It's People, Not Programs

In his book, What Great Principals Do Differently: Fifteen Things That Matter Most, Todd Whitaker outlines a number of things that make great principals stand out from others. One of these is the concept of focusing on the people within the school and not the programs that are running. He bluntly states the two ways that he feels a principal can make significant improvements to a school are to get better teachers and improve the teachers you have. He continues to discuss the fact that programs can make a difference, but it requires good teachers to be in place using those programs. Any teacher who has been teaching for ten years or more, especially if they have been at the same school, has seen programs come and go. Some of these programs are curriculum based, such as reading programs, while others may be encouraging good citizenship. Whitaker states, that effective principals, "see programs as solutions only when the programs bring out the best in their teachers."

In the same chapter, Whitaker also discusses the importance of principals to focus on individual staff development. In his studies, ineffective principals were much more focused of whole-school goals and issues and very little on individual teacher needs and growth. For me, this strengthens the need for individual teacher growth plans that are focused and empowering and supporting teachers to meet their goals that they set out in these documents. Whole school goals are important and we must continue to work on them, but if you have struggling teachers, this will probably not make much of a difference in their classroom. Regardless of the programs that we implement, the biggest difference made is through the quality of our teachers. This needs to be our overall focus if we want to make significant improvement in our schools.

Whitaker, T. (2003). What great principals do differently: Fifteen things that matter most. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.