Sunday, July 8, 2012

Rand study about principals

On another post Anonymous wrote:

Rand studies Principals at $6.7 million over five years . . . .


“The study notes, "The quality of leadership provided by a school's principal is widely regarded as an important contributor to the quality of teaching and learning in the school."”

“Based on principal performance in 2010-11, the district awarded a total of $342,250 to 67 principals; the highest award was $13,270."

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/neighborhoods-city/study-finds-pittsburgh-principals-in-classrooms-more-often-643751/#ixzz202WIYa3i

Fascinating in view of the word that PSSA scores have plummeted for 2012.(Schools got their individual student scores this past week.)




11 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Maybe the most frustrating aspect is we can't definitively say whether this program did or did not improve student outcomes, which is obviously the primary goal of any education reform."

The above statement can be applied to many or all of the newest initiatives.


"In a lot of school districts, you'll see a piling on of reforms sometimes just reflecting what's the latest hot thing," she said. "In Pittsburgh, a lot of attention is paid at the highest level to try to send out a clear and consistent message. ..."

Many would disagree and say the district does pile on inititatives before proving what works here.

Anonymous said...

The heck with Reform new fangle stuff. Lets get back to basics.

Anonymous said...

Strange report telling us that :

1) PPS principals are the key---and getting huge bonuses (more than $13,000) at a total of $342,250!

2) And “RAND gets $6.7 MILLION over five years” to tell us principals are the key!

YET, PSSA scores are "plummeting"? What are we missing here?


“The study notes, "The quality of leadership provided by a school's principal is widely regarded as an important contributor to the quality of teaching and learning in the school."”

“Based on principal performance in 2010-11, the district awarded a total of $342,250 to 67 principals; the highest award was $13,270."

Anonymous said...

How successful could the PULSE initiative possibly be?

The relative ranking of PPS among Pennsylvania school districts FELL to number 474 since pay for performance began.

Anonymous said...

RAND is a major player,(money maker) with "school reform". Private company taking public tax dollars to tell us we should not pay teachers because they are paid with public tax dollars. RAND Is in the back pocket of all the major "reformers". It is about profit, not kids.

Anonymous said...

1) Does anyone know how to find out how much each principal earned in bonuses last year?

2) Does anyone know how to access the recently released PSSA scores?

Anonymous said...

Only through the Administration. . . there is a password.

You will not be able to access the recent PSSA scores publicly, without a password, until the end of September.

Anonymous said...

If you google search the Post-Gazette, there was an article that listed many of the bonuses.

In previous years, they had listed all of them.

The information should be available with a FOIA request -- basically just sending a letter to the district stating that you want that information under the Freedom of Information Act. They may charge a small amount for copying.

Usually PSSA scores are available sooner than late Sept -- the basics are usually available in late August with the full school "report cards" available later. Has that changed this year?

Anonymous said...

One question- how does the Business Times get their summaries of data so early, and we all have to wait? The numbers are there-the 'burgh is low. I know people are hard at work massaging the data,adding value, etc. The powers have been saying for decades that they wanted to track individual teachers scores. HOW? With furloughs and displacements, we can barely track,seniority and certification! The staff of any school in September is far from the staff in June. So we have very high paid consultants tracking teachers, students and scores--with half the districts involved in changes. So they will get big bucks for findings-- that we cant track jack!

Anonymous said...

The Business Times information is last years, that was not published until April.

It is not 2012 Data. Only the PA schools got the latest (2012) individual student scores. It was one month late this year. It was sent on July 3rd instead of early June as it has always been sent previously.

Principals now know exactly how every student scored; but do not yet have official school data.

Anonymous said...

Yes indeed...keep paying firms like RAND to tell us that principals are the keys to academic success.....What ever happened to all staff members play a significant role in student achievement?.....once again, Bellefield people put their responibilities on outside firms to do their work! It is about time Bellefield realizes that they have made mistakes with this reform and swallow their pride and fix the situation without hiring this firm or this consultant. Initiative after Initiative have failed along with Gender Academy idea, the elementary math curriculum changes year after year, and the ever popular PELA program!....98% of the PELA principals have been a failure. Only a few have had any type of success and I think it is obvious who they are and it isn't the one at the elementary school in squirrel hill that used to be a model school with high academic achievement until this principal took over....Good job PELAS!