Introduction

This Study Guide is a tool to accompany What Great Principals Do Differently: 15 Things That Matter Most by Todd Whitaker. It is a practical resource for educational leaders who are examining what great principals do that sets them apart from others. This Study Guide assists instructors, staff developers, professors, and other educational leaders who are working with principals to hone their leadership skills. In addition, principals reading and studying Whitaker’s book can use this Study Guide as a “workbook” for the original text. This Study Guide serves as a roadmap to help principals focus on the leadership beliefs, behaviors, attitudes, and commitments that positively impact teaching and learning in our classrooms and our schools.

What Great Principals Do Differently: 15 Things That Matter Most is filled with practical, common sense advice for principals serving at the K–12 levels. It focuses on what great principals do that sets them apart, clarifying best practices based on numerous school-based studies and visits. Whitaker’s book is one that principals can read and put to use immediately. This Study Guide enables the facilitator to lead principals through the contents of a very important and practical book and to exhort them to not only read and understand its essential concepts, but to take what they learn back to their schools and to implement new strategies and ideas in a practical and relatively simple manner.

To stress the practicality of the book’s contents, each section of this Study Guide is organized with the acronym USE IT in mind. The Study Guide is divided into several sections, each focusing on one or two chapters of Whitaker’s text. The 13 sections are organized as follows:
. Understanding Key Concepts, which summarize the key points for each chapter in the book;
. Selecting Questions for Discussion, which provides a list of discussion questions that can be used in the classroom/workshop setting;
. Eliciting Journal Responses, is a prompt for journal writing based on the specific contents of the chapters;
. Interacting With Others, which offers ideas for activities to use with class/workshop participants;
. Taking It Back, which offers ideas for applying what is learned in the book and class/workshop in our schools.

Section One

Chapter 1: Why Look at Great
Chapter 2: It’s People, Not Programs

Understanding Key Concepts
. Although principals must have a strong knowledge base in their field, what they know about being a school principal is subordinate in importance to what they do as a school principal.
. The perspective of What Great Principals Do Differently is threefold and based on research findings examining effective school leadership; observations at and consultations with many schools and school systems; and the personal core beliefs that guided Todd Whitaker’s own work as a successful school principal.
. We can always learn from observing what great principals do. Eliminating inappropriate choices does not help as much as identifying good ideas used by successful educators.
. By studying our most effective school leaders, we learn where they focus their attention, how they spend their time and energy, and what guides their decisions.
. No matter how good our most effective principals are, they still want to be better.
. No program inherently leads to school improvement. It is the people who implement sound programs who determine the success of the school. Programs are never the solution, and they are never the problem.
. Recognizing the importance of people over programs, great principals recognize that the two primary ways to improve a school are to hire better teachers and to improve the teachers already in place.
. Great principals realize that teachers—just like students—vary widely in their individual needs and abilities. As a result, no single program will work with the same rate of success for all teachers. Programs are only solutions when they bring out the best in teachers.
. In addition to promoting whole-school growth and improvement initiatives, great principals do everything possible to promote individual teacher develop- ment.

Selecting Questions for Discussion
. What do great principals see when they view their schools and the people in them?
. Why should we look at what great principals do?
. Why must we study less-effective principals and schools when determining what distinguishes those who are identified as great from those who are not great? In what ways does looking at ineffective principals and schools have limited value?
. As a school principal, what guides the decisions you make each day?
. How can you ensure that you recruit and hire the very best teachers? How can you improve the teachers already working at your school?
. Why do certain programs work so well for some teachers, but fail miserably for other teachers?

Eliciting Journal Responses
Think of a program you implemented in recent years at your school or that was implemented at a school with which you are familiar. Which teachers adapted to the change of programs, embracing the new idea and making it work? Did any teachers resist the change? Was the program ultimately deemed a success? What determined whether or not it was successful? What should principals consider before endorsing schoolwide programs for implementation? If such programs are adopted, what can principals do to foster successful implementation while honoring individuality among teachers?

Interacting With Others
It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it…

Beginning on p. 8 of the text, Whitaker describes several “programs” that he deems neither a problem nor a solution: open classrooms, assertive discipline, whole language, direct instruction, mission statements, and standards-based assessment. Divide the class into several groups of four to six each. Ask each group to pick one of the above programs, or to pick another one that is not listed, and to discuss the relative merits of the chosen “program.” Within groups, participants should discuss how the chosen program can work effectively or ineffectively, sharing any specific examples with which they are familiar from their own experience. Have each group report back whether it was the people involved or the program itself that determined the level of success.

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Distribute the six quotations below regarding leadership, one to each of six groups. After assigning the quotations, allow time for the groups to study and discuss the quotation. Have them discuss amongst themselves how the leadership quotation they were assigned is in some way connected to the material presented in Chapter 1 and/or Chapter 2 of the text. Ask each group to offer another quotation with which they are familiar—or even create an original one—that is connected to the material under study and to share their discussions with the group at-large.

Leadership should be more participative than directive, more enabling than performing.
A good leader inspires others with confidence in him; a great leader inspires them with confidence in themselves.
Good leaders make people feel that they’re at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the organization. When that happens, people feel centered and that gives their work meaning.
Good leaders develop through a never-ending process of self-study, education, training, and experience.
A good leader is not the person who does things right, but the person who finds the right things to do.
Leaders don’t force people to follow—they invite them on a journey.

Taking It Back
Think about ways in which you want your school to improve. While you may at first focus on schoolwide improvement initiatives, recall Whitaker’s research which shows that teachers value principals who not only implement whole-school growth proposals, but who are also committed to encouraging and supporting individual teacher needs for staff development. At your school, begin by asking five teachers you respect what they would most like to improve about their current practice or in what areas they would like to grow professionally. Commit to helping these teachers reach their individual self-improvement goals. Continue this in your building by making it your mission to find out what each individual teacher at your school would like to “become” during future years of their professional career. Perhaps some aspire to administrative careers. Perhaps others would like to try gifted education. Maybe others would like to move grade levels, subject areas, or into counseling. At the same time, other teachers might desire less dramatic change, wanting only to improve their classroom discipline practices or use performance assessments more effectively. As school leaders, we must recognize the needs of our individual teachers in the vital area of individual teacher development, as this will also lead to school improvement.

Section Two

Chapter 3: Who is the Variable?

Understanding Key Concepts
. Effective principals understand that just as teachers are the variable in the classroom most responsible for student success, principals are the variables for schools and are responsible for the school’s success.
. Effective principals make teachers fully aware of the impact they have in their own classrooms. As leaders, they help teachers take responsibility for their own classrooms, while accepting a higher level of responsibility for themselves.
. Research shows that effective principals view themselves as responsible for all aspects of their school, whereas less-effective principals blame outside influences for the problems in their schools and believe they have no control over outcomes.
. If everyone looks in the mirror when they ask, “Who is the variable?” we will have made tremendous strides toward school improvement.

Selecting Questions for Discussion
. When the students of our best teachers fail, these teachers typically blame themselves. How does this concept of accepting responsibility apply to school principals?
. In what key way do effective principals differ from less-effective principals in terms of how they view their role?
. How can we as principals help our teachers take responsibility for student performance in their classrooms?
. How do effective and less-effective principals react when faced with obstacles outside of their direct control, such as budget reductions?
. Why might parents choose to send their children to a school that has just appointed an outstanding principal to lead a mediocre teaching staff over a school with a strong teaching staff but an ineffective principal?

Eliciting Journal Responses
This chapter stresses as a key idea that what makes the difference between two schools is not a “what” at all, but, instead, a “who”; that is, teachers and principals are the true variables in schools. We have the power to make a difference in the lives of students, each other, and our schools. Consider the hypothetical scenario described on pp. 16–17 of the text regarding the two schools. How would you, as the outstanding principal with a weak faculty, begin making this the better of the two schools? Keep in mind the two-year timeline suggested in the premise and discuss how you would improve the teaching staff and the overall school.

Interacting With Others
Expectations—for everyone…

According to a study cited by the author, effective principals view themselves as responsible for all aspects of their school. Although all principals have high expectations for their teachers, great principals also have extremely high expectations for themselves. Working in groups of two to five, have participants reexamine the issue of expectations for principals from the perspective of students, teachers, and parents. What are a few expectations for which all stakeholders should hold all principals accountable? Have each group commit, as principals, to adhere to these expectations by drafting “We will…” statements, as in: “We (as principals) will treat all members of our school community with dignity and respect.” Ask each small group to write five “We will…” statements to which they would expect themselves and other principals to adhere. Ask each group to share its list, recording answers on the board, overhead, chart paper, or computer screen. After each group has shared its list, poll the entire class about which are the five most important “We will…” statements.

Who is responsible? Look in the mirror…

The author suggests that effective principals view themselves as responsible for all aspects of their schools. As we all know, the demands on principals are exhaustive and seem to be increasing every year. Principals are expected to fulfill numerous responsibilities including the following:
. Having vision
. Believing that the schools are for learning
. Valuing human resources
. Being a skilled communicator and listener
. Acting proactively
. Taking risks

Place each of the six headings above on a piece of chart paper. Divide participants into six groups, each beginning with one of the above areas of a principal’s responsibility. Allow groups to brainstorm ways they might act on these responsibilities within their group. Post these on the walls of the room, spreading them out as much as possible. Ask each group to do a gallery stroll, spending approximately five minutes at each chart and adding to any chart additional ideas they might have for each area. Then give each individual participant six adhesive dots and direct them to place one dot on each of the six charts next to the idea they deem most useful, applicable, and important. Once all participants have placed their dots on each chart, discuss the results with the entire group.

Taking It Back
Upon returning to your school, take some time to compare your school to a neighboring school in terms of some measurable criterion (e.g., attendance, test scores, discipline data). Try to identify an area in which your school might be performing below the level of the comparison school. First list all the outside factors beyond your control that might (or might not) play a role in the difference between your school’s performance and that of the comparison school. Next, decide on what you can control that might improve your own school’s performance. Share your thoughts with other leaders at your school and devise a plan committed to improving your school in this targeted area.

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