Educational Leadership

black. Elmont graduates almost all of
its students, with just about half gradu-
ating with an advanced designation,
and its results on most of the New York
Regents exams compare well with the
rest of the state. It is an exceptional
school, and it has refined its practice
in many ways, not the least of which
involves being willing to discriminate
between mediocrity and excellence.
Take a look, for example, at this recom-
mendation a school leader gave to a
teacher following an observation:
At one point in the lesson you took a sub-
standard response that was not elaborated
on. . . . You admitted that, in the interest
of time, you took the response and moved
forward with the lesson. As we discussed,
setting standards and having students
meet those standards includes the proper
responses. In the future, make it a point
to ensure that students have a true grasp
of the concept.

What teacher hasn’t glided over an inadequate answer from a student? With dozens of students in the class and lots of material to get through, it sometimes seems unavoidable. But it also leads to students developing misunderstandings and doesn’t help them learn at a high level. If students are going to meet high standards, those standards need to be present at all times in classrooms. As uncomfortable as it is to call out this seemingly minor episode, these occurrences are opportunities for school leaders to help staff understand the standard they are working toward.

No. 2. They put instruction at the
center of their managerial duties.
Over the years, the expectations of
principals have changed. Where once
the job was primarily defined as a
managerial one, principals are now
expected not just to run a smooth
operation, but also to be change leaders
and improve achievement. When we
asked the leaders how they defined the
job, 76 percent defined themselves as
instructional leaders. The rest empha-
sized their responsibility to set a vision
of high achievement. But no matter
how anyone defines the role, the mana-
gerial part of the principalship has not
disappeared.

Teachers are no
longer expected to
all be experts who
shut their doors and
work in isolation.

and need every minute of instruction they can get, and their teachers often need more time to collaborate than their districts provide. Therefore, leaders must ensure that master schedules maximize both instructional time for students and collaboration time for teachers.

At the same time, these principals
establish schoolwide routines—and
work with their teachers to create
classroom routines—to ensure that fum-
bling with materials and getting caught
up in unnecessary discipline issues don’t
distract from instruction. One former
principal, for example, said she always
bought her teachers a lot of pencils: “I
didn’t want any teacher fussing with
students over a dang pencil.”
Bensinger-Lacy arranged the schedule
at Graham Road so that teachers from
each grade level met weekly for one
hour at the beginning of the contractual
day ( 15 minutes before school started
and continuing for the first 45 minutes
of the school day). Back in their class-
rooms, aides began the day—super-
vising breakfast, collecting homework,
and starting the students on their work.
This routine gave teachers a solid hour
of professional collaboration, with the
topic alternating between reading and
math. One teacher would spend about
20 minutes presenting research related
to a problem the teachers were expe-
riencing, and the teachers—including
the special educator, coach, and English
language teachers assigned to that grade
level—would spend the remainder of
the time working on how to put those
findings into practice—sometimes even
producing actual materials during the
meeting.

No. 3. They focus on building
the capacity of all the adults
in the building.

These leaders know that teachers hold the greatest power over a student’s achievement. But they also know that many teachers are underprepared. Further, they know that no one teacher, no matter how brilliant and experienced, can possibly reach every child all the time.