We’re on staycation, but we wanted to share what just popped into our inbox: The long-awaited evaluation of principals who graduated from the city’s controversial Leadership Academy.
The report concludes that graduates of the Leadership Academy took especially tough jobs, stopped their schools from getting worse, and posted reading test score gains that outpaced those made at other schools with new principals. In math, schools led by Leadership Academy graduates improved but not significantly more than other schools. And the study looked at too few high schools to conclude anything about the effect of Leadership Academy principals there.
The report’s authors, three professors at New York University, say more research is needed to identify what about the Leadership Academy graduates allowed their schools to make comparatively more progress in reading. They emphasize that the Leadership Academy, which fast-tracks educators into school administration, selects applicants that it believes will make successful principals, so the study could not cast light on how well the program prepares the average prospective principal.
The report was paid for by foundations that helped fund the academy before it moved onto the public dollar last year, Broad and Dell.
EdWeek has more detail about the report, which is posted in full after the jump: