catalyst-chicago.org

A comprehensive report released on Monday found changing demographics and new reform laws will require school districts to provide principals with new kinds of support and training if they want principals to successfully implement new reform laws and boost student achievement.

"The Principal Report: The State of School Leadership in Illinois" was compiled by the Illinois Education Research Council, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. It makes recommendations to help the Illinois public school officials secure and retain high quality principals. “Although principals play a vital role as school leaders, most research to date has focused on how teachers affect student learning rather than on the role of principals," said Brad White, a senior researcher with the IERC. The report, covering 3,600 Illinois public schools principals also found:

The average age of principals is decreasing, due to a retiring baby boom generation. The proportion of female principals doubled between 1990 and 2008, and more women than men have led Illinois schools since 2005. The number of minorities serving as principals is also growing. Nevertheless, principals outside of Chicago and its suburbs still tend to be largely white and male. Principals who earned master’s or doctoral degrees from more academically rigorous institutions tended to work in schools with higher student achievement and helped to recruit teachers who also had stronger academic backgrounds. (Press release)

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has made principal recruitment, training and evaluation a centerpiece of his overhaul of Chicago Public Schools and has secured $5 million in private donations to help boost salaries for the city's best-performing principals. Emanuel said he secured the $5 million in principal performance bonuses from four prominent philanthropic families that have been active in education reform efforts: $2 million from Bruce and Diana Rauner; $1 million from Eric Lefkofsky, co-founder and executive chairman of Groupon, and his wife, Elizabeth Lefkofsky; $1 million from Paul and Mary Finnegan; and $1 million from Penny Pritzker, a CPS board member, and her husband, Bryan Traubert. (Tribune)

Read Catalyst's report on the principal merit pay announcement here and the Sun-Times story here.

The security director at Chicago Public Schools has resigned to return to the Chicago Police Department, officials with CPS and police said. Michael Shields joined the school district as director of security in 2009. (Tribune)

In the state

Gov. Pat Quinn signed a new law today authorizing school officials to give an epinephrine shot to any student who is suffering a severe allergic reaction. (Trib Local)

In the nation

With several other Western states also rebelling against the requirement that 100 percent of American students be proficient in English and math by 2014, some education officials and experts see signs that years of federal dominance of public school accountability may be drawing to a close. (The New York Times)

A Denver judge has granted a motion to halt the Douglas County voucher pilot pending further court action, a ruling that could send hundreds of students back to district schools. (Education Week)

A judge in Ohio's Franklin County ordered major GOP donor and charter-school operator David L. Brennan to turn over a detailed accounting of how his for-profit management company spends the millions of tax dollars it receives each year. (The Columbus Dispatch)

The gulf in academic achievement separating public schools in D.C.'s poorest neighborhoods from those in its most affluent has narrowed slightly in some instances but remains vast, an analysis of 2011 test score data show. (The Washington Post)