School principals are critical to students' academic achievement, second only to teachers. They are the primary agents of change in their schools, fostering supportive learning environments that enhance student learning and teacher effectiveness. Moreover, they often design and oversee the initiatives and hiring to sustain the positive changes…

Educator leadership requires continuous development, including extended professional learning opportunities for principals in the field. This is also true for district leaders who likely have even fewer robust opportunities to grow professionally. We conducted a comparative interrupted time series of publicly available student achievement data…

Principals shape the academic setting of schools. Yet, there is limited evidence on whether principal professional development improves schooling outcomes. Beginning in 2008-2009, Pennsylvania's Inspired Leadership (PIL) induction program required that newly hired principals complete targeted in-service professional development tied to newly…

Helping principals improve their leadership practices is a common use of federal funds and one way to improve instruction and student achievement. The study highlighted in this one page report sought to better understand the effectiveness of an intensive principal professional development program focused primarily on helping principals conduct…

This mixed-methods study was designed to determine the impact of attendance in the professional development series of the school leaders' organization for school leaders and leadership capacity in Tennessee public schools. The areas of focus of the study included leadership practices, instructional practices, and school culture as perceived by…

The four appendices in this report accompany the full report "The Effects of a Principal Professional Development Program Focused on Instructional Leadership. NCEE 2020-0002," (ED599489). They include: (1) The Study's Principal Professional Development Program; (2) Study Design, Data Collection, and Analytic Methods; (3) Supplemental…

This mixed-methods study was designed to determine the impact of attendance in the professional development series of the school leaders' organization for school leaders and leadership capacity in Tennessee public schools. The areas of focus of the study included leadership practices, instructional practices, and school culture as perceived by…

This mixed-methods study was designed to determine the impact of attendance in the professional development series of the school leaders' organization for school leaders and leadership capacity in Tennessee public schools. The areas of focus of the study included leadership practices, instructional practices, and school culture as perceived by…

Helping principals improve their leadership practices is a common use of federal funds and one way to improve instruction and student achievement. This study sought to better understand the effectiveness of an intensive principal professional development program focused primarily on helping principals conduct structured observations of teachers'…

For school districts in California, just as one set of revolutionary new content standards is beginning to feel familiar, another deep change is brewing. Districts have now had more than five years to wrestle with how they implement the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSS-M) (NGA Center & CCSSO, 2010). Many have made large-scale…

As NIET enters its 20th year, research continues to point to the effectiveness of NIET's support and the positive impact of investing in human capital. The Winter 2020 Research Summary captures both NIET's key long-term impact, shares promising results highlighting that the TAP System [The System for Teacher and Student Advancement] sustains…

This brief summarizes the findings of a recent study that examined whether adding results from teacher and student feedback surveys to one district's principal evaluation system strengthened the link between principals' evaluation ratings and their schools' achievement gains in math and reading. The study also examined whether certain subscales…

Gridley Unified School District serves just over 2,000 students across five schools in a small rural town in the upper Sacramento Valley. The median annual household income in Gridley is just over 60% of the state average. Gridley Unified is one of seven districts studied by researchers at the Learning Policy Institute in a mixed-methods study…

Sitting just north of the U.S.-Mexico border, the Chula Vista Elementary School District (CVESD) supports teaching and learning in California's largest elementary school system. Across its 47 schools, CVESD educators serve over 30,000 students each day, 90% of whom are students of color and over one third of whom are English learners. CVESD is one…

As a result of poor student performance, professional development has emerged as a key strategy for improving instruction and achievement. In times of reduced resources and increased accountability, schools must evaluate their efforts in order to make sound decisions about policy and practice. This mixed method study was designed to investigate…