Principals. So what does UELP do that other programs don t?

Principals

Nearly 50 graduates from

UIC’s innovative doctoral

program in urban education leadership

are now

principals in Chicago Public Schools.

Their students have achieved

higher test scores,

higher attendance rates

and lower dropout rates

than CPS students at large.

by design

By Steve Hendershot

Photo: Joe Drivas/Getty Images

I

launch a doctoral program focused on urban education lead-ership. But that wasn’t all. The team members boldly declared that their new program would dramatically affect the perfor-mance of urban schools. They even went so far as to predict that their program—the Ed.D. in Urban Education Leadership Program (UELP)— would soon receive national acclaim. How could they be so confident that their program would succeed when so many others had failed?

Part of their confidence stemmed from something researchers have known for 35 years: that even urban schools located in the most economically depressed areas can produce exceptional aca -demic results. “This is not from selective enrollment; it’s from

whoever comes through the door,” notes Steve Tozer, PHD’82

UI, co-founder and coordinator of UELP and professor of

educa-tional policy studies at UIC.

What accounts for these exceptions? Outstanding principals, says Tozer. “We thought, ‘What if we could take some of these people and get them to help teach the next generation of princi-pals in high-need schools in low-income [neighborhoods]?’ That was [our] starting point because we [felt] that better prin-cipals could be the single most cost-effective lever for improving these schools.”

It’s one thing to note that exceptional principals can produce outstanding results; it’s another to determine how to replicate these best-of-class leaders. But Tozer was convinced the latter was doable. With the help of a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, he interviewed many standout principals, and concluded that their methods and experience could be codi-fied and used to prepare a new generation of principals.

“It’s completely scalable,” explains Peter Martinez, who got so excited about the UELP concept that he left his position as a senior program officer at the MacArthur Foundation to join Tozer’s UIC team. (Martinez is UELP’s co-founder and its direc-tor of principal coaching.)

Scalability—that’s a favorite term of MBA types and usually used in reference to Web-based software or telecommunications. But this was something else entirely: UIC planned to demon-strate to the world how to train a good principal, with the idea that school districts everywhere could follow its lead.

And nearly a decade later, UELP is living up to its talk, and lifting up the Chicago Public Schools system in the process. Forty-five UIC UELP graduates are now CPS principals, and their students have higher test scores, higher attendance rates and lower dropout rates than CPS students at large—and the schools where UELP principals are assigned generally had below-average performances before they arrived.

This is the story of how they’ve done it.

What makes UELP different

For all of their confidence, Tozer and Martinez weren’t suggest-ing that just anyone could become a great principal. Their first step in instituting the program was to adopt highly selective admissions criteria, and to admit just a few students per year— approximately 15. Then they fashioned a demanding curriculum, established an intensive coaching program with mentor princi-pals and required a substantial residency in a CPS school. In fact, Tozer and Martinez met with CPS for guidance in developing their program, an approach that, by itself, represented an inno-vation in principal preparation.

CPS personnel “worked with us in design, implementation and assessment,” Tozer says. “Most of the time, higher educa-tion doesn’t have skin in the game once it graduates a candidate for principalship.”

It’s a substantial shift, compared to the traditional system through which Illinois teachers become principals. In Illinois, teachers who receive a Type 75 certification are eligible to become principals, and becoming certified is both convenient (after-school courses offered at the (after-schools where they work) and lucra-tive (Type 75-certified teachers often get a raise even if they don’t pursue an administrative position). As a result, the classes are crowded with teachers who aren’t necessarily focused on becom-ing principals, and the courses often concentrate more on general leadership than on the issues that principals face.

“There’s an issue when you’re teaching 20 to 25 people, and the majority of them have no intention of becoming principals,” says Joanne Rooney, co-director of the Midwest Principals’ Center in Wheaton. “The diversity of careers pursued makes the class less focused and less specific, which flies in the face of all the research we have about princi-palship—that next to class-room instruction, it’s the most important factor in the educa-tion of [students].

“It’s also in stark contrast with careers that require exten-sive education,” she adds. “Doctors, lawyers—those jobs certainly have lots of specificity in their training.”

So while many colleges that specialize in large-batch Type 75 classes tailor their offerings to teachers (which makes some sense, given that they’re the ones paying the tuition), Tozer chose to take a different approach—to consider CPS

Lloyd DeGrane

The Urban Education Leader -ship Program, which includes an intensive coaching program with mentor principals, was co-founded by Steve Tozer (left) and Peter Martinez.

www.uiaa.org/chicago l Spring 2011 l UICalumni magazine 29 his primary customer, and then to train principals according to

the criteria sought by the school system.

The approach has delivered results, as well as the appreciation of Tozer’s peers.

“We need to see more of these partnerships exist between higher education and local schools,” says Jason Leahy, executive director of Springfield-based Illinois Principals Association. “Local schools are ultimately the clients; and these collabora-tions create opportunities for higher education institucollabora-tions to hear the needs that schools have.”

UIC’s focus on coaching and in-school residency is especially valuable, says Leahy. Tozer is “trying to give principals stronger, more experientially based training. When you give [future] prin-cipals real, on-the-job experiences and [have them] work with seasoned veteran educational leaders, you can bet [they’re pre-pared] to succeed when they enter the principalship.”

The track record of UIC’s graduates, thus far, confirms this.

UELP’s stellar graduate

Janice Jackson MED’03, EDD’10joined the UIC doctoral program

at the same time she became principal at Al Raby High School on Chicago’s West Side. Jackson was just 27, but she already had earned a master’s degree and Type 75 certification, and had

taught history in CPS classes for five years. While her rapid ascent to the

princi-pal’s chair indicates she was already a rising star, Jackson says the education—and particularly the mentorship—she received through UELP was critical to her success.

“As a brand new principal, it was so helpful to have a coach to vet ideas and concerns with, so I could think through some of my decisions in a safe environment,” she explains.

One of the paradoxes of principalship is that successful schools tend to have a culture among teachers and administrators that is challenging but also collaborative and empowering. Tough-talk-ing, lone-wolf leaders—think Joe Clark, New Jersey’s Eastside Hillside High School principal and his bullhorn in the 1980s— can do only so much unless they inspire the teachers around them. And UELP stresses that cooperative atmosphere, both by choosing candidates that have extensive teaching experience themselves, and by providing doctoral candidates with procedures designed to help teachers develop and thrive.

Jackson quickly put some of those UELP procedures to work, giving her teachers authority to make curricular decisions, but then holding them accountable for the success of those initiatives.

She created a “Teacher Leadership Memorandum of Under

-“As a brand new principal, it was so helpful to have a coach to vet ideas and concerns with,” says Janice Jackson, discussing the benefits she derived from UELP. Jackson is a principal at Westing -house College Prep on Chicago’s West Side.

standing” that specified expectations; instituted a new system of teacher evaluation based on quantifiable standards; and devoted professional development resources to ensure that teachers acquired the skills that would help them succeed according to the new standards. Jackson also shifted some of the gener-al discussion of academic policy (which had dominated staff meetings) to an online forum, so that her team meet-ings could focus on action steps.

“A lot of these teachers came from schools where the teachers didn’t have a voice, so they appreciated a setup with more accountability,” explains Jackson. “It also requires [them to make] more decisions, which takes some getting used to, but they were excited about the opportunity—and they responded well.”

Her students also responded. After four years with Jackson at the helm, Al Raby had the lowest dropout rate and highest graduation rate of any non-selective CPS high school. Jackson is now principal at Westinghouse College Prep, a selective enrollment high school also located on Chicago’s West Side.

Jackson’s success is great news for UELP. Tozer’s program may be built on the notion that great principals can be produced in mass quantities, but it’s still nice to have a standard bearer. “Janice is a star performer and an extraor-dinary individual,” notes Tozer.

UELP earns state and national recognition

UELP graduates are clearly in demand. Since the pro-gram’s inception, Tozer and Martinez have overseen 76 candidates through the completion of their residency years, and 95 percent of them have obtained administra-tive positions in urban schools—48 are principals and 20 are assistant principals. The schools that they lead are recording substantial improvements, and the state and national recognition that Tozer and Martinez predict-ed is now pouring in. Tozer lpredict-ed a taskforce to examine changing the state standards for principal preparation; as a result of the task force’s work, the state legislature passed a new law (see sidebar, “Role Model”) that incor-porates more elements from UELP.

The Rainwater Charitable Foundation is about to release a study of successful principal preparation practices nationwide, and UELP is one of three programs featured. Tozer has a stack of invitations to speak at conferences all over the United States—

Stanford University in California; the U.S. Depart ment of

Education in Wash ington, D.C.; and a Wallace Foundation event in Boston.

There’s no guarantee that Tozer and Martinez have created a sil-ver-bullet cure for America’s urban schools. But they clearly are onto something with their method of principal preparation—and their graduates are making a mark on Chicago’s public schools. Now the rest of the state—and, increasingly, the nation—is paying

attention and preparing to follow their lead. UIC

A

“There is a bit of tension because we’re working to

advance state policy, and we want to set a high bar for all the state’s programs, but some of these rule [changes] will affect what we do at UIC,” notes Tozer. For example, the proposed state requirements for “mentor principals” are different from those in UIC’s Urban Education Leadership Program.

Although the state legisla-ture passed the law in June

2010, specifics are still being hashed out in

rules committees. What seems cer-tain, however, is that the new certifi-cation process will require additional training on principal-ship and a residency

or internship-like component. “The model is UIC’s rela-tionship with Chicago Public Schools, and the chal-lenge for the rest of us is to replicate that,” says Erika Hunt, project direc-tor for the Illinois State Action Leadership Project and a faculty member at Illinois State University. (ISU has a partnership with Springfield’s public school system that’s similar to the

one between UIC and Chicago Public Schools.)

At issue are such compo-nents as the structure of the residency, because it’s challenging for teachers to leave their classrooms in order to log extensive, unpaid internship hours.

Generally, though, state educational leaders admire the success and spirit behind the UIC model, and are excited about the prospect of replicating it. “Everybody says the key is establishing the right cul-ture and climate, but obvi-ously, it matters how you accomplish that,” says Carlene Lutz, education-al issues director of the Westmont-based Illinois Federation of Teachers. “Prin cipals succeed when they establish a collab-orative atmos-phere, and that’s how Steve’s pro-gram prepares people.”

—S.H.

UELP’s successful partnership with the

Chicago Public Schools helps influence

statewide changes in principal certification