encourages policymakers instead to take the lead by outlining a vision for youth apprenticeship. The shared needs of the education system, students, and employers create many an opportunity, but without coherent policy frameworks at the state level, youth apprenticeship programs are likely to remain diffuse and dependent on local conditions.

SOURCE: Brent Parton, “Youth Apprenticeship In America Today: Connecting High School Students to Apprenticeship,” New America (December 2017).

In 2014, the Wallace Foundation launched a four-year, $24-million-dollar program called the Principal Supervisor Initiative (PSI). It was designed to help six urban districts transition from roles for principal supervisors that focused on administration, operations, and compliance to roles that focused on developing and supporting principals’ instructional leadership skills—which in turn could improve teacher instruction and student achievement.

The participating districts were Baltimore Public Schools, Broward County Public Schools, Cleveland Metropolitan School District, Des Moines Public Schools, Long Beach Unified School District, and Minneapolis Public Schools.

In July, the foundation published the first of three reports documenting implementation efforts and the effects of PSI. It examines efforts to implement PSI’s five core components from August 2014 through the spring of 2017 and is based on surveys of supervisors and principals, artifacts like job descriptions and training agendas, and data from semi-structured interviews with central office personnel, supervisors, and principals.   

The first component involved revising the job description of a principal supervisor to focus on supporting instructional leadership rather than compliance. Three districts—Baltimore, Broward, and Cleveland—had already begun significant revisions to the supervisor role prior to their involvement with PSI. The remaining districts started their revisions in conjunction with PSI. All six completed their revisions by the end of the program’s first year. Supervisors described their new roles as more proactive than reactive, and by 2017 they reported spending most of their time (63 percent) working directly with principals. However, districts found it challenging to reallocate administrative duties and to establish an appropriate balance for supervisors between central office responsibilities and time spent in schools.

Component two was reducing a supervisor’s span of control—the number of principals one was expected to oversee—so that they had more time to develop principals’ instructional leadership skills. Some districts achieved early reductions by hiring additional supervisors and changing how they were assigned to principals. Minneapolis, for instance, hired three new supervisors in year one and shifted from a regional assignment model to one based on grade level. By the third year of the program, districts averaged twelve principals per supervisor, compared to seventeen before PSI. Budgetary constraints remained a challenge in this area, as many supervisors were forced to serve multiple roles for financial reasons.  

The third component was about training supervisors to strengthen their capacity to support principals. Districts typically prioritized high quality instruction and developing instructional leadership. Training on the former helped supervisors readily recognize effective teaching in various content and grade levels based on their district’s adopted frameworks. Training on instructional leadership development, meanwhile, focused on helping supervisors effectively communicate with their principals through coaching and feedback. In both areas, districts offered non-job-embedded approaches (like conferences) and job-embedded approaches (like one-on-one coaching). Surveys indicate that supervisors participated in an increased amount of development specifically dedicated to their revised roles: 80 percent reported role-specific training in spring 2017, compared to only 61 percent in the fall of 2015. Additionally, PSI allocated funding for districts to hire external technical assistance providers. Supervisors reported that these providers added significant value to their training, and when providers reduced their involvement, the quality of trainings and coaching decreased.     

PSI’s fourth component called for districts to develop systems for identifying and training new supervisors. Three districts developed and implemented fully functioning development or apprenticeship programs: Cleveland’s Aspiring Network Leaders program, Broward’s Director Intern Program, and Long Beach’s Aspiring Directors Program. Each used rigorous selection and field experiences. District leaders reported that program completers were more prepared than new supervisors prior to the start of PSI. Unfortunately, time constraints were a significant challenge: In both Cleveland and Long Beach, apprentices completed their program while simultaneously serving as principals. The remaining three districts had not yet implemented an identification and training program.

The fifth and final component of PSI involved strengthening central office structures to support and sustain changes to the supervisor role. All six districts housed supervisors within a single central office department, and most supervisors reported to a cabinet-level officer. Minneapolis, Broward, and Baltimore created new central office positions to absorb supervisors’ non-instructional duties, while Des Moines, Cleveland, and Long Beach relied on existing positions. To improve communication and coordination between supervisors and other departments, districts either assigned supervisors to support teams made up of representatives from other departments, or assigned them to be liaisons to other departments. Unfortunately, principals, supervisors, and central office staff in all six districts reported that certain departments remained “ill equipped or less willing” to support PSI and supervisors’ changed roles.

Overall, the daily work of principal supervisors in each of the six districts has changed significantly since the start of PSI. Principals report more productive relationships with their supervisors, and PSI implementation has led to substantial changes in central office systems. Significant challenges still remain, however, including the ongoing question of how to invest all central office departments in implementation. Districts also have their work cut out for them in terms of sustaining change and maintaining quality. The Wallace Foundation’s next two reports, which will examine how districts addressed ongoing challenges and how changes to the supervisor role affected principal performance, should offer some key additional insights into the PSI.

SOURCE: Ellen B. Goldring et al., “A New Role Emerges for Principal Supervisors: Evidence from Six Districts in the Principal Supervisor Initiative,” Vanderbilt University, Peabody College and Mathematica Policy Research (July 2018).