Members of the district central office who are tasked with supervising principals are given different titles in different districts (including Assistant, Area, Cluster, Network, or Instructional Superintendents). We use Leadership to refer to this department which sits in the chain of command between the Superintendent’s office and schools. District leaders responsible for teaching and learning are usually in a separate department, often referred to as Teaching and Learning or Curriculum and Instruction (C&I). Here we refer to the department responsible for academics as C&I for brevity purposes. Collaboration and shared purpose between the two departments will enhance the effectiveness of each. 

The Problem

Although a key metric of effective leadership of a school is the extent to which students actually learn, in larger districts, Leadership and C&I often have limited interaction, pursue different priorities, and communicate different expectations to schools. Differing departmental agendas reflect real differences in responsibilities and, relatedly, differences in how the challenge of advancing student learning is framed. 

C&I staff are hired for their expertise in subject area learning; they are responsible for aligning instruction with state standards and expectations, and they focus on developing teachers’ practice with the goal of improving student learning. Reflecting the shifts required by the more rigorous 21st century standards, they frame the challenge of improving teaching and learning in terms of weaknesses in students’ critical thinking, conceptual understanding, problem-solving, and flexible use of the so-called basic skills. Shifting instruction to develop these capacities is understood to take persistent effort over time, requiring a long-term perspective and a stay the course strategy.

In contrast, those in Leadership interact with principals who are on the front lines every day, responding to dissatisfied parents and community members, and managing crises when a student is hurt, a community experiences a tragedy, or the teachers become dissatisfied. Attuned to public pressure and responsible for managing emerging crises, Leadership departments naturally operate on short-term priorities. Their more outward-facing positions mean they are held accountable when high-stakes tests reveal poor performance. Unlike C&I, external pressures often lead to changing the course to demonstrate responsiveness, and to adopting solutions that promise increased student achievement scores in the short term. 

This difference in agendas is consequential. For example, when school leaders perceive themselves to be primarily accountable for increasing student achievement scores in the near term (aligned with their supervisor’s goal), teacher collaborative time is more likely to focus on test preparation activities (e.g., creating test-formatted warm-ups) rather than on improving high-leverage aspects of instruction (e.g., planning and leading whole class discussions). Similarly, school-based coaches who report to their principals are more likely to be assigned tasks aimed at improving student test scores (e.g., analyzing student data, organizing tutoring), rather than working directly with teachers to improve the quality of their instruction. We have seen cases in which principals who perceive that student test scores are the primary measure of their effectiveness expect teachers to spend a significant portion of each class period on test preparation activities, or to spend additional resources on students who are just below the cut-off for the proficient category.

Each department is responding appropriately given their accountability, yet each is a threat to the other’s success. We have observed Leadership departments and the principals they supervise creating barriers that deny C&I staff access to schools and teachers because they believe these staff take precious teacher time without delivering results. Thus, the influence of those who have the greatest content area expertise is diminished. 

Frequent reorganizations inside districts indicate that superintendents are aware that organizational structures are not producing desired outcomes for students. But reorganizations have little effect unless they bring about the coordinated and coherent effort across departments that is necessary to support student, teacher, and leader learning. 

What Can Be Done?

Given the differences in the demands on the departments, time must be set aside and protected for them to collaborate on tasks that advance the instructional improvement effort and students’ learning. The person best suited to this task is the district leader to whom both departments report (often a Deputy Superintendent). Without involvement of the superintendent’s office, the differing demands on the departments will continue to drive them apart. 

An important task for cross-department collaboration is to ensure that learning opportunities for school leaders, coaches, and teachers focus on a common understanding of high-quality instruction. For example, if the goal of district-wide professional development sessions and of one-on-one coaching is to improve the quality of classroom discussions, school leaders need support to understand why such discussions matter for students’ learning, and to communicate appropriate expectations about discussions to teachers. Using consistent tools across professional learning settings for various role groups can be especially valuable in communicating coherent expectations and supporting the development of a coherent instructional vision. For example, the tools that school leaders are expected to use to observe teachers’ instruction should be consistent with the broader instructional improvement effort and with the focus of teachers’ professional learning.