Days of Their Lives: A Mixed-Methods, Descriptive Analysis of the Men and Women at Work in the Principal's Office

Research in various traditions points to the critical role of the school principal in efforts to improve classroom teaching and student learning. School principals are critical in promoting conditions such as a shared vision of instruction, norms of collaboration, and collective responsibility for students’ learning—conditions believed critical for school improvement (Bryk & Driscoll, 1985; Newman & Wehlage, 1995; Rosenholtz, 1989). There is also some evidence to suggest that school principals’ work has an effect on student learning (Hallinger & Heck, 1996; Sheppard, 1996; Leithwood et al., 2007). Federal, state, and local policy initiatives over the past two decades that hold the school principal accountable for improvements in student achievement further accentuate the school principal’s role. While a distributed perspective presses us to look beyond the school principal in investigations of school leadership and management, it does not negate or undermine the role of the school principal (Spillane & Diamond, 2007).

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