Principal Behaviors that Support Increased Achievement in Elementary Math

Researchers found these student-centered practices and the principal’s engagement with teachers and teacher teams led to significant increases in math achievement. 

The following is reprinted with permission from Kim Marshall, The Marshall Memo 964, Dec. 5, 2022.           

In this American Educational Research Journal article, Elham Kazemi (University of Washington), Alison Fox Resnick (University of Colorado), and Lynsey Gibbons (University of Delaware) describe how the principal of a racially diverse, low-SES elementary school shifted math instruction from teacher-centered and procedure-focused to student-centered and emphasizing discussion, problem-solving, reasoning, and sense-making. Over three years, the school rose from “failing” status to being named as a School of Distinction by the state, with fourth and fifth graders outscoring the district and state (passing rates for fifth graders went from 20 to 79 percent) and no achievement differences among the school’s racial and socioeconomic student groups.

Kazemi, Resnick, and Gibbons studied this turnaround with a particular focus on how the principal worked with teachers and teacher teams. Their observations:

• Teachers as learners – The principal was clear about her vision for an improved mathematics curriculum and classroom practices that needed to change, say the authors, but she also believed teachers “needed to be trusted and engaged as competent sensemakers in messy and experimental learning.” To encourage risk-taking, one of the principal’s mantras was, “You can’t look good and get better at the same time.” She knew it would take time for the pedagogical changes that needed to be made, with plenty of mistakes along the way. 
• Modeling risk-taking – As the principal worked shoulder to shoulder with teachers in grade-level meetings, math labs, and PD sessions, she shared their struggles implementing new materials and pedagogical practices, built collegiality and trust – and continued to communicate clear and high expectations. “I’m constantly shifting back and forth between pressure and support,” she said. “As I’m listening, I’m thinking all these things at once.” Because the principal sat in on so many teacher meetings, she was a keener observer of math teaching and learning when she visited classrooms.
• Equity – One of the school’s goals was to close racial and economic achievement gaps, but the principal “resisted pervasive equity discourse,” say the authors – also the idea that black and brown students needed to “catch up” with their white and Asian peers. Instead, the principal “focused closely on students’ experiences and participation in classrooms” – and on all students’ opportunities after they graduated from the school. Bringing effective, rigorous instruction to every classroom was central to the principal’s equity philosophy. “It’s not fair,” she said, “that a child could have two different experiences because of the flip of a coin, you got this teacher and not that teacher.”
• Student agency – “Our goal,” said the principal, “is to change kids’ outcomes in life by having them be thinkers, by having them be leaders of their own learning.” In classrooms, she watched for who was doing the intellectual heavy lifting – the teacher or the students. When a teacher said, “I wish you were in here five minutes ago when I was teaching,” the principal said that “teaching” was everything teachers were orchestrating that got kids talking to each other about their work and understanding math content and skills.
• Teacher collaboration – The principal saw weekly 45-minute grade-level teams (during teachers’ common planning time) as the “unit of change,” the key “leverage point” for improving individual teachers’ effectiveness. The school’s math coach facilitated these meetings, guiding teachers as they talked about what had been most successful in their classrooms. The principal and coach watched for how well teachers were working together, and the principal reassigned teachers to different grade levels when team dynamics were not productive. Maximizing the potential of teams was also a key consideration when the school filled teaching vacancies.
• Lesson study – Four to six times a year, each grade-level team, joined by special education and ELL teachers, participated in a full- or half-day “math lab” in which (facilitated by the math coach) they (a) unpacked new ideas about content, instruction, and student thinking; (b) collaboratively planned a short lesson; (c) taught the lesson in their classrooms; and (d) discussed their insights. The principal made a point of attending all teams’ math labs in the course of each year (24 in all) and saw these cycles as key to improving instructional planning and disrupting some teachers’ deficit ideas about what students were capable of doing mathematically.
• Individual coaching – Every week, the principal and the math coach visited classrooms to gauge how teachers and students were making sense of the curriculum and provide feedback and support. The principal sat with students on the rug or checked in with them as they worked at their desks, asking about what they were learning and which problems they found easy and difficult. The principal and the coach followed up with teachers during and after visits, praising effective practices and problem-solving when students were struggling.
• Teacher evaluation – The district’s system for evaluating teachers was incompatible with the principal’s desire to have conversations about teaching and learning throughout the year, setting goals and giving feedback from September through June. The principal also disagreed with the district’s practice of making each classroom visit evaluative. “I need to be spending my time with teachers learning and planning and reflecting and adjusting,” she said. She complied with the district’s requirements, but her main focus was on being in classrooms and team meetings every week, noticing how teachers were interpreting and implementing lesson plans, communicating with teacher teams about their insights and ideas, and fine-tuning teaching throughout the year.
• Instructional leadership team – The ILT, consisting of the principal, assistant principal, and the math and literacy coaches, focused on how well teachers were implementing new practices, how successfully students were learning, and teacher interactions in grade-level teams. The leadership team made decisions about supporting individual teachers and teams and brainstormed ideas for the next round of math labs.
• All-staff communication – The principal used e-mails, staff meetings, and schoolwide professional development sessions to deprivatize practice, spread effective ideas, and communicate a sense that “we are all learning this together.”
• Storytelling – The principal encouraged teachers to tell her when lessons went especially well and send students to her (or the math coach) when they made a learning breakthrough. The principal often began staff meetings by sharing one or two of these stories, and frequently used metaphors to make important points: they were all in the same boat and needed to be rowing in the same direction; building a new mathematics system was fragile and vulnerable, like a house of cards; when sharing learning data that showed student progress, she stressed that students were on the road but had not yet arrived.
• Buffering outside agendas – Once the school’s instructional vision was clear, the principal pushed back on district initiatives that would distract teachers from the path they were on. “Part of what I do,” she said, “which is my least favorite part of my job, is I say no all the time. ‘No, I’m sorry our teacher can’t go to that. No, I’m sorry, we can’t help you do that. No, I’m sorry, we can’t have another visit. No, we do not want that curriculum you bought because you think every elementary school needs it. No, I can’t even store it in my building because… that sends a message.’”

“Principal Leadership for Schoolwide Transformation of Elementary Mathematics Teaching: Why the Principal’s Conception of Teacher Learning Matters” by Elham Kazemi, Alison Fox Resnick, and Lynsey Gibbons in American Educational Research Journal, December 2022 (Vol. 59, #6, pp. 1051-1089); the authors can be reached at ekazemi@uw.edu, alison.resnick@colorado.edu and lgibbons@udel.edu.