Changing the Principal Supervisor Role to Better Support Principals: Evidence from the Principal Supervisor Initiative

In 2014, The Wallace Foundation launched the Principal Supervisor Initiative (PSI), a four-year, $24 million effort to redefine principal supervision in six urban school districts. The PSI aimed to help districts overhaul a position traditionally focused on administration, operations, and compliance to one dedicated to developing and supporting principals to be effective instructional leaders in their schools. Principal supervisors are a potential point of leverage for supporting and developing principals' effectiveness, but little is known about the effectiveness of this approach. The overarching hypothesis of the PSI was that changing the role of principal supervisors from overseeing operations to developing principals' instructional leadership practices could drive improvement in principal effectiveness. This report describes districts' experiences with the PSI across the years of the initiative and analyzes its effects on teachers' perceptions of principals' performance. Specifically, the report addresses the following questions: (1) What is the theory of change for revising the principal supervisor's role?; (2) What were districts' and principal supervisors' experiences with the PSI?; (3) What were principals' experiences with the PSI?; (4) How did the initiative affect teachers' perceptions of principals' performance, and how did teachers' perceptions of principals' performance and the effects of the PSI vary across districts and principal supervisors?; (5) How do key components of the PSI relate to changes in teachers' perceptions of principals' performance?; and (6) How did the principal supervisor role in PSI districts compare with that in other urban districts? The report also discusses the sustainability of changes made during the PSI and lessons learned for revising the principal supervisor role. The analyses of data from site visits, interviews, and surveys focused on districts', supervisors', and principals' experiences, successes, and challenges throughout the initiative; lessons learned; and plans for sustaining the accomplishments of the PSI after the initiative ended. The authors integrated the descriptive survey results with the qualitative data. The PSI brought substantial changes to all six districts. The initiative was successful in changing the principal supervisor role to one that focused on providing support and guidance to schools and principals. Principals' perceptions of their supervisors' effectiveness improved over the course of the initiative. Districts restructured their central offices to better support schools and meet their needs. Changes districts made during the PSI led to a shared understanding of the principal supervisor role and equipped principal supervisors to better support principals. However, the PSI did not improve teachers' perceptions of principals' performance, on average.