Chapter 4
Principals’ roles in the development of US programs of school, family, and community partnerships

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Abstract

This longitudinal study of 320 US schools explored the importance of the principal to the development of programs of school, family, and community partnerships. Schools rated the degree of support from the principal for school-wide efforts of family and community involvement and provided data on principal turnover. Analyses also explored other essential elements of partnership program success including teamwork and external support variables. The regression analyses indicated significant and positive relationships between principal support and partnership program quality in 2002. Principal turnover failed to predict variation in program quality. The results suggest the importance of engaging the principal in partnership efforts; developing strong support for partnerships among parents, teachers, and community members; and continually expanding and evaluating the work of the partnership team to promote student success and development.

Introduction

There are many reasons why any given school may be more or less successful educating students. Perhaps the most important of these is the school principal. “The United States cannot have excellent schools without excellent leaders” (National Commission for the Principalship, 1990, p. 9). Educators, researchers, communities, and politicians interested in improving the quality of schools have long recognized the principal as a critical force in creating and maintaining strong schools.

Principals are vital to the success of schools because they play many roles as leader. They supervise staff, interact with students, oversee student discipline, work with families and the community, manage school facilities, assist in curriculum decisions, plan staff development, and administer the budget, to name a few. With so many responsibilities, it is not surprising that strong principal leadership contributes to effective schools (Edmonds, 1979; Hallinger & Heck, 1996; Purkey & Smith, 1983; Rosenholtz, 1985) and the implementation of education programs and reform models (Jackson & Davis, 2000; Kirby, Berends, & Naftel, 2001).

A recent longitudinal study of New American Schools showed that principal leadership was the single most important predictor of implementation of whole-school reform at both the teacher and school levels (Kirby, Berends, & Naftel, 2001). In that study, teachers assessed principal leadership through a series of questions about the principal's abilities to provide clear communications to teachers about expectations, demonstrate supportive behavior, acquire school resources, enforce rules for student behavior, talk with teachers about instruction, have confidence in teachers, and invest in the professional development of teachers. Schools were more likely to implement the whole school reform when principals demonstrated these leadership and support characteristics.

Many of the characteristics associated with strong principal leadership assume stable and high-quality leaders. That is not a fair assumption in today's schools where turnover of staff is commonplace and a shortage of qualified teacher and principal applicants is often discussed. Researchers estimate a 42% turnover of principals over the next 10 years (Doud & Keller, 1998). Another study indicated that 50% of the surveyed districts reported a shortage of qualified principal candidates for positions they were attempting to fill (Educational Research Service, 1998). These realities coupled with a lack of qualified principal candidates are cause for concern. Yet, there are few studies of how principal turnover affects the implementation and quality of specific school programs and practices.

Studies indicate that greater principal turnover in elementary schools is related to more diverse ethnic populations, lower SES, and greater student transiency (Griffith, 1999). In addition, parents and students in schools with a principal change reported the schools as less orderly and disciplined. Finally, parents at these schools indicated that they felt less empowered, and they reported lower levels of participation in school activities than parents in schools without a principal change. The study suggested that school leadership helps set the tone for the development of school programs of family and community involvement in student education.

Research connecting school leadership to family and community involvement is important because more schools are seeking to strengthen these connections as a means to improve student outcomes. In most cases, involvement with families and communities is initiated by individual teachers rather than addressed by the whole school. Decades of research on the topic of parental and community involvement demonstrate the many benefits of partnering with parents and communities to improve student achievement (e.g., Baker & Stevenson, 1986; Epstein, 1991; Fehrmann, Keith, & Reimers, 1987; Ho & Willms, 1996; Keith et al., 1993; Sheldon, 2003; Stevenson & Baker, 1987; Van Voorhis, 2003), to improve student retention and attendance and reduce dropout rates (Epstein & Sheldon, 2002; Trusty, 1999), to improve student behavior (Sheldon & Epstein, 2002), to improve student access to physical and social services (Wynn, Meyer, & Richards-Schuster, 2000), and to foster youth and adult relationships (Sanders, 1998).

Effective school, family, and community partnerships have the potential to not only affect student outcomes, but they also may result in positive outcomes for schools and families (Epstein, 2001; Jordon, Orozco, & Averett, 2001). For example, schools that involved families and communities in reform efforts experienced better school climate and more open school culture than did schools not involving families and communities (Desimone, Finn-Stevenson, & Henrich, 2000). Similarly, family attitudes about schools often improve when they are given more opportunities to be involved in the education of their children (Sanders, Epstein, & Connors-Tadros, 1999). These outcomes are important because of their direct and indirect influences on student achievement and well-being.

These and other findings that illustrate the benefits of involving families and communities in student learning have influenced US federal education policy. The US government requires parental involvement as a component of Comprehensive School Reform models (CSR) and as a condition of Title I funding for schools serving students from low-income families and communities (No Child Left Behind Act, Section 1118). Specifically, a CSR program must “provide for the meaningful involvement of parents and the local community in planning, implementing, and evaluating school improvement activities (US Department of Education, 2002).

Despite government regulations, many schools do not adequately include family and community partnership activities in their reform efforts. For example, Borman, Hewes, Overman, and Brown (2002) conducted a meta-analysis of the 29 most widely used CSR models and their associated components. They found that only six of the 29 models (21%) included a parent-governance component. Noteworthy is the fact that this percentage is a measure of only a requirement. In reality, few schools that adopt any CSR models are systematically planning and implementing family and community involvement components.

There are several possible conclusions to draw from this study. The small percentage of CSR models with well-formulated components of family and community involvement may reflect the fact that (1) little research examines the necessary components of an effective school-wide parental involvement program, (2) few research-based programs exist to guide schools in developing partnership programs, and (3) school reform models underemphasize the parental component in favor of other required components. These reasons suggest the need for more rigorous research that investigates the development of school, family, and community partnership programs.

Section snippets

Theoretical framework

This study explores the role of principals in the development of school programs of school, family, and community partnerships using a sample of schools from the National Network of Partnership Schools (NNPS). Established in the 1996–97 school year, the NNPS at Johns Hopkins University helps schools, districts, and state departments of education to develop and maintain research-based programs of school, family, and community partnerships (Sanders & Epstein, 2000). Membership in NNPS is open to

Research objectives

Research to date has not systematically examined the role of principals in developing partnership programs with the essential elements that promote and increase program quality. Case studies (Sanders & Harvey, 2002) and anecdotal evidence from NNPS members suggest the critical importance of principals in making family and community involvement a school-wide priority. The purpose of the current study was to examine principals’ roles in the development of programs of partnership using measures of

Sample

The study is based on longitudinal data from schools that returned 2000–01 and 2001–02 UPDATE surveys to the NNPS. Three hundred and twenty schools in 27 states returned surveys from both years. The schools varied in location, with 37% representing large urban, 17% small urban, 28% suburban, and 18% rural areas. The majority of schools (80%) served elementary, while 13% served middle grade, and 7% served high-school students.

Twenty percent of the schools served student bodies where over 50% of

Results

Table 1 presents zero-order correlations, means, and other descriptive data for the variables of the study. As shown, elementary school level was not significantly correlated with any of the measured variables. Large urban schools were significantly more likely than small urban, rural, and suburban schools to have been in NNPS for less time (r=-.187, p<.01), have smaller action teams (r=-.138, p<.05), report more district support (r=.220, p<.001), evaluate their programs less (r=-.178, p<.01),

Discussion and conclusion

This longitudinal study of schools in the United States presents data on the central role principals play in the development of partnership programs. This finding supports the research on general school reform and extends knowledge about the role of principals to an important aspect of reform, namely family and community involvement programs. The correlations indicated several significant and positive relationships between principal support and features of effective partnership programs,

Recommendations and educational implications

This study includes a large number and variety of schools across the United States that are working to develop programs of school, family, and community partnerships. The data are unique because of the size of the sample, breadth of the concepts and actions addressed, and use of longitudinal measures of program quality. It also provides new data on the relationship of principals’ factors to other known components of effective partnership programs.

Future studies could build on the findings of

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge our colleagues Joyce L. Epstein and Kenyatta Williams for their help with the preparation of this paper. This work is supported by a grant from the US Department of Education, Office of Educational Research Improvement to CRESPAR. The analyses and opinions are the authors’ and do not necessarily reflect the policies of the funding sources.

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