I would like some answers, please.
Overall, there have been 177 principal changes since the takeover began in June 2023. In most cases, the principal separated from the district voluntarily. Following that were transfers, to 27 other principal positions and 36 non-principal positions. In 22 cases, principals were promoted.
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Houston ISD officials said they prioritized principal development, training and support as part of the goal to provide an excellent education for all students.
“Principal transitions can occur for many reasons, sometimes personal, sometimes the result of a promotion, and sometimes a leader might be a strong educator, but is just not a fit for the needs of a specific school community at this moment,” the district said. “In all cases, we try to balance the value of leadership stability with the urgency of improving student outcomes so that all of Houston’s kids have a chance to succeed.”
The district commented that this year’s turnover is 3% and noted a 2023 report from The RAND Corporation indicating that 23% of principals retired or resigned in high-poverty school districts in 2021-22, three-quarters of which were rural districts. The report, examining the pandemic’s effect on turnover, uses survey data from district leaders estimating principal turnover rates pre-pandemic, 2020-21 and 2021-22.
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Principal turnover can create instability, said Penn State University professor Edward Fuller. Teachers are more likely to leave if a new principal does not align with their vision of schooling, and that principal may bring in new rules and a new culture.
“In general, we don’t want principal turnover,” he said. “However, if a principal is really ineffective, then better to get them out of the school and create a little instability. Because if you leave them there, they’re just going to cause more damage over time. So it’s a tricky, tricky call from whoever’s making the decision on whether to keep a principal or move them.”
For a few HISD communities, the principal changes felt abrupt and it was not clear why the change occurred. The principal change at East End’s Lantrip Elementary School sparked protest by the campus and public comment to the Board of Managers.
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Principal turnover is common to school reform efforts, University of Delaware education policy professor Gary Henry said. One of the challenges to turnaround is that it alienates people who have been in the district for a while and have defined how they do their jobs and what is successful. While the level of June departures in HISD was “incredible,” they were not a complete surprise to him.
Bringing in new principals for reform is a good thing with incentives and support, Henry said. But the key is collaboration among educators, including principals, so there’s a positive effect on school climate and professional development. In that scenario the principal and teachers are in the classroom learning together about their approaches to the science of reading and curriculum, he said.
“If managed well, the turnover can be a very good thing. But in part, it depends on the quality of the replacements that are available,” he said. “So when you hire a new principal, if you hire someone who’s less skilled, less well-trained on the approaches for the instruction model that’s going to be used — then it can go the other way.”
Lots of things get better results if they’re managed well. This story is about the number of principals who for one reason or another left their positions at HISD after the takeover. There was a huge wave of them last year, including a lot during the year, and this year there have been far fewer. What I would like to know – and I would hope that HISD would like to know – is how have these schools done since those changes. Specifically, I’d like to know that data for two subgroups: Schools where the principal was fired or otherwise removed by Mike Miles, and schools where the principal was replaced mid-year. I’m sure some will show an improvement, so I’d also like this compared to national data to get some idea of what we might have expected and what we actually got. It would also be good to track this for more than one year, to see if any initial changes reverse themselves, and to see how the performance compares to a multi-year period pre-Miles.
I don’t think any of this is too much to ask for. There’s a perfectly decent chance that the data will be favorable to HISD, but whether it is or it isn’t the TEA should want to know it as well, as they do other takeovers. We as the stakeholders of HISD deserve nothing less.