School Principals

Control of the evaluative framework of the school, an oft-overlooked power source, is always available to school principals. Through judgments made about staff performance and emphases placed on certain aspects of that performance, the evaluation mechanism can establish and reinforce a prestige hierarchy of expected performed tasks and related behaviors. For example, during teacher evaluation periods, principals can use the written narrative part of formal evaluations to emphasize more effective teaching behaviors and discourage ineffective and less effective ones.

Tasks like staff selection, staff development, supervision of curriculum organization, setting up and directing inservice activities on new teaching methods, supervising vice principals and counselors, initial placement of new children, discipline, and other child-adjustment actions are learner-centered activities. Management and interpersonal-political concerns are discussed separately in this section. Ideally, both domains should serve the learner-centered one-a relationship often lacking in actual practice, because many principals manage well and function quite effectively in the interpersonal-political arena without serving learners adequately.

Because it is an overarching guiding concept as well as a working method for school principals at all levels, comprehensive understanding of learner-centered principalship necessitates discussion of several topics. Topics which follow describe its meaning, uses, procedure, and the context in which it is most effective.

One of the increasingly sophisticated and challenging skills of school principals is the management and balance of the impact of technology on school practice to the extent that learner interests are protected. Those key words, management and balance, are of greater value as focal points for discussion here than details related to actual planning for, acquisition, and operation of technology available to schools. Those details are found in specialized books and volumes; after all, staying abreast of the rapid changes in technology available to and applicable to schools is virtually a sphere of interest all its own.

Microcomputers are everywhere. Many school principals, even at elementary levels, know one or several learners who are computer "whizzes." And most of the others are knowledgeable about many computer applications, especially those oriented to entertainment.

Interpersonal or intergroup conflicts represent a special area that requires political awareness and anticipation. Such conflicts might be between staff members, between competing programs in schools, between parent groups, or a combination thereof. Understanding such relationships and linkages provides an important "mine detector" for principals. For example, awareness that one or more school board members make judgments about the effectiveness of schools on the basis of the input of several well-known parents in the immediate school community can arm the principal with a measure of caution when dealing with such parents. Generally, community politics are critical to the professional survival of school principals, meaning that principals need to understand clearly the expectations communities hold for their schools.

The authority of school principals derives indirectly from the reality that education is a state function. State constitutions require that their legislatures provide adequate school systems to educate their children. Periodically, slowly evolving case law challenges and redefines the character, quality, and adequacy of that education. State departments of education are set up for purposes of carrying out the education function at the direction of each state legislature.