Half of the criteria for financial bonuses will be based on higher student test scores. The other half will be based on qualitative information on how well a principal is running the school.

TESTING BACKLASH: CPS Parents at more than 30 schools around Chicago circulated petitions Wednesday demanding that schools scale back on standardized testing. (Catalyst)

PRINCIPAL RECRUITING: The $10 million Chicago Leadership Collaborative is training 75 principal candidates to be ready to take the helm at a school this fall. Yet CPS leadership is not quite sure how many job openings will be available. (Catalyst)

PARENTS AND ALDERMEN: Three Chicago aldermen are joining parents and community residents in a call to keep a Logan Square school open. Brentano Math and Science Academy is among more than 100 schools on a list for possible closing by Chicago Public Schools because it is considered “underutilized.” (WBEZ)

COMMUNITY MEETING: CPS will hold a community meeting on school utilization from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday at Our Lady of Peace Rectory, 7851 S.  Jeffrey Blvd.

IN THE STATE
STRIKE ENDS: Students of West Chicago Elementary School District 33 are due back in class Thursday morning after teachers came to a tentative agreement with the school board overnight. (Tribune)

DEAL REACHED: The Barrington 220 Board of Education and the Barrington Education Association have come to terms on a three-year deal, according to a joint statement released Wednesday. (Barrington Courier-Review)

IN THE NATION
EVALUATION HURDLES: School districts around the country are facing obstacles as they attempt to finalize new teacher evaluation systems in time for the 2013-14 school year. At least 30 states have passed laws requiring new evaluation systems, but many cities are experiencing pushback from teachers and unions, particularly on requirements to include student test scores as a part of a teacher’s rating. (Hechinger Report)

After a large number of principals retired last year, Chief Talent Officer Alicia Winckler says it is hard for her to predict how many will be leaving this year. She noted that she will know more about principal vacancies once decisions are made about which schools will be closed.

With schools closing and more than 450 candidates already on the eligibility list, the need for new candidates might not be clear--- but this year, when 159 principals left because of an expiring early retirement program, 25 local school councils couldn’t find a principal they wanted to hire. Catalyst reported on the collaborative, first announced last year by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, in its Fall 2012 issue of Catalyst In Depth.

On Wednesday, Winckler provided more information on the collaborative, one of five principal leadership initiatives touted Wednesday. The other four initiatives are new evaluations, mandated by the state and announced earlier this year; revamped support, including leadership development for new principals and targeted training for more experienced principals; a revamped eligibility process; and Principal Achievement Awards that will provide up to $20,000 for principals whose schools meet specific improvement criteria that are now tougher to achieve. Last October, Emanuel announced similar performance bonuses for 82 principals

Overall, the district’s goal is to have “strong and effective” principals in place at every school by the 2014-2015 school year.

A “day in the life” of a principal

Rather than take principals from a variety of training programs, the leadership collaborative is focusing on four and is meeting with them regularly to make sure that the programs and CPS are aligned. CPS expects 100 principals a year will be trained.

The new eligibility process will include undergoing a “day in the life” of a principal. In this mock environment, principals will not only be confronted with the standard duties of being a principal--such as meeting with staff and reviewing data--but also with the unexpected, such as handling an upset parent.

“We are really trying to mirror the complexity of being a principal,” Winckler says.

To show that they can work with communities, principals will have to lead mock LSC or parent meetings.

Winckler says that LSCs will be given some indication of the areas in which candidates performed well in the eligibility process and the areas in which they showed some weaknesses. Also, CPS officials are taking pains to get these candidates in front of LSCs, who ultimately still have the power to choose principals.

The candidates have been introduced to network chiefs, who work in tandem with local school councils, Winckler says. In the spring, the candidates also will be brought in to meet with LSCs.

In recent years, CPS has made it increasingly difficult to become eligible for the principalship. The district is also introducing new state-mandated evaluations that include student test scores as one component. On Wednesday, Winkler released a breakdown of how much each measure will count in principal evaluations. (See pdf below.)

The Fall 2013 issue of In Depth also includes profiles of two new principals: Chicago Vocational Principal Doug Maclin and Clemente Academy Principal Marcey Sorensen.

The announcement was made in Miami, where food service administrators from each district are meeting this week. (Press release)

PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTABILITY: Chicago Public Schools on Thursday said it's launching a principal evaluation system that will build upon efforts to incorporate accountability for student growth while providing support to help principals succeed as school leaders. (Press release)

TESTS SCORES & OBSERVATIONS: CPS' new principal evaluations that are based half on a school’s progress—including students’ improvement on test scores—and half on observations by district administrators. (Catalyst)

BONUS INCENTIVE: CPS principals now will be formally evaluated as of February on student academic growth, with bonuses going to the ones who thrive, schools chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett announced Thursday. (Sun-Times)

IN THE STATE
COMPROMISE REJECTED: Teachers in north suburban Grayslake who walked off the job Wednesday had agreed to take a pay freeze for the current school year in a compromise that a union official says was rejected by district officials. (Tribune)

IN THE NATION
GRADUATION RATES UP: America's high school graduation rate, which stagnated for the last three decades of the 20th century, is now climbing, according to a new study by Harvard University economist Richard Murnane. In 2000, the study estimates, 77.6 percent of Americans between 20 and 24 had high school diplomas. Among those born 10 years later, 83.7 percent had diplomas. The improvement was particularly sharp among blacks and Hispanics. (Wall Street Journal)

DEADLINE MISSED: New York City is going to fail to reach a state deadline to establish a teacher evaluation system for public school teachers, and $250 million in state aid for this year's budget is now said to be a bust. (NY1.com)

INVESTING IN SCHOOLS: Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick on Tuesday unveiled a school investment plan he says will expand access to education for students from birth through high school. (Boston Globe)

GENDER AND MATH: New research suggests that female teachers' comfort with math particularly affects their female students. (Education Week)

CAPITAL CLOSURES: More than one in 10 D.C. public schools will close as part of a plan Chancellor Kaya Henderson put forth Thursday, a retrenchment amid budget pressures, low enrollment and growing competition from public charter schools. (The Washington Post)

Principals will be judged based on a new indicator CPS is developing for 3^rd through 12^th grade students that is meant to show how many students are “on track” to eventually graduate, based on their attendance, grades and number of student misconducts. The new indicator is currently being piloted at a number of schools.

The district aims to have 100 percent of its principals be “high-quality” by the 2014-2015 school year, but has not yet determined how that will be measured or what will happen to principals who score poorly.

Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett insisted the new state-mandated evaluation “is not about failure, it’s about support.”

The new evaluations also will factor in the progress made by English language learners and special education students; and a combination of graduation rates, dropout rates and attendance.

Elementary principals will be rated on student growth in math and reading on the NWEA test, as well as 8^th-grade EXPLORE test scores. High school principals will be rated on students’ growth on the EXPLORE, PLAN, and ACT tests. (EXPLORE and PLAN are precursor tests to the ACT.)

District officials haven’t decided yet how much weight will be assigned to each factor, but said principals will be rated most heavily on improvement among students who are considered “high-risk” and overall improvement in test scores. Overall, the different measures of student growth will add up to 50 percent of a principal’s evaluation.

The rest of a principal’s score will be based on an assessment of the district’s six “principal competencies”:  family and community engagement; a focus on continuous improvement of teachers and staff; creating professional learning systems; building a culture of college- and career- readiness; self-discipline; and vision.

Clarice Berry, president of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, says a draft version of the new system that she saw earlier this week indicated that in elementary schools, special education and English language learner student growth would account for 15 percent of a principal’s rating; student attendance, grades and misconduct for 10 percent; NWEA reading and math gains for 10 percent each; and 8^th-grade EXPLORE scores for 5 percent.

“I am pleased in the sense that it is not one single high-stakes test,” Berry says. “I am concerned that [student growth] is such a large percentage of the principal’s evaluation.”

She adds that principals are concerned about the district having time to train network chiefs in the new evaluation system, and with the number of new initiatives CPS is rolling out.

“The principals are telling me they are drowning, just drowning,” Berry says. “It is just too much coming out too fast, with too little training. Everybody is overwhelmed.”

In recent years, CPS has aimed to make its principal eligibility process more selective, including a new component that requires candidates to undergo interactive role-playing to “demonstrate their skills in managing family and community.” The district also wants to improve training for principals through the Chicago Leadership Collaborative, and offer bonuses for performance and to recruit top candidates from outside Chicago.

Several principals contacted by Catalyst Chicago said they did not yet know enough about the evaluation system to form an opinion. One called the email from the district announcing the system “rather vague” and noted that “they are rolling this out late, which is not unusual.”

But Tatia Beckwith, the principal at Ray Elementary, said she was glad to see the district’s announcement.

“I am glad the principal evaluation tool is coming out. I am also happy to see it is paralleling the teacher evaluation tool, so we are all moving in the same direction – looking at similar procedures and similar data,” she said.

Elaine Allensworth, interim executive director of the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research, said in November that CPS had asked the Consortium to weigh in on it.

 “We sent them some research we have in progress so they could see the relationship, for example, between middle grades attendance, grades and test scores, and high school success,” Allensworth said. “Student grades in middle school are the best way to predict their grades in high school; attendance in middle school is the best way to predict their attendance in high school.”

What’s more, she added, researchers don’t know yet with certainty if schools that improve the Consortium’s much-researched freshman on-track rate will see improved student achievement down the line. “Does it encourage bad practice? Do we see more rampant grade inflation?” she asked.

Researchers at the Consortium are currently tackling those questions.

Through coaching and mentorship initiatives, residencies and internships, and other new programs, both districts and university education schools are turning their focus to building practical readiness, in context, and offering continued learning and support for principals already on the job.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who says he plans to serve in the Obama Cabinet for the "long haul," has begun sketching out his priorities for the next four years. They include using competitive levers to improve teacher and principal quality and holding the line on initiatives he started during the president's first term. (Education Week)

Chicago Public Schools was shut out in the latest round of grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which on Wednesday awarded nearly $25 million for educational efforts in seven cities. (Tribune)

Fear, confusion and anger swept across Chicago Public Schools as CPS officials released new data indicating half its schools — 330 buildings out of 681 — are “underutilized’’ but refused to say what percent underused put a school on the potential chopping block. Julie Woestehoff of Parents United for Responsible Education blasted CPS for starting hearings of a newly formed School Utilization Committee without indicating which schools were in danger of closure or consolidation. (Sun-Times)

IN THE NATION
A California watchdog agency fined Mayor Kevin Johnson of Sacramento and husband of former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee "$37,500 for failing to report donations of $3.5 million to two of his initiatives, one for education, the other for education," writes Diane Ravitch on her blog.

The University of Chicago pledged Monday to eliminate loans from the financial aid packages it offers incoming students from Chicago, the centerpiece of a new initiative aimed at helping high school students across the city succeed in college. Called UChicago Promise, the initiative includes a commitment that will  eliminate loans from the financial aid packages of students from Chicago who are admitted to the College of the University of Chicago—enabling them to graduate free of college debt. (Tribune/press release)

More than 1,000 public school educators were expected to attend the Chicago Teachers Union's Legislators Educators Appreciation Dinner  awards dinner honoring several elected officials, educators and community groups for their commitment to education justice.  During the annual LEAD gala, CTU leaders unveiled its legislative platform and drew attention to school closings and the proliferation of charter operations at the expense of funding neighborhood schools.  (Press release)

Also, the Chicago Teachers Union announced on Monday that it was unveiling a new online advocacy campaign to provide "education justice and labor allies the tools designed to influence the ongoing debate about what’s best for Chicago’s students." (Press release)

IN THE STATE
The earliest Geneva teachers could go on strike would be Nov. 9, the Illinois Education Labor Relations Board confirmed Monday afternoon. (Daily Herald)

IN THE NATION
As Hurricane Sandy powers its way up the East Coast this week, millions of students will be missing two—or more—days of school. (Education Week)

“If you have these three things, every kid regardless of who they are, where they’re from and their background, can succeed in our schools,” Emanuel said.

CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett added: “It does not essentially matter where a child comes from. We cannot change that, but we can change the arena a child comes into.”

In a press release, Emanuel’s office said the scores were calculated based on four factors: improving test scores, raising the percentage of students who graduate and who are ready for college, and decreasing the achievement gap. Principals who met CPS’ bar in two of the factors earned $5,000. Those who showed improvement in three factors earned $10,000.

Principals could have the bonus check made out to themselves or their schools.

Principals at four schools – Chavez, Lowell, Keller Gifted and Lavizzo – received the highest bonus of $20,000 for improving in all four areas.

Even so, not all schools are doing equally well.  Principals at schools with the most low-income students, and those at the most segregated high schools, were less likely to earn bonuses. Principals at schools with more white students were more likely to earn bonuses. (Click here for a list of the bonus amounts principals received.)

A Catalyst Chicago analysis shows that:

*Principals at the elementary schools where fewer than half of students receive free or reduced-price lunches had a 38 percent chance of receiving bonuses. At the other end of the spectrum, principals at elementary schools where more than 95 percent of students are on free and reduced lunch had just a 10 percent chance of getting a bonus.

*Among elementary schools where at least one-fifth of the students are white, almost twice as many principals – 23 percent – received bonuses compared to other elementary schools, where just 12 percent did.

*Principals at high schools where more than 95 percent of students receive a free or reduced-price lunch were a little over half as likely as other high school principals to receive bonuses: 4 percent vs 7 percent elsewhere.

*More than half of all high schools are at least 80 percent African-American or 80 percent Latino students. But just two of the 10 high schools where principals got bonuses fall into this category.

*Gifted and magnet schools make up 12 percent of elementary schools in CPS, but 24 percent of the elementary schools whose principals earned bonuses.

Promising signs in struggling schools

Some neighborhood schools, however, showed promising signs of improvement despite the disparities. In high-poverty Roseland, principals at four schools – three of them neighborhood schools – received bonuses.

They included Lavizzo Elementary, a long-underperforming school which narrowly escaped a turnaround several years ago. But today, that school’s principal, Tracey Stelley, took home a $20,000 bonus. The percentage of students meeting and exceeding state standards on the ISAT composite has increased by nearly 20 points in each of the last two years, to 75 percent today.

In West Garfield Park, principals at six schools earned bonuses. They were among 11 elementary schools in the Garfield-Humboldt Elementary Network who received bonuses, a third of the schools in that network.

One principal at a school for students with emotional and behavioral disabilities, Montefiore, also received a bonus. The percentage of students meeting or exceeding state standards on the ISAT composite increased from 8 percent in 2011 to 26 percent in 2012.

Principals at five elementary schools in the wealthier neighborhoods of Norwood Park, where median household income is $64,477, and Forest Glen, where it is $87,394, also received bonuses.

Overall, the 78 elementary schools where principals got bonuses included four turnaround schools, seven charter schools, eight schools with gifted programs, and nine magnets.

The 10 high schools included two charter schools: Young Women’s Leadership Charter School and Noble Street-Chicago Bulls. They also included two selective enrollment schools, Northside College Prep and Whitney Young High School.

Principal recruitment, retention a struggle

Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett told principals gathered at the press conference that “we will continue to do everything we can to support you, retain you.” And turning directly toward them, she added: “You ain’t going nowhere.”

CPS has long struggled with principal retention and quality, and the bonuses are one part of a strategy to improve principal recruitment and training. CPS also began offering $25,000 signing bonuses for out of town principals, but no candidates have received them since the year-long initiative began in March. Officials were aiming to recruit 50 principals through the program.

Starting with this fall’s class of incoming principal candidates, the district also kicked off an effort to improve principal training, called the Chicago Leadership Collaborative.

Stanley Griggs, a bonus winner who is the principal at Owen Elementary Magnet School in Ashburn, says he is not sure whether the bonuses will improve retention.

“It feels great because finally I feel like someone has recognized not only my efforts, but the efforts of my assistant principals, teachers, parents,” he said, adding that the recognition helped him feel energized.

He said the bonuses could make a difference “for some, maybe, (but) for myself, no.”

“I don’t think we do it for the money. It’s in our hearts to do this right for the kids,” Griggs said. But, he added, “It doesn’t hurt.”

This story has been updated to include additional information from CPS, including a list of the specific bonus amounts principals received.

Elementary schools where principals earned bonuses

1.    Demetrius Bunch    ARMSTRONG, L
2.    Estuardo Mazin    BARRY
3.    Sandra Caudill    BELL
4.    Troy LaRaviere    BLAINE
5.    Staci Bennett    BRADWELL
6.    Christopher Brake    BRIDGE
7.    Donald Morris    BURROUGHS
8.    Joe Piela    CHAPPELL
9.    Barton Dassinger    CHAVEZ
10.    Christy Krier    CICS-BUCKTOWN
11.    David Lewis    CICS-WRIGHTWOOD
2.    Jose Barrera    COLUMBIA EXPLORERS
13.    Greg Zurawski    COONLEY
14.    Bud Bryant    CULLEN
15.    Susan Kukielka    DECATUR
16.    Kathleen Hagstrom    DISNEY
17.    Elizabeth Alvarez    DORE
18.    Pamela Creed    DULLES
19.    Chandra Byrd-Wright  DUNNE TECH ACAD
20.    Janice Kepka    EDGEBROOK
21.    Shirley Scott    ELLINGTON
22.    Brian Metcalfe    FIELD
23.    Cynthia Miller    FISKE
24.    Barbara Kargas    GOETHE
25.    Yvette Curington    GOLDBLATT
26.    Donella Carter    GREGORY
27.    James Gray    HAMILTON
28.    Alfonso Carmona    HEALY
29.    Jacqueline Hearns    HEFFERAN
30.    Juliana Perisin    HENDRICKS
31.    Mable Alfred    HIGGINS
32.    Pam Brunson-Allen    HINTON
33.    Matthew Ditto    JACKSON, A
34.    Catherine Jernigan    JENSEN
35.    Alice Henry    JOHNSON
36.    Delena Little    KELLER
37.    Brenda Browder    KELLMAN
38.    Elisabeth Huetefeu    LASALLE
39.    Tracey Stelly    LAVIZZO
40.    Mark Armendariz    LINCOLN
41.    Gladys Rivera    LOWELL
42.    Carolyn Epps    MARCONI
43.    Jo Easterling-Hood    MCDOWELL
44.    Nancy Hanks    MELODY
45.    Julious Lawson    MONTEFIORE
46.    Catherine Reidy    MOUNT GREENWOOD
47.    Sonia Caban    MOZART
48.    Estee Kelly    NOBLE STREET- COMER
49.    Renee Blahuta    NORWOOD PARK
50.    Elias Estrada    ORIOLE PARK
51.    Stanley Griggs    OWEN
52.    Hassan Okab    PECK
53.    Vicky Kleros    PEREZ
54.    Kelly Moore    POE
55.    Angela Johnson-Williams PROVIDENCE - BUNCHE
56.    Pat Baccellieri    PULASKI
57.    Ana Espinoza    SANDOVAL
58.    Isamar Vargas    SAUCEDO
59.    Christine Munns    SAUGANASH
60.    Suzana Ustabecir    SAYRE
61.    Deborah Clark    SKINNER
62.    W. Delores Robinson   SUMNER
63.    Sean Clayton    TILTON
64.    Sabrina Jackson    TURNER-DREW
65.    Molly Robinson    UNO - SANDRA CISNEROS
66.    Joann Lerman    UNO - FUENTES
67.    Martin Masterson    UNO - PAZ
68.    Krish Mohip    WALSH
69.    Relanda Hobbs    WARD, L
70.    Dina Everage    WENTWORTH
71.    Mary Beth Cunat    WILDWOOD
72.    Tamara Littlejohn    WOODSON

 

High schools where principals earned bonuses

1.    Barry Rodgers    NORTHSIDE COLLEGE PREP HS
2.    Yashika Tippett    AIR FORCE HS
3.    Patty Brekke    INFINITY HS
4.    Chris Jones    MATHER HS
5.    Tyson Kane    NOBLE STREET- CHICAGO BULLS
6.    Mary Dolan    RICHARDS HS
7.    Sue Lofton    SENN HS
8.    Todd Yarch    VOISE HS
9.    Joyce Kenner    WHITNEY YOUNG HS
10.  Deniece Fields    YOUNG WOMEN'S CHARTER CAMPUS

But an equally contentious fight over school closings is on the horizon. On one side will be grassroots activists and some parent groups accusing the district of neglecting neighborhood schools, leaving them to fail and then using failure as an excuse to close them and turn more buildings over to charter operators. On the other side will be district officials and their allies, insisting that they have no choice but to shut down under-utilized schools at a time of shrinking enrollment and scarce cash. (CPS has already claimed another rationale—the need to pay for raises in the new teachers’ contract—though officials have said for several years that they plan to shut down schools.)

Meanwhile, aldermen are entering the fray, with 32 of 50 aldermen adding their names to a resolution calling on district officials to explain their decision-making on school closings at City Council hearings. Some aldermen have even joined the chorus of voices calling for an elected School Board. Imagine that happening under Mayor Daley.

Before 1995, the public had some input into the composition of the board, granted by the 1988 School Reform Act. The mayor appointed board members from a list of candidates nominated by a committee that was comprised mostly of parent and community representatives. The Legislature killed that process and returned the system to complete mayoral control in 1995, so state law would have to be changed to create an elected board in Chicago.

One local representative, LaShawn K. Ford, held three town hall meetings in October on the issue and wants a task force to study it, though he has not taken a position on the matter.

The issue—a controversial one, with arguments both pro and con and differing opinions even among the Catalyst staff—raises critical issues of transparency and accountability. But controversy is sometimes a good thing. Issues like these must be addressed if the public is to have confidence in the school system’s leadership.

Perhaps a lesson can be drawn from the recent strike. After the strike, one reader of noted education historian Diane Ravitch’s blog wrote about what the strike taught her grandchild, despite seven missed days of school. Here’s an excerpt (with my emphasis added):

The strike taught my grandchild and so many more children like her that people should stand up for what they believe in; thoroughly read any document you sign; join with people who have the same causes because many things can’t be done alone, and that democracy is messy and hard to achieve, but worth it in the end.

*          *          *

At a recent panel discussion, the moderator asked those of us on the panel to talk about our views on the (very broad) question: The current state of education in the region is (fill in the blank).

One panelist cited a dearth of leadership that would rally the public, parents, civic groups and others around a common goal of better education. At the school level, though, is where the rubber really meets the road, and one of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s strategies aims to raise the bar and improve the quality of principal candidates.  In this issue of Catalyst In Depth, Associate Editor Rebecca Harris reports on the Chicago Leadership Collaborative, the initiative that brings together four of the city’s top principal prep programs to share ideas and improve the quality of training.

The toughest test for a principal is in a failing neighborhood high school—where one reform after another, both locally and nationally, has brought little in the way of substantive, long-term improvement. Harris and Deputy Editor Sarah Karp also profile two very different principals who are facing the high school test. Doug Maclin of Chicago Vocational Career Academy is black, grew up not far from CVCA in Roseland and kept many of CVCA’s existing teachers when the school became a turnaround. Marcey Sorensen of Clemente High is white, grew up in the northwest suburbs and immediately became the center of controversy at the school when she fired nine teachers and edged out more by redefining their jobs.

Karp and Harris will continue to follow Maclin and Sorensen throughout the year and report on the progress at CVCA and Clemente. Our goal is to shed light on what makes a principal successful—or not—at this tough test.

The most ambitious strategy was a new umbrella initiative, the Chicago Leadership Collaborative. Over three years, at a cost of $10 million, CPS would bring together four principal training programs to share ideas and turn out highly trained cadres of new school leaders. The goal would be to triple the number of seats available for prospective principals, to 100 per year from about 30 per year now.

Although the plan is a year old, it’s too soon to gauge its impact. The district has not released information on how many principals received signing bonuses, though there hasn’t been a flood of new principals from outside Chicago. Similarly, CPS has not reported on performance bonuses; a spokesperson said in late September that test scores were still being analyzed to determine eligibility. Finally, the leadership collaborative is just now getting off the ground.

Yet the success of these efforts to recruit and train strong principals is critical to school progress. Research has repeatedly shown that good principals are essential to school improvement.  But the effort comes at a time when hundreds of principal candidates are already eligible. And it’s not clear if the skills and attributes local school councils are looking for line up with the new CPS agenda.

As part of the agenda, CPS is once again set to revamp the principal eligibility process to focus on a new set of competencies, or skills, that it considers essential for school leaders. (In recent years, CPS has already changed the eligibility process twice.) Meanwhile, the state in 2010 toughened standards for principal preparation; for instance, requiring more selective admissions and a lengthier internship.

Nationally, CPS is just one of a number of districts that are focusing attention on principal preparation. The New York City-based Wallace Foundation is a major backer of some of these school leadership initiatives. Wallace provided CPS with in-kind assistance that laid the groundwork for the last revamp of the eligibility process and the Chicago Leadership Collaborative, says Jody Spiro, director of education leadership at the foundation. CPS’ work has become something of a national model, she notes.

Last year, Wallace launched a $75 million initiative to support programs similar to the Chicago Leadership Collaborative in six other districts around the country. Chicago did not receive funding because  a new mayor and schools CEO were on the horizon when Wallace sought grant applicants.

Steven Gering, the CPS chief of leadership development, says CPS is ahead of these districts in some ways because it is seeking to bring together several existing principal preparation programs instead of starting a new one or working with only one or two providers.

“Nobody has done what we’re doing,” says Gering, a former deputy superintendent of Kansas City, Kan., Schools. 
In a broader perspective, CPS’ efforts are seizing the reins on principal selection. For one, the district required that the four programs work together by meeting every month to share goals, curricula, and even training exercises.

Plus, CPS will have final approval over candidate selection, allowing information from a candidate’s past employment with the district to factor in, says Gering. “We are paying these programs to produce quality principals, and so we have lots of skin in the game,” he says.

Once candidates make it through a program, CPS will market them to local school councils and position them as candidates of choice.

“We are planning [to] get them in front of the local school councils sooner rather than later,” Gering says.

District leaders are looking to the collaborative to fill some of the estimated 100 principal vacancies a year in the district. This year (the last year that principals could retire and take advantage of a pension enhancement program), there were 159 vacancies; 25 schools have yet to find permanent leaders.

Gering says the vacancies are evidence that more qualified candidates are needed. Yet over 450 principal candidates are already on the eligibility list and have passed the most recent screening process, though some are sitting principals. More principals should be coming on the market as well, as CPS is looking to close as many as 120 schools in the coming years, though the district will also be opening 60 new charter schools.

Still, Gering says the demand for principals is expected to stay steady for a while. Nationally as well as in Chicago, the trend is for short tenures and quick turnover among urban school principals. A 2009 survey from the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research found that almost half of principals with three to five years of experience intended to leave their school within five years. Another factor: New principals are disproportionately likely to be in the toughest jobs with the highest potential for burnout—low-performing high schools.

*          *          *

One school that has had trouble finding a permanent principal is Morgan Park High School. The local school council has conducted three searches since April 2011 but has yet to find a candidate who is a good fit.

“We want someone who has a passion for our school, a passion for our students and for the rich history that is Morgan Park,” says Peggy Goddard, the LSC’s principal selection committee chair. “[Someone] who will be able to work well with many teachers and programs, is able to fit in with the community at large and bring in some support from within the community.”

Other LSC members contacted by Catalyst Chicago echoed that sentiment, saying that it is crucial for principals to have strong ties to their particular school community or fit in with a school’s culture and climate.

CPS has sought to address the issue by incorporating family and community engagement into its new list of competencies candidates must demonstrate.

Several LSC members said they place a premium on interpersonal qualities like strong leadership skills and the ability to build consensus.

Al Raby High is another school without a permanent principal. Nicole Cannon, a counselor who is on the LSC, said in September the LSC planned to begin its search for a new principal in the next month.

In addition to being a strong instructor, Cannon says, the new principal should be a personable, approachable, creative leader—“somebody who can sit in the lunchroom and have conversations with students”—who can work collaboratively with staff and get the perspectives of people outside the school—“not making all the decisions, working with the staff to see what is best for the environment and the students.” At a time when CPS is going through change, Cannon hopes the new principal will bring stability and prioritize initiatives at the school.

Cannon notes another need: knowledge of fundraising. For her, it isn’t an absolute requirement that the principal know the community. “Is it helpful? Yeah,” she says. “[But] if they have good networking capabilities, it might not be a factor at all.”

*          *          *

Burke Elementary Principal Jessica Biggs, a graduate of the Teach for America Principal Leadership Pipeline, says she learned how to reach out to parents during her internship at a Boston neighborhood school (TFA program participants study for a master’s degree from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education). Biggs gave tours where parents observed teacher instruction, called “learning walks,” to help persuade families not to leave when their children got to the middle grades.

A recent back-to-school night at Burke (a Track E school) brought out over 60 families. “Teachers commented that they had never seen that many families in the building,” Biggs says.

Biggs started her job in July and her first priority was to build teachers’ leadership capacity.  She created a team of teachers to improve instruction and curriculum, and started a culture and climate team. Both, she says, have helped create “a really positive school culture.”

CPS is betting its money on the idea that good principals possess certain skills. The TFA program, and others that applied to be part of the collaborative, had to specify how they were going to teach these competencies.

Some experts have said that personal qualities, such as persistence and self-confidence, are a better predictor of whether a candidate will be a good principal. But Spiro says she believes strongly that the necessary skills can be developed.

“It’s a matter of identifying what the high-leverage skills are so people don’t spend time on things that are not going to make a difference,” she says. “There are certainly people who are innately better at it than others, and those people learn quicker. Some people have to work harder at it.”

Justin Cohen, who is president of the Mass Insight Education School Turnaround Group and studies the qualities that principals need in order to succeed in low-achieving turnaround schools, says that in addition to building teams and improving instruction, principals must be patient and able to push the envelope.

Principals need “this sense of fearlessness and flexibility, the ability to go into an environment that’s been failing for years [and] not be afraid to make mistakes and keep moving,” Cohen says.

And, as Cohen points out, part of the reason it’s so hard to be a principal is the way the school system is organized.
“Ideally, the school system would be designed to better support principals, but right now a lot of times central office, the school district or the state is asking principals to be compliance manager in chief—filling out reports and responding to every little request,” Cohen says. “The principal ends up serving central office instead of the other way around. If we got the bureaucracy out of the way of the individuals and the job, we might see better performance.”

Tell us what you think. Leave a comment below, or email rharris@catalyst-chicago.org.

“We hope word is getting out that it’s a good place to be,” she says. More students have returned from last year, as well.

Reporters swarm inside and outside, as do members of the football team—all waiting for their chance to meet CEO Jean-Claude Brizard, who is there for a live radio broadcast and bell-ringing to kick off the year. Volunteers from the national service organization City Year let out loud cheers every time someone walks in the door.

The first day has typical bumps—students left unattended in a homeroom because of a no-show teacher, and the perpetually dysfunctional escalators that stop when too many students ride on them. “We’ve had construction on our escalators for two years now,” Sorensen notes.

Despite these distractions, she keeps her finger on the school’s pulse, ducking into dozens of classrooms to watch teachers at work and introducing herself to students—selling them on her agenda of principal as part-friend, part-mentor, part-parent.

“We will be all up in your business,” Sorensen announces to each class. “I want to know what your grades are, what your attendance is, who you’re dating,” as well as their academic and social-emotional struggles.

To freshmen, Sorensen stresses the unpleasant consequences if they don’t buckle down this year. “You will be constantly playing catch-up. Fifty-four percent of my seniors [last year] were missing credits. There were kids going to night school, every night of the week, and Saturday school.”

Sorensen is one of a new breed of principals to come from one of the district’s preferred training programs. Under a three-year, $10 million initiative, CPS is banking on these programs to turn out “change-agent” leaders who can transform failing schools.

With Sorensen only in her second year, it’s too early to tell what will happen at Clemente. So far, the school’s climate is better, with discipline infractions down steeply since last year. ACT scores and scores on the Prairie State exam fell, but other indicators that are key to improvement down the road are up: The freshman on-track rate is up, to nearly 93 percent from 59 percent at the end of the previous year. The dropout rate is down, and attendance jumped nearly 10 percentage points to almost 79 percent.

Sorensen “really knows what good instruction and good teachers look like,” says Peter Martinez, the director of principal coaching at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where Sorensen has been a doctoral student in the Urban Education Leadership program since 2007. “She concentrates on building strong personal and professional relationships based on very high expectations. What enables her to relate is her great sense of humor.”

In the auditorium, Brizard awkwardly bops around to the increasingly loud hip-hop music from the radio DJs. As Sorensen heads in, she tells students to sit down. She hugs one, a student she knows well. “How are you doing, Dianna?” she asks. “Horrible,” the girl replies. “I had to come to school.”

With a characteristic mixture of sympathy and challenge, Sorensen sighs. “Oh, Dianna, you’re such a drama queen,” she says affectionately. “You had to come to school…Dios mio.”

On the wall of her office hangs evidence of Sorensen’s tough-cookie attitude mixed with humor. It’s a cartoon caricature of her, with a speech bubble saying, “Want Prom?”

“It’s a joke,” Sorensen explains. She asks students if they want to have a prom dance at all when they “get very opinionated about where it should be, and what it should be like.”

At an orientation for 9th- and 11th-graders before school began, Sorensen knew it was her chance to tell parents and students exactly how high the stakes will be at Clemente this year. She sent the message loud and clear. 

“How many parents in this crowd want their students to sit on their couch two or four years from now?” she asks, smiling. Parents chuckle. “It is our job to take your children on a 4-year educational journey, so at the end of it they have college options and choices.”

Freshmen were put on notice about the challenge awaiting them. “We are going to push you to the very edge of what you are capable of, give you a hug, and then push you some more,” Sorensen says. Juniors get a pep talk about the importance of the ACT. Members of the school’s care team of social-emotional and counseling specialists introduce themselves, and Sorensen explains how the group will help students through teenage angst as well as the life challenges that they and their families face. 

Troublemakers get a warning from her.  “If I was in your business last year, I am going to be in your business again this year—Kaylanee, for real!”

Sorensen came to Clemente from another troubled high school across town, Tilden, where she was interim principal for a year. Prior to that, she was principal at New Millennium School of Health, the highest-performing of four small schools on the Bowen Campus (it later expanded to take in all of Bowen’s students when the other three schools were closed). Sorensen’s career began at Leif Ericson Scholastic Academy, where she taught 7th- and 8th-grade social science for a year. Then she moved to Chicago Vocational Career Academy, where she worked for nearly 10 years as a teacher and curriculum coordinator before becoming a social science coach.

At Tilden, Sorensen’s first goal was to improve the school’s climate and social-emotional programs and institute supports for struggling students. With only a year’s time, she acknowledges that academics didn’t improve. The year after Sorensen left, CPS decided to turn around Tilden, and this year the school got a new principal and new staff.

Michelle Porter, a history teacher at Tilden who kept her job through the turnaround, recalls Sorensen as “very student-centered.” Attendance incentives were offered, and after-school tutoring became mandatory for struggling students. Teachers were required to attend new grade-level team meetings, in addition to the existing academic department meetings, to give them more opportunity to talk about how students were doing.

Sorensen also emphasized accountability. Not everyone was comfortable with the transparency of weekly reports, staff meetings and spreadsheets of data that revealed publicly “if things had been turned in,” Porter says. Plus, Sorensen didn’t sugar-coat anything when she spoke.

“Sometimes she did not have a filter,” Porter says. “She was very abrupt, and in her conversations very frank, and in her speech. Some teachers were not used to that. Marcey was Marcey, all the time.”

At Clemente, Sorensen has the support of the local school council as well as the promise of investment from the district: Clemente is slated to become an International Baccalaureate school, a change that will bring staff development and training over several years from the well-regarded program based in Geneva, Switzerland.

But Sorensen’s hiring has sparked controversy. In her first year, she rated 13 teachers as unsatisfactory. Of those, she fired nine through the E-3 process, which requires that principals provide some remediation before a firing.

Another 22 teachers lost their jobs over the summer due to declining enrollment. And since the school had lost positions, Sorensen wanted teachers who could teach more than one subject, so she redefined the jobs of the entire social science department: Everyone would now have to hold at least two certifications. Those who didn’t were out.

Amid a contentious season of union contract negotiations, the layoffs unleashed a storm.  Some of the laid-off teachers showed up at Board of Education meetings to complain and filed union grievances. The situation is particularly touchy because of union anger over layoffs, across the district, of veteran teachers, often through similar re-defining of positions.

At a summer local school council meeting, Sorensen thanks members for their support during the controversy and says that parents and community groups have told her they were contacted by outsiders in an effort to get them to “denounce” her.

“Every community organization that has contacted me has said, ‘We have your back,’” Sorensen notes. “I want to say thank you, publicly, to the parents.”

Judy Vazquez, chair of the local school council, tells Sorensen that parents are behind her. “We appreciate being part of the loop,” Vazquez says. “The upgrading [of the teaching force] is to benefit the kids and the community.”

Sorensen says she always knew she would be an educator. Her mother and aunt were teachers. But, perhaps because she had her own ideas about how classes should be run, she wasn’t a model student.

“I would sit in high school classes and tell teachers, ‘This is dumb. This isn’t working,’” Sorensen says. Some teachers thought she had a behavior disorder.

Sorensen grew up in middle-class suburban Park Ridge and Morton Grove, worlds away from the area around Clemente. The school is located in West Town, a community that is now rapidly gentrifying; most students come from neighboring Humboldt Park, a predominantly Latino, lower-income neighborhood.

As the child of a single mom, Sorensen says she “saw the disparity between the haves and the have-nots pretty early.” She viewed education as an equalizer, a way to help students “get in the game, so that they’re not disenfranchised anymore,” she says.

After high school, Sorensen had to start out at a community college, something that Vazquez says helps her relate to the obstacles that Clemente students face. “We were looking for someone who understood the kids and the community, someone who knew how hard it was for kids to get that 2.5 GPA, someone who was passionate about educating all the kids, including the special ed kids,” Vazquez says. “As parents, I think we hit the Lotto.”

Many of the changes Sorensen has made—such as the prospective IB program, an initiative of Mayor Rahm Emanuel—were requested first by the Humboldt Park Community Advisory Council. The neighborhood-based advisory councils were part of a school-improvement process that began several years ago under former CEO Ron Huberman, but the councils’ ideas were largely ignored by the new administration.

Sorensen says that at the council’s suggestion, she has also launched dual-enrollment courses, a legal clinic, and programs to get students to enroll at Northeastern Ilinois University, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Columbia College.

Vazquez sees other tangible evidence of improvement: Teachers who “weren’t there for the right reasons” are gone, the school is being run better and students are getting the help they need, such as testing for special education and bringing in parents for conferences when needed.

“Those are the little things that weren’t being done before,” Vazquez says.

Sorensen is more circumspect about the school’s progress. “We still struggle with teacher capacity and willingess on some levels, but it is much reduced this year,” she says.

Julio Urrutia, deputy director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, says that, unlike the former principal, Sorensen has gotten community groups to feel invested in what’s happening at the school. “This is a community that is very well-organized, in terms of [groups] that provide different services. Marcey has been able to tap that in some effective ways,” Urrutia says. “[Principals] are a gate-keeper, so they can let you in or keep you out.”

One example: As part of a Cultural Center program that helped students apply to college, Sorensen had Clemente’s counselors follow up individually with students who were supposed to be headed to college; 26 students had been accepted at Northeastern Illinois University, but none had registered.

Home visits and phone calls got 22 students to commit to bus trips and a six-session “boot camp” at the university, where they will get additional instructions on how to register. If any of them don’t show up, “we’ll go back out to their houses and do some more stalking,” Sorensen says.

Sorensen won over community groups not only by welcoming them into the building, but also by making social-emotional learning a priority, starting anger management and trauma groups as well as peace circles. That focus first took root at Tilden, where, Sorensen recalls, “the kids were like sponges. They were thirsty for attention, for guidance, care, and structure.”

At Clemente, social-emotional learning intersects with another focus of Sorensen’s: reliance on data.

Porter says that, unlike some other principals, Sorensen is comfortable with new ways of thinking and recognizes that “education has become more data-driven. The data should be used not only to make the teaching better, but also the experiences of the students.”

Clemente now has a custom-designed database, called Students Performance Tracking System, where teachers report attendance, low grades, such as D’s and F’s on assignments, and disciplinary issues, as well as strategies being tried to resolve the problems. Even brief interventions are to be entered in the system so administrators and teachers get “real-time” data about how students are doing—so they can intervene—and what is working—so they keep doing what is successful). The school is working on making sure peace circles and restorative justice interventions get logged in the system.

“You have all been trained. You will all be leading circles,” Assistant Principal Tina Menendez told school administrators. “The difference this year is, you do a circle, you have to put it in SPTS—even if it’s a conference between two [students].”

Administrators, teachers and the care team follow-up with students to resolve whatever might be causing problems. “Equity is not every kid getting the same thing,” says Sorensen, who credits the UIC program with teaching the importance of individualized support for students. “It’s every kid getting what they need.”

Teachers and administrators are “first-responders” when students show signs of being in trouble, Sorensen tells staff members gathered to review data in early July.  “You may not know how to handle it, but you should get that kid services or support through a referral.”

That idea represents a “paradigm shift,” she acknowledges later—one that some people are struggling to accept as part of their job.

At another summer session, a team of administrators and counselors go over disciplinary data that show the rate of low-level offenses has decreased by 65 percent. But offenses at Level 4 through 6—which generally call for suspensions—have increased by 10 percent.

Staff members discuss what worked and what didn’t with the new system, and note that the increase in less-serious fights points to a need for more conflict resolution sessions.

The team also notices that students who are coming back from a suspension are not getting help to re-acclimate to school. One team member suggests having someone on duty during 1st period every day to help kids transition back into the school setting.

The data suggest that teachers are recognizing their role as “first responders,” with the care team getting referrals for nearly 300 students. Of those, 83 were screened and sent to anger management or trauma coping groups, and 85 percent of teachers said the support helped improve students’ behavior. 

But, on the other hand, the data show that a third of staff members got no feedback on a specific referral they made, and some clinicians didn’t have time or willingness to screen students.

Sorensen sees a red flag in the fact that students who were in a trauma group had better attendance and behavior, but showed no improvement in grades. “How are we giving out grades?” she says. “Is it possible a student is coming to class and just not learning?”

To her, the possibility should be unthinkable.

“Kids should grow in terms of academic achievement if they are present and displaying a willingess to learn,” Sorensen says. It’s a philosophy that doesn’t always sit well with teachers, who have to deal with students who don’t turn in homework and frequently seem not to care.

But, Sorensen explains, “If there is no willingess on a students’ part, then we have to begin to dig in on the why—not just allow them to continue to experience failure.”

Finding teachers who buy in to her philosophy has been Sorensen’s greatest struggle. In late July, she says that she will be sprinting all the way to the start of the year to accomplish this.

“We have quite a few positions to fill. We have interviewed quite a few people, and we are not finding quality candidates,” she says. “This is what is keeping me up at night.”  Since she’s a UIC graduate student, Sorensen at one point contacted university professors to ask if they could send any high-quality candidates her way.

In interviews with prospective teachers, Sorensen, her assistant principals, and department chairs share the responsibility of rating them and the practice lessons they teach summer school students.  But many of the teachers had little or no experience, and those with experience often did not fully develop their teaching skills. As a result, the quality of candidates is thin. Even UIC couldn’t help with candidates, she notes.

“There is a huge disconnect between teacher education programs and what teaching looks like on the ground,” she says. One week, Sorensen and her panel interview prospective science teachers and give many candidates bad reviews.

By the start of the school year, Sorensen had put dozens of hours into finding exactly the right teachers—people who are on board with her ideas—who are willing to push each other to do better, have high expectations, and make sure students get whatever it is that they need—and are also able to teach engaging lessons and have content knowledge down pat. Just under half of the teachers she hired were veterans, including teachers who lost their jobs because of turnarounds and other teachers from a mix of high schools across the city.

Sorensen, who believes in investing in teacher development, plans to use federal School Improvement Grant money to pay teachers extra to stay after school for lesson planning and training.

Sorensen wants to develop an atmosphere where faculty members are up-front about teaching practice. “That is the thing that revolutionizes and changes schools, when adults can sit and talk about practice and have it not be personal,” Sorensen says.

Doing so will be a massive change for Clemente because, Sorensen says, teachers had not gotten substantive feedback on their performance for years. “There was so much change that had to happen, from every corner, from every nook and cranny of this building,” Sorensen says. One example: When she first arrived at Clemente, more than 400 students were not on track to graduate. Some students were 21 and no longer entitled to be enrolled in a public high school, but had only three credits.

Asking teachers about the situation, Sorensen says, “felt to some people like I was blaming them. The information itself made people uncomfortable.”

Sorensen is up-front about her own personal challenges, including the need to have clear expectations, give staff the support needed to meet those expectations, and work harder to develop trust.

“Because if there is no trust, people can’t have the honest dialogue to improve.”

Tell us what you think. Leave a comment below, or email rharris@catalyst-chicago.org.