In recent years, school districts have added more leadership staff—assistant principals, teacher-leaders, instructional coaches—to support teachers. What they have not done as much is think strategically about how to deploy those new bodies to help teachers become better at their jobs.
That’s according to the management company, Bain & Co., which released a report last week on how districts can implement distributed-leadership models to improve teaching.
“All too often, we’ve added the titles, but we haven’t really effectively changed the dynamic,” said Chris Bierly, the company’s global head of K-12 education practice.
Bain looked at 12 school systems nationwide and surveyed more than 4,200 teachers, assistant principals, and principals. The researchers found that the average principal was responsible for reviewing the performance and development of 37 teachers plus other instructional staff far more than the five people that an average manager in accounting or human resources is tasked with overseeing, according to the report. It says the result is overworked principals and assistant principals who are not able to provide effective feedback or observations to their teachers.
