University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

How successful urban superintendents in California improve student achievement

(USC Thesis Other)

How successful urban superintendents in California improve student achievement

PDF

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content
HOW SUCCESSFUL URBAN SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENTS
IN CALIFORNIA IMPROVE STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
by
Gordon M. Gibbings
__________________________________________________________________
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION
May 2008
Copyright 2008 Gordon M. Gibbings

ii
DEDICATION
This dissertation is foremost dedicated to my son, Jordan Alexander
Gibbings McKeith, who was born as I embarked on this 3-year quest to earn a
doctorate in education from the University of Southern California. Throughout this
process he has served as a continual source of inspiration, especially during those
times when I was exhausted from work and had to sit down to read less-than-
engaging journal articles and/or write lengthy term papers. I hope that when he
grows old enough to read this dissertation, he recognizes his invaluable contribu-
tions to my success.
The truth is that the sacrifice of earning a doctorate has been borne primar-
ily by those whom I love the most—my family and friends—in that much of my
personal time during the past 3 years has been devoted to completing school work
instead of forging experiences with them that make life more enriching and
memorable. I look forward to regaining my time with those whom I most cherish
and I dedicate this dissertation to them and their sacrifices.

iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, I thank Dr. Rudy Castruita, the former San Diego
County Superintendent and my dissertation chair, for his insight, dedication, and
support throughout the entire dissertation process. From whom better to learn the
leadership strategies and practices that successful urban superintendents use to
improve student achievement than a highly successful retired superintendent such
as Dr. Castruita?
I acknowledge Dr. Gabriela Mafi and Dr. Amanda Datnow, members of my
dissertation committee, for their continued support and encouragement. Since my
first class in the doctoral program at USC, for which she was the professor, Dr.
Mafi has helped me to develop into a more capable educational leader. She also has
brought a keen practitioner’s perspective to this project. Dr. Datnow’s reputation as
a prominent educational researcher was a primary reason for choosing the doctoral
program at USC. While I never had the fortune to have her as an instructor at USC,
I am privileged to have had her expert counsel on this project.
Finally, I recognize one of my dissertation cohort members, Karen Dabney,
for her friendship and council over the past 3 years. Throughout the entire 3 years
of the doctoral program we took all but one class together. Her passion and insight
for urban education always made class exciting and helped me to become a better-
prepared school leader. In addition, her encouragement and technical support
during the dissertation phase was nothing short of invaluable, and for that I am
eternally grateful.

iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION ..........................................................................................................ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................... iii
LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................................ix
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................xi
Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION................................................................................1
The Urban Educational Crisis.........................................................................1
Background of the Problem............................................................................2
An Era of High-Stakes Accountability and the Urban
Superintendency .................................................................................2
Accountability and Superintendents as Instructional Leaders..................8
Urban School District Performance Under NCLB...................................9
Statement of the Problem .............................................................................11
Purpose of the Study.....................................................................................13
Research Questions.......................................................................................13
The Importance of the Study ........................................................................15
Assumptions of the Study.............................................................................17
Limitations of the Study ...............................................................................17
Delimitations of the Study............................................................................18
Definitions of Terms.....................................................................................18
Chapter 2: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ....................................................22
Leadership Roles of the Urban School District Superintendent...................22
Contemporary Perspectives of the Urban Superintendency...................23
Political Leadership Role..................................................................24
Managerial Leadership Role.............................................................26
Educational Leadership Role............................................................26
Final Thoughts on the Roles of the Modern Urban Superintendent.......28
Leadership Theory and the Urban Superintendency ....................................29
Leadership Defined.................................................................................30
Three Approaches to Leadership in the Superintendency......................31
Transformational Leadership............................................................32
Distributive Leadership ....................................................................34
Instructional Leadership ...................................................................36
Leadership Roles of and Approaches to the Superintendency ...............44
Final Thoughts on Leadership and the Urban Superintendency.............45
Districts and Student Achievement ..............................................................49
Twelve District Strategies for Improving Student Learning ..................50
Challenges Faced by Urban Districts .....................................................55
Final Thoughts on the Role of the District in Improving Student
Achievement.....................................................................................56

v
Superintendents’ Influences on Student Academic Achievement................57
The Basic Leadership Functions of Educational Leadership .................58
Urban Superintendents’ Approaches to Improving Student
Achievement.....................................................................................62
Framework for Understanding Urban Superintendent Leadership
and Student Learning........................................................................69
Conclusion....................................................................................................72
Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY .............................................................................74
Research Questions.......................................................................................74
Design of the Study ......................................................................................75
Quantitative Methodology......................................................................76
Qualitative Methodology........................................................................77
Participants ...................................................................................................78
Population...............................................................................................78
Two Population Subgroups ....................................................................79
Description of the Superintendents Leading Successful Urban
Districts.............................................................................................81
Description of the Successful School Districts.......................................81
Description of the Superintendents Leading Districts
That Failed to Make Adequate Yearly Progress...............................82
Description of the Unsuccessful Urban Districts ...................................82
Superintendents Included in the Interview Sample ................................84
Instrumentation.............................................................................................84
Urban Superintendent Leadership Survey Questionnaire ......................85
Structured Interview Protocol.................................................................87
Procedure ......................................................................................................88
Superintendent Survey Data Collection .................................................88
Structured Interview Data Collection.....................................................89
Data Analysis................................................................................................90
Superintendent Survey Data Analysis ....................................................90
Structured Interview Data Analysis........................................................91
Validity Concerns...................................................................................93
Summary.......................................................................................................94
Chapter 4: FINDINGS..........................................................................................95
Research Questions.......................................................................................95
Results of the Superintendent Leadership Survey Questionnaire ................96
Demographics of the Survey Questionnaire Sample..............................97
Successful Urban Superintendent Population and Sample...............97
Unsuccessful Urban Superintendent Population and Their
Districts.......................................................................................97
Unsuccessful Urban Superintendent Sample and Their Districts.....98
Comparison of the Successful and Unsuccessful Urban
Superintendent Subgroup Sample Demographics ......................98
Research Question 1: The Leadership Functions, Strategies, and
Practices Used by Successful Urban Superintendents to Improve
Student Achievement..............................................................................99
Leadership Functions Rated as Most Significant by the
Successful Urban Superintendents .................................................100

vi
Leadership Strategies and Practices Rated as Most Significant
by the Successful Urban Superintendents ......................................102
Responses to the Open-Ended Survey Item by the Successful
Urban Superintendents ...................................................................107
Research Question 2: Differences Between the Successful and
Unsuccessful Urban Superintendents in Leadership Functions,
Strategies, and Practices Used to Improve Student Achievement........108
Difference in the Leadership Functions Used by the Successful
and Unsuccessful Urban Superintendents to Improve Student
Achievement...................................................................................109
Differences in the Leadership Strategies and Practices Used by
Successful and Unsuccessful Urban Superintendents to
Improve Student Achievement .......................................................112
Leadership Strategies and Practices Rated More Significant
by the Unsuccessful Urban Superintendents Subgroup..................114
Comparison of the Responses to the Open-Ended Item by the
Two Urban Superintendents Subgroups.........................................115
Applying the Same Set of Leadership Functions, Strategies,
and Practices But With Varying Emphasis.....................................116
Qualitative Interview Findings .............................................................118
Research Question 3: Most Essential Leadership Functions,
Strategies, and Practices Used for Improving Student
Achievement.........................................................................................121
Non-Negotiable Goals and Targets for Student Achievement .............122
Setting Explicit and Measurable Non-Negotiable Goals................122
Setting Specific Timetables for Achieving the Non-Negotiable
Goals and Targets .....................................................................123
Communicating Expectations to Those in the District,
Including School Principals......................................................123
Goal Setting Process.......................................................................124
Use of Data ...........................................................................................127
Building the District’s Capacity to Use Data .................................127
Using Data to Monitor the District’s Non-Negotiable Goals.........128
Using Data to Target Professional Development ...........................130
Using Data From Formative Assessments......................................131
Focus on Instruction .............................................................................133
Endorsing a Collective Vision About Effective Instruction...........133
Direct Involvement of the Superintendent in Instruction ...............134
Using the Instructional Leadership of Principals to
Improve Instruction ..................................................................135
Common Themes..................................................................................137
Research Question 4: Leadership Functions, Strategies, and
Practices That Should be Employed by Newly Hired Urban
Superintendents to Improve Student Achievement ..............................138
First-Order Superintendent Leadership Strategies ...............................139
Building Superintendent-Boards Relationships..............................139
Assessing the Instructional Strengths and Weaknesses
of the District............................................................................142
Common Themes From Research Question 4......................................144
Summary.....................................................................................................145

vii
Chapter 5: DISCUSSION...................................................................................146
Significant Findings....................................................................................148
Leadership Functions, Strategies, and Practices Used by
Successful Urban Superintendents in California to Improve
Student Achievement......................................................................149
Essential Leadership Functions ......................................................149
Forty-Five Essential Leadership Strategies and Practices for
Improving Student Achievement..............................................149
Applying Similar Leadership Approaches Pre- and
Post-NCLB But With Different Emphasis ...............................150
Significant Differences in the Leadership Functions, Strategies,
and Practices Used by Successful and Unsuccessful Urban
Superintendents in California to Improve Student
Achievement in their Districts........................................................152
Demographic Differences Between the Two Urban
Superintendent Subgroups........................................................153
Applying Similar Leadership Functions, Strategies, and
Practices But With Varying Degrees of Emphasis...................155
The Most Essential Leaderships Functions, Strategies, and
Practices Used by the Two Successful Urban Superintendents
in California to Improve Student Achievement..............................157
Recommended Leadership Strategies for Newly Hired Urban
Superintendent Charged With Improving Student Achievement ...161
Implications for Practice.............................................................................164
Urban Superintendents .........................................................................164
Local Boards of Education ...................................................................167
Professional Standards..........................................................................168
Graduate and Professional Preparation Programs ...............................169
Implications for Research...........................................................................170
REFERENCES .....................................................................................................173
APPENDICES
A. URBAN SUPERINTENDENT LEADERSHIP SURVEY
VARIABLE CONSTRUCT...................................................................179
B. URBAN SUPERINTENDENT LEADERSHIP STRATEGIES
AND PRACTICES FOR IMPROVING STUDENT
ACHIEVEMENT SURVEY..................................................................186
C. SUPERINTENDENT SURVEY COVER LETTER .............................193
D. INFORMED CONSENT FORM ...........................................................194
E. INFORMED CONSENT FORM ...........................................................196

viii
F. SUPERINTENDENT LEADERSHIP STRATEGIES AND
PRACTICES RATED FROM VERY SIGNIFICANT TO
VERY INSIGNIFICANT ......................................................................198
G. SUPERINTENDENT SUBGROUP MEAN DIFFERENCES
FOR THE 57 LEADERSHIP STRATEGIES AND PRACTICES
INCLUDED ON THE URBAN SUPERINTENDENT
LEADERSHIP SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE.....................................200

ix
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Knowledge and Skills Associated With Modern Superintendent
Role Conceptualizations......................................................................29
Table 2: Similarities in the Research Findings Regarding District
Superintendents as Instructional Leaders ............................................40
Table 3: Relationship Between the Roles and Approaches to the Urban
Superintendency ..................................................................................46
Table 4: The Correlation of Three Basic Leadership Functions and the
Findings Reported by Waters and Marzano Regarding
Superintendents and Student Achievement .........................................68
Table 5: Description of the Enrollments in the 5 Successful School
Districts in the Population ...................................................................82
Table 6: Description of the Enrollments in the 13 Unsuccessful Successful
School Districts in the Population .......................................................83
Table 7: Descriptive Statistics of the Successful and Unsuccessful Urban
Superintendent Subgroup Samples as Self-Reported ........................100
Table 8: Composite Mean Scores for the 13 Leadership Functions on
the Urban Superintendent Leadership Survey Questionnaire
as Rated by the Successful Urban Superintendents...........................103
Table 9: Leadership Strategies and Practices Rated as Very Significant
Aspects (Mean Score 4.0) by All Surveyed Successful Urban
Superintendents .................................................................................104
Table 10: Comparison of Composite Means for the Successful and
Unsuccessful Urban Superintendents Subgroups Regarding
the 13 Leadership Functions..............................................................110
Table 11: Comparison of Composite Means for the Successful and
Unsuccessful Urban Superintendents Subgroups Regarding
Leadership Strategies and Practices Rated as Significant .................113
Table 12: Comparison of Means for the Leadership Strategies and
Practices Rated More Significant by the Unsuccessful Urban
Superintendents Subgroup.................................................................115
Table 13: Responses to the Open-Ended Survey Item by the Two Urban
Superintendent Subgroups.................................................................117

x
Table 14: Leadership Functions, Strategies, and Practices Applied by
the Two Urban Superintendent Subgroups With Significantly
Different Emphasis............................................................................119
Table 15: The Successful Urban Superintendent Subgroup Descriptive
Statistics for the Leadership Strategies and Practices That
Make Up the Leadership Function of Non-Negotiable Goals
for Student Achievement (Survey Questions 17-21).........................127
Table 16: Successful Urban Superintendent Subgroup Descriptive
Statistics for the Leadership Strategies and Practices That
Make Up the Leadership Function of Using Data (Survey
Questions 41-45)................................................................................130
Table 17: Successful Urban Superintendents Subgroup Descriptive
Statistics for the Leadership Strategies and Practices
Associated With the Leadership Function of Principals
as Instructional Leaders (Survey Questions 51-53)...........................136
Table 18: Significant Findings Related to Research Question 3: The
Essential Leadership Functions, Strategies, and Practices
Reported in Interviews by the Two Most Successful Urban
Superintendents in California to Improve Student Achievement
in Their Districts................................................................................159
Table 19: Recommended First-Order Leadership Strategies for Newly
Hired Urban Superintendents Charged With Improving
Student Achievement in their Districts and the Corroborating
Evidence From the Survey Questionnaire (USLSQ) and Prior
Research.............................................................................................163

xi
ABSTRACT
Due in large part to the high-stakes accountability measures of the federal
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2002, the success and longevity of urban
superintendents have become increasingly contingent on their ability to strengthen
instruction and increase learning for all students in their districts. This study
examined the leadership strategies and practices that successful urban superinten-
dents in California used to improve students achievement in their districts after the
passage of NCLB. The study also sought to determine how the leadership func-
tions, strategies, and practices of successful urban superintendents in California
differed from those used by their less successful Californian urban superintendent
counterparts.
The population of this mixed-methods (quantitative and qualitative) study
included 18 Californian urban superintendents who led their school districts from at
least February 2004 to the start of this study in fall 2007. All 18 superintendents
were sent the Urban Superintendent Leadership Survey Questionnaire, which con-
sisted of 63 questions designed to measure how important each leadership strategy
or practice was for their overall approach to improve student achievement in their
districts. In addition, the 2 Californian urban superintendents who led their districts
to make Adequate Yearly Progress for all 3 years included in the study were inter-
viewed in depth, using the 5 questions on the Superintendent Leadership Interview
Protocol.

xii
The research study made several significant findings:
1. Successful urban superintendents in California strongly emphasized the
use of 13 leadership functions and 45 leadership strategies and practices to improve
student achievement in their districts.
2. Successful and unsuccessful Californian urban superintendents who par-
ticipated in the study employed roughly the same set of leadership functions,
strategies, and practices as they approached improving student achievement in their
districts; however, they placed varying emphasis on a significant number of func-
tions, strategies, and practices contained within the leadership set.
3. The 2 successful urban superintendents interviewed for the study recom-
mended 2 first-order leadership strategies—building superintendent-board rela-
tionships and assessing the instructional strengths and weaknesses of the district—
to all newly hired urban superintendents charged with improving student learning.

1
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
The Urban Educational Crisis
There is a well-documented crisis in large urban public school districts.
Currently, large urban districts are plagued by high drop-out rates, violence, low
student achievement, poor attendance, high student mobility, inequitable standards,
and a shortage of qualified teachers. These urban districts fail disproportionately to
educate the children of the poor, predominately Black and Latino children.
The nation cannot afford to ignore these problems, for urban schools enroll
a large share of America’s children (Snipes, Doolittle, & Herlihy, 2002). According
to the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), 23% of the 47 million
students enrolled in the nation’s public schools are enrolled in the 100 largest
school districts, most of which are located in urban areas. These 100 districts serve
40% of the 18.5 million minority students and 30% of the approximately 20 million
poor students in the United States (NCES, 2001).
The results of this urban educational crisis are profound. According to the
latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results, the majority of
Latino and Black students scored Below Basic on five of the seven subjects tested,
including reading and mathematics. Moreover, the NAEP results indicate that by
12th grade Latino and Black students are typically 4 years behind White and Asian
counterparts. The result, according to a recent study conducted by the Civil Rights
Project at Harvard University (Orfield & Lee, 2005), is that nearly one of every two
Latino and Black students in California will drop out of school before earning a
high school diploma.

2
The urban educational crisis deeply limits the life opportunities of the
nation’s Latino and Black youth. Jencks and Phillips (1998) lamented that the racial
achievement gap between Blacks and Latinos and their White peers is one of the
largest challenges to achieving social equality in the United States. Jencks and
Phillips’s research also shows that racial gaps in elementary and secondary
academic achievement manifest as racial gaps in college attendance, educational
attainment, and employment and earnings in the future. In fact, the U.S. Census
Bureau (2007) concluded that a student who graduates from college will make on
average $25,000 a year more than a high school dropout—a difference of approxi-
mately one million dollars over a lifetime of work. Given that nearly one out of
every two Black and Latino youth attending school in large, urban districts will not
graduate from school (Orfield & Lee, 2005), they are much more likely to end up
on the wrong end of this statistic.
Despite criticism to the contrary (e.g., Chubb & Moe, 1990), this study
assumes that urban school districts are an important part of the transformation
process and a lever for improving student achievement. More specifically, this
study demonstrates that the leadership of the urban superintendents heading these
districts matters greatly to the future success of their students.
Background of the Problem
An Era of High-Stakes Accountability
and the Urban Superintendency
With the signing of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) into law
by President George W. Bush in 2002, improving academic achievement for all
students, including those not traditionally served well by the nation’s public school

3
system, became the bottom line for urban school superintendents. Due to stringent
performance requirements of NCLB, success of school superintendents is now
judged ultimately by their ability to strengthen instruction and increase learning for
all students. Urban school superintendents serving predominately low-income
minority children who fail to significantly improve student achievement risk almost
certain termination.
During the past two and a half decades a transformation of the superintend-
ency occurred in which school leaders were called on to be skillful instructional
leaders as well as adroit organizational managers (Moore, Dexter, Berube, & Beck,
2005). The demands of the urban superintendency changed when widespread
concern for the condition of public schooling began what was arguably the most
concentrated, comprehensive, and continual effort to reform public education in
America’s history (Hoyle, Bjork, Collier, & Glass, 2005; Kowalski, 2006).
Starting in 1983 with the landmark publication of A Nation at Risk by the
National Commission on Excellence in Education, America’s schools and edu-
cators came under attack and scrutiny from the public, media, and politicians to
improve student performance (Carter & Cunningham, 1997; Glass, Bjork, &
Brunner, 2000). In response, state legislators expanded regulatory controls over
schools and districts by assessing school-level performance, increasing graduation
requirements, lengthening the school day and year, and tightening teacher licensure
requirements (Hoyle et al., 2005). According to Bjork (1996), the pressure of
accountability shifted policy making from the district to state level, which in turn
constrained local authority of superintendents and reinforced centralized bureau-
cratic control of schools. In addition, the intensified pressure to improve student
outcomes forced school superintendents, in particular urban school district

4
superintendents, to take on a greater leadership role in terms of teaching and
learning.
In the mid- to late 1990s the school reform movement continued, with
almost every state in the nation developing high-stakes assessment programs to
monitor the learning progress of all students and schools (Glass et al., 2000). With
the passage of the Public Schools Accountability Act (PSAA) of 1999, the state of
California began to hold schools accountable for the achievement of their students
(EDSource, 2004). California’s PSAA incorporates three core accountability
components:
1. The Academic Performance Index (API). The API is a composite scale
used to measure the academic performance and growth of schools. The API ranges
from a low of 200 to a high of 1000 and is calculated from the individual student
scores on the California Standards Tests (CST). The annual API growth target for a
given school is 5% of the distance between the baseline or current API and the
interim API goal of 800 (O’Day, Bitter, & Perry, 2003).
2. The Immediate Interventions/ Underperforming Schools Program
(II/USP). This state program provides additional funds to low-performing schools
to aid in their efforts to improve academic performance. Schools that are in the
bottom deciles of the API and have failed to meet their API growth targets are
eligible to participate in the program.
3. The Governor’s Performance Award (GPA). This state program provides
monetary rewards to schools that meet their schoolwide API growth target, show
comparable growth among all significant subgroups of students, and satisfy partici-
pation rates (O’Day et al., 2003).

5
According to AIR, results-based accountability models such as PSAA and
its three components are predicated on several assumptions or theories of action
about how the policy tools/programs will improve classroom instruction and
student achievement. First, California policy makers assume that, through a com-
bination of specific growth targets, site-level planning, and state consequences,
PSAA will focus the attention of educators and the public on improving student
achievement. Second, based on the assumption that educators in California do not
possess the will to improve instruction on their own, state policy makers have
created extrinsic incentives (rewards and sanctions) to motivate them to improve.
Third, researchers at AIR maintain that California policy makers recognize that
low-performing schools often lack the capacity to facilitate instructional improve-
ment on their own. Thus, the II/USP program includes additional resources and
external support to help schools to improve (O’Day et al., 2003). When combined,
these three theories of action aim to leverage improvements in classroom instruc-
tional practices and, in turn, student achievement.
An evaluation of California’s PSAA by AIR concluded that the PSAA has
successfully increased attention on improving student achievement and low-per-
forming schools (O’Day et al., 2003). This increased public attention has translated
directly into growing political demands from boards of education and community
interest groups for urban school superintendents to quickly turn around failing
schools and improve student achievement for all students. In response to the
heightened pressure, superintendents in California have taken on a greater role in
instructional leadership.
The AIR evaluation also found a relatively small difference in test score
improvements between II/USP schools statewide and comparison schools.

6
However, AIR found that external factors such as local districts accounted for a
large portion of the variation in achievement across II/USP schools (O’Day et al.,
2003). In fact, the researchers from AIR concluded that local school districts were
central players, influencing the degree of improvement in low-performing schools
and in the implementation of II/USP. Additional findings from the evaluation case
studies indicated that district influence generally stems from the instructional
policies implemented systemwide. Ultimately, such findings beg the question:
What leadership practices and strategies are superintendents in these high-impact
districts employing to improve student achievement in their struggling schools?
On January 8, 2002, President Bush signed NCLB into law; in doing so, he
changed the federal government’s role in public education. According to Fusarelli
(2004), NCLB represents a significant shift in federal education policy away from
the federal government being primarily a source of funding for low-income
students to being a major player in shaping the goals and outcomes of public
education. The explicit purpose of NCLB is to use federal funding as a mechanism
to ensure that all students in the country are able to read, write, and understand
mathematics well by the time they graduate from high school (EDSource, 2004).
Another explicitly stated purpose of NCLB is to close the achievement gap
between high- and low-performing students, especially the gaps between minority
and White students and between disadvantaged children and their more advantaged
peers.
NCLB establishes a comprehensive framework of standards, testing, and
accountability that was absent from previous federal educational legislation. In
effect, it curtails discretion by states and local districts in determining the desired
goals and outcomes of public education (Fusarelli, 2004). In essence, the provisions

7
of NCLB are closely modeled on the results-based accountability programs
common in many states. In fact, NCLB can be thought of as the “federalization”
of these high-stakes accountability programs (Ratner, 2007).
NCLB makes districts accountable for learning by all students by requiring
that states that accept federal money conduct annual assessments in grades 3
through 8 and at least once in grades 10 through 12 in the content areas of mathe-
matics, reading, language arts, and science. Schools districts that do not make AYP
toward their state’s proficiency goals for the year (eventually reaching 100% of
students by the 2013-2014 school year) face increasingly invasive state sanctions.
Schools and districts accepting federal money but failing to make AYP for 2
consecutive years are deemed “in need of school improvement,” and all of their
students must be given the option to transfer to other schools. In addition, these
schools and districts must prepare a 2-year individualized improvement plan that
includes strategies based on “scientifically based research” that will strengthen the
core academic program and the specific areas of concern. Schools and districts that
fail to make AYP for 3 or more consecutive years must offer tutoring to low-
performing students. Schools and districts that fail to make their AYP for 4 years
must take “corrective action,” such as instituting a new curriculum, replacing
ineffective staff, and providing professional development opportunities. Districts
and schools that fail to meet their AYP for 5 consecutive years must be restruc-
tured. Due to the high-profile nature of the assessment results and the intrusive
sanctions associated with failure, school district superintendents in California are
held responsible for improving student achievement by all students and schools
within their respective school systems (Petersen & Barnett, 2005).

8
A WestEd (2003) report on district implementation of NCLB contended
that NCLB gives new meaning to accountability by providing concrete steps and
clear guidelines for improving student achievement, especially in schools identified
as “in need of improvement.” Yet, Lytle (2007) contended that there is no accumu-
lated scientifically based research that demonstrates whether these sanctions, either
individually or collectively, lead to significant improvements in student achieve-
ment or school performance. More important, however, the WestEd report sug-
gested that “while states bear the initial responsibility of drafting NCLB compli-
ance plans, the real onus for implementation is on districts” (p. 1). District issues
associated with the implementation of NCLB requirements include providing
students with supplemental services and public school choice when schools fail to
make AYP, ensuring that all of their teachers are “highly qualified,” and expanding
data collection, use, and reporting. As districts are forced to take on more responsi-
bility for turning around schools identified as in need of improvement, the instruc-
tional leadership of superintendents will become even more critical.
Accountability and Superintendents
as Instructional Leaders
Federal and state accountability-oriented policies, such as NCLB and
California’s PSAA, with their intensified focus on student learning, have
heightened school board and community stakeholder expectations for urban school
district superintendents to be instructional leaders who can improve how well
teachers teach and how much students learn (DiPaola & Stronge, 2001; Glass,
1992; Lashway, 2002; Leithwood & Riehl, 2003). In fact, instructional leadership
by school superintendents has emerged as the critical issue in continued effort to
reform public schools (Bjork, 1993; Petersen, 1998; Wirt, 1990). The most recent

9
American Association of School Administrators study of superintendents (Glass et
al., 2000) found that instructional leadership is a primary role expectation of school
board members. Moreover, accountability-oriented pressures have influenced the
perceptions of urban school superintendents themselves with regard to their norma-
tive roles and responsibilities as instructional leader. According to a national survey
of school superintendents commissioned by Education Week, 75% of urban super-
intendents agreed or strongly agreed that NCLB has forced them to be more active
“in guiding the kind of instruction that happens in the classrooms” (Archer, 2005,
p. 2).
Urban School District Performance Under NCLB
According to an analysis conducted by the Editorial Projects in Education
Research Center, in the 2004-2005 school year there were 8,446 schools and 1,624
districts nationwide that received federal aid and were listed as “in need of
improvement” for failing to meet the NCLB improvement targets for at least 2
consecutive years (Archer, 2006). In addition, 2,721 Title I schools were classified
as in need of “corrective action” in the 2005-2006 school year, meaning that these
schools did not make AYP for at least the past 4 consecutive years. However, these
numbers are sure to increase, in that the analysis identified 2,990 schools and 469
districts that missed AYP for 3 consecutive years. Unless significant improvements
are made, these schools and districts will enter the corrective action phase as well.
Moreover, the analysis revealed that the Title I schools listed as “in need of
improvement” served approximately 5.8 million students, of whom 66% lived in
poverty and 75% were minority.

10
The struggling schools and districts are also geographically clustered, in
that one quarter of the schools identified as “in need of improvement” under NCLB
are concentrated in just 25 districts across the country (Archer, 2006). In fact, six
districts (Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami-Dade County, New York City, and
Philadelphia) have more than 100 schools “in need of improvement.” California
has four districts with 40 or more identified schools: 205 in Los Angeles, 51 in
Oakland, 44 in San Bernardino City, and 40 in San Diego. According to the data,
37.7% of the 962 Title I districts in California are “in need of improvement.”
The California Department of Education (CDE) cannot support every
school and district in need of improvement by itself, so it is forced to rely extens-
ively on external providers, such as County Education Offices and private consult-
ing groups. These external partners form “school assistance improvement teams”
that assess school needs and provide ongoing support via the implementation of
improvement plans. The success of these improvement teams is still in question.
States such as California are depending on strong leadership from urban
school superintendents to support the turnaround efforts of schools in their districts
(WestEd, 2003). However, as the data above indicate, the results produced by urban
superintendents in general and in California in particular are less than sufficient.
Outspoken critics of NCLB contend that unrealistic performance goals, inadequate
funding, simplistic definitions of the achievement gap (Fusarelli, 2004), and faulty
underlying assumptions about school district capacity for improvement (Ratner,
2007) guarantee failure of superintendents to turn around district performances.
Nevertheless, a handful of urban superintendents across the country and in
California have defied the odds by improving student achievement across the
board. Studying the leadership practices and strategies employed by these

11
successful urban district superintendents to improve student performance may yield
important insight into how to transform struggling urban public school districts.
Statement of the Problem
Despite over two decades of intense public scrutiny and dissatisfaction with
the ineffectiveness of the nation’s public schools and heightened pressure placed on
urban school superintendents to improve the learning outcomes of all students,
there is a dearth of research that identifies specific leadership functions, strategies,
and practices used by successful urban superintendents to improve student achieve-
ment (Glass et al., 2000; Kowalski, 2006). The paucity of research on urban super-
intendents and student achievement is even more acute in the NCLB era of high-
stakes accountability at a time in which the success of school superintendents has
become inextricably linked to improved student learning outcomes.
In fact, a query of ERIC, a database of journal articles and reports in educa-
tion, for empirical research on urban superintendents and student achievement
conducted in the years following NCLB returned only four relevant matches. Of
these four entries, only the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission’s
(JLARC) Review of Factors and Practices Associated With School Performance in
Virginia (JLARC, 2004) analyzed the direct relationship between district-level
practices and student achievement. Despite the sound methodology of that study,
the findings are only tangential to the topic of superintendents and student achieve-
ment because the unit of analysis was the school district rather than the specific
practices of the school superintendent. Two of the research studies (Cudeiro, 2005;
Kearney, 2005) examined an indirect relationship between superintendent practices

12
and improved student achievement by studying the methods that superintendents
used to improve and evaluate the instructional leadership of their school principals.
The fourth ERIC query result was a meta-analysis of the effects of district-
level leadership on student achievement and the characteristics of effective superin-
tendents, conducted by Waters and Marzano (2006). That study examined findings
from 27 studies conducted since 1970 (22 of which were conducted before NCLB)
that used, in their words, “rigorous, quantitative methods.” Waters and Marzano
concluded that district-level leadership matters and reported a statistically signifi-
cant relationship between district leadership and student achievement (a positive
.24 correlation). Yet, of the five NCLB-era research studies included in the meta-
analysis, only two doctoral dissertations (Mocek, 2002; Vaughan, 2002) investi-
gated the direct relationship between leadership practices of superintendents and
student achievement, and neither of those studies found a statistically significant
relationship between the two variables. Mocek investigated the influence of super-
intendents’ leadership behaviors on student reading achievement in randomly
selected Illinois school districts and found no significant relationship. Vaughan
examined the relationship between the transformational and transactional leader-
ship behaviors of Texas public school superintendents and student achievement,
again finding no statistically significant correlation between the variables.
The men and women who lead urban public school systems are vitally
important to the future success of American public education (Glass et al., 2000).
Urban school superintendent leadership matters (Leithwood, 1995; Waters &
Marzano, 2006), but the research base in the NCLB era of accountability does not
provide district superintendents with specific direction on how to make their
leadership matter most. Unfortunately, the research reported in the literature

13
remains limited in terms of the specific leadership functions, practices, and
strategies carried out by urban superintendents and their effect on student achieve-
ment (Kowalski, 2006). If urban districts are to meet or exceed the lofty learning
performance targets set forth in NCLB, their superintendents must possess the
current knowledge and skills necessary to improve teaching and learning in their
districts. In turn, superintendents will greatly need resources that provide specific
research-based best practices and strategies for closing the achievement gap and
strengthening learning for all students. Unfortunately, to date, these crucial
resources and insights do not exist. As a result, the leadership of many urban super-
intendents fails to matter as much as it could in terms of the academic success of
their students.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study was to identify what successful urban superin-
tendents in California believed to be the leadership functions, practices, and
strategies most responsible for improving student achievement in their respective
school systems during the NCLB era of high-stakes accountability. In addition, the
purpose of this research was to determine whether there was a significant difference
in the leadership practices and strategies used by successful and unsuccessful urban
superintendents in California.
Research Questions
The urban superintendents who participated in the current study completed
a comprehensive survey questionnaire designed to address the following research
questions:

14
1. In the NCLB era of high-stakes accountability, what specific leadership
functions, strategies, and practices are employed by successful urban school super-
intendents in California to effectively promote improved student performance?
2. Are there significant differences in the leadership functions, strategies
and practices used to improve student achievement between successful and
unsuccessful urban superintendents in California? If so, what are the differences?
Moreover, the present study recognized that simply knowing what success-
ful superintendents have done might not be enough to help other superintendents
transform their districts. In other words, it takes more than a long laundry list of
best leadership practices to improve student achievement. Rather, district leaders
must know why certain leadership practices where chosen, when they should be
used, and how to apply them skillfully in their own districts (Waters & Cameron,
2006). Thus, two of the most successful urban superintendents in California were
interviewed to determine in greater detail how they led consistent improvements in
student learning in their districts. The qualitative interviews were designed to
address the following research questions:
3. What were the most essential leadership functions, strategies, and
practices used for improving student achievement and how were they effectively
employed?
4. What leadership strategies and practices should be employed by newly
hired urban superintendents during their first 90 and 365 days of tenure to improve
student achievement in their districts?

15
The Importance of the Study
The accountability provisions of NCLB have greatly intensified public
scrutiny of the performance of urban school districts. More than ever, the state
government, local boards of education, and community stakeholders have been
holding California school superintendents responsible for the performance of all
students and schools within their respective districts. As leaders of their school
systems, superintendents in California have responded to the growing pressure to
improve the learning outcomes for all students by taking on a greater role as
instructional leaders (Lashway, 2002; Petersen & Barnett, 2005). To this point,
however, the results of their instructional leadership have varied widely. This study
was designed to determine the leadership functions, strategies, and practices
employed by successful urban superintendents in California to improve student
achievement and whether these practices differ from those used by ineffective
superintendents. These best practices can serve as a resource for other urban
superintendents in California as they strive to improve teaching and learning in
their districts.
The findings from this study can serve as a resource for local boards of
education as they either seek to hire new superintendents or evaluate current school
leaders. Elected boards of education, driven by pressure from local stakeholders,
are in great need of superintendents who possess the instructional leadership
knowledge and skills necessary to transform underperforming school systems. The
findings of this research can provide these board members with a greater under-
standing of the leadership knowledge and skills that superintendents must possess
to be successful, as well as give them criteria for evaluating their effectiveness.

16
The results of this study can provide graduate schools of education and
superintendent preparation programs with greater insight into the leadership skills
and practices that they must teach to their students (the nation’s future urban
superintendents) if they are to be successful.
The findings of this study can contribute to the research base on school
district leadership and student achievement. Little is known about the leadership
practices and strategies employed by urban school superintendents to improve
student achievement in the NCLB era of high-stakes accountability. Many have
argued that the increased pressure placed on urban superintendents by states, boards
of education, and community stakeholders has fundamentally altered the position
of superintendent and how superintendents lead. Yet, few have examined what
successful urban superintendents are doing to improve teaching and learning. This
study was an attempt to do just that.
Most important, district leadership matters (Waters & Marzano, 2006) in
that district leadership has a significant influence on student achievement. Accord-
ing to the meta-analysis conducted by Waters and Marzano, there was a positive
correlation of .24 between superintendent practices and student achievement. To
understand what this means, imagine a superintendent whose measures of leader-
ship and district-level student achievement were at the 50th percentile. If that
superintendent’s leadership measure improved by one standard deviation, or to the
84th percentile, then the district’s level of student achievement would be expected
to jump to the 59.5th percentile. In other words, the research shows that, with the
right leadership practices, urban superintendents can make a significant difference
in the lives of their students. The current research study aimed to determine the
effective leadership practices that successful urban superintendents have used to

17
improve student achievement so that other superintendents can have the same
effect.
Assumptions of the Study
The following assumptions were made in the conduct of this study.
1. The superintendents in this study responded with accurate descriptions of
their functions, practices, and strategies.
2. All questions on the survey were valid to ensure that the data obtained
from the instrument measured what was intended to be measured.
3. The superintendents in the study were accurately identified the functions,
practices, and strategies most responsible for improving student achievement in
their school systems.
4. The identified leadership functions, practices, and strategies of the
superintendents were responsible for at least part of the improvement in student
achievement.
Limitations of the Study
The following limitations of the study are recognized.
1. The study examines what urban school superintendents in California
perceived to be the leadership functions, practices, and strategies that they have
employed that were most responsible for improving student achievement in their
school systems. The study did not attempt to determine whether these leadership
functions, practices, and strategies causally led to improved student performance.
2. The study was limited to those urban school superintendents in California
who responded to the survey. Thus, the conclusions of the study cannot necessarily

18
be presented as a true reflection of the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of all urban
school superintendents in California.
3. The validity of the study depends on the reliability of the instruments.
4. The findings are limited to the degree of accuracy to which the respond-
ents’ identified and communicated their true perceptions.
Delimitations of the Study
The following delimitations of the study are recognized.
1. The study was delimited to surveying California superintendents serving
during the 3 years examined by the study as the leaders of their urban school
districts with an enrollment of at least 20,000 students and meeting the California
School Boards Association’s criteria for classification as urban districts.
2. Superintendents were judged to be successful if their urban districts met
or exceeded AYP for at least 2 of the 3 school years 2003-2004 through 2005-2006.
Definitions of Terms
Accountability: The notion that people (students, teachers, and adminis-
trators) and organizations (schools, districts, and states) should be held responsible
for improving student achievement and should be rewarded or sanctioned for their
ability or inability to do so (EdSource, 2004).
Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP): According to EdSource (2004),
Adequate yearly progress is a set of annual academic performance bench-
marks that states, school districts, schools, and subpopulations of students
are supposed to achieve if the state receives federal funding under Title I,
Part A of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB). In California, the
measures include: (1) specified percentages of students scoring “proficient”
or “advanced” on California Standards Tests in English language arts and
math; (2) participation of at least 95% of students on those tests; (3)
specified Academic Performance Index scores or gains; and (4) for high
schools, a specified graduation rate or improvement in the rate. (¶ 13)

19
California Standards Tests (CST): Tests that are part of the Standardized
Testing and Reporting (STAR) program and are based on the state’s academic
content standards: what teachers are expected to be teaching and what students are
expected to be learning. They cover four subject areas: English language arts
(grades 2-11); mathematics (grades 2-11); history/social science (grades 8, 10, and
11); and science (grades 5, 8, 10, and high school students taking the specific
subjects biology, chemistry, or integrated science). CSTs are criterion-referenced
tests and students are scored as “far below basic, below basic, basic, proficient,
or advanced.” The ultimate goal is for every student in the state to score at
“proficient” or above (EdSource, 2004).
Leadership: “A process whereby an individual influences a group of
individuals to achieve a common goal” (Northouse, 2004, p. 3).
Leadership approaches: Another way of saying theories of leadership.
Theories of leadership are testable models or frameworks for explaining observable
natural phenomena and can be tested through experiment or falsified with empirical
observation. This study considers three leadership approaches to the superintend-
ency: transformational, distributive, and instructional. See chapter 2 for an explana-
tion of each model.
Leadership functions: Synonymous with leadership responsibilities or cate-
gories of behavior/action that correspond with the leader. According to Leithwood
and Riehl (2003), there is a core set of leadership responsibilities that form the
“basics” of successful leadership and that are valuable in almost all educational
settings setting direction, developing people, and restructuring the organization (see
chapter 2 for a detailed explanation of each function).

20
Leadership practices: Specific actions taken by the leader to accomplish a
goal. In this study a leadership practice is a specific action taken by the superin-
tendent to improve student achievement in his or her school district.
Leadership strategy: A premeditated, long-term plan of action designed to
achieve a particular goal. In this study a leadership strategy is a long-term plan of
action employed by the superintendent to influence others in the organization to
improve student achievement.
No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB): According to EdSource (2004), NCLB
is
the 2002 reauthorizaton of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
(ESEA). Originally passed in 1965, ESEA programs provide much of the
federal funding for K–12 schools. NCLB’s provisions represent a signifi-
cant change in the federal government’s influence in public schools and
districts throughout the United States, particularly in terms of assessment,
accountability, and teacher quality. It increases the federal focus on the
achievement of disadvantaged pupils, including English learners and
students who live in poverty, provides funding for “innovative programs”
such as charter schools, and supports the right of parents to transfer their
children to a different school if their school is low-performing or unsafe.
(p. vii)
Public Schools Accountability Act (PSAA): A Californian law that outlines
a comprehensive accountability process for measuring schools’ academic perform-
ance and ranking schools based on that performance. When schools fall short of the
expectations, the state intervenes, first with assistance and later with sanctions.
Enacted in 1999, the PSAA has three main components: the Academic Perform-
ance Index (API), the Immediate Intervention/Underperforming Schools Program
(II/USP), and the Governor’s Performance Award Program (EdSource, 2004).
School district:
A local education agency directed by an elected local board of education
that exists primarily to operate public schools. In California, there are three
types of school districts: elementary, high school, and unified. An element-

21
ary district is generally kindergarten through eighth grade (K-8); high
school is generally grades 9 through 12; unified is kindergarten through
12th grade (K-12). (EdSource, 2004)
Superintendent: The top administrative position within a school district in
California. The superintendent is hired, fired, and evaluated by a publicly elected
Board of Education. The position is responsible to the Board for the management
and operation of the school district. The superintendent is typically considered to be
the chief executive officer of a school district.
Urban school district: A district located in a major metropolitan area with a
minimum enrollment of 20,000 students. Student population is used as a proxy for
population density and diversity. Urban districts have student populations that are
mostly minority (Black, Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander, and Native American
Indian), are English Language Learners (ELLs), and receive free/reduced-priced
lunches (proxy for poverty). The characteristics stated above mostly fall within 5%
of the state average for each measure (California School Boards Association
[CSBA]; 2007).

22
CHAPTER 2
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
This chapter is presented in four sections. The first section provides a
review of literature related to the current role conceptualizations of the urban public
school superintendent. The section explicates three leadership role demands that all
urban district superintendents must expertly balance and employ to survive the
increasing complex challenges of urban education. The second section reviews
research pertaining to three approaches to leadership in the urban superintendency.
The section delineates the strategies and practices associated with each of the three
approaches to leadership that have been empirically linked to educational improve-
ment. The third section reviews research related to the district’s role (as the unit of
analysis) in facilitating improvements in instruction and student learning outcomes.
The section describes 12 district-level strategies and practices that, when employed
in systematic and coherent ways, have been linked to improvements in student
achievement. The fourth section reviews the limited research on the relationships
between leadership functions, strategies, and practices of urban superintendents and
improved student academic achievement. The section ends with a synthesis of the
findings from the previous sections to present a framework that shows how urban
superintendents influence student achievement.
Leadership Roles of the Urban School
District Superintendent
According to Paul Houston, Executive Director of the American Associa-
tion of School Administrators, “Superintendents today find themselves in a role
markedly different from even a decade ago” (Glass et al. 2000, p. i). In fact, the

23
roles and responsibilities of the urban school superintendent today are more
numerous, demanding, and complex than in the past. Fuller et al. (2003) argued that
urban superintendents today are many things, including chief executive officers of
large organizations; occupants of a public community commitment to children’s
education; agenda setters for public schools that can never be good enough; and
high-level managers charged with implementing policies and contractual obliga-
tions established by legislatures, state and national agencies, community school
boards, and the judiciary. Gone are the days when success was determined largely
by adeptness at managing large district budgets and keeping a major public enter-
prise functioning (Fuller et al.). Today, the competent organizational manager is
taken for granted. The old, less visible managerial role of the urban superintend-
ency has changed to that of highly visible chief executive who needs vision, skills,
and knowledge to lead in the complex environment in which urban schools are
embedded (Hoyle et al., 2005).
Similarly, Leithwood and Riehl (2003) maintained that the increasingly
complex environment in which urban public schools are embedded is radically
altering the work of school district superintendents and how they lead. Federal and
state accountability policies, such as NCLB and the California PSAA, with their
intensified focus on student learning, have heightened the demand for instructional
leadership from urban district superintendents (Lashway, 2002; Leithwood &
Riehl, 2003).
Contemporary Perspectives of
the Urban Superintendency
Today, the complex and competing roles of the urban school superintendent
make it one of the most challenging positions of leadership. All modern

24
superintendents must reconcile fundamental dilemmas and tensions that arise from
three conflicting role demands inherent in the superintendency (Cuban, 1998;
Johnson, 1996; Owen, 1998). In a study of the roles that modern superintendents
must perform to create community receptivity for educational improvement, Owen
found that superintendents must simultaneously occupy three leadership roles:
political, managerial, and educational. Owens’s findings are consistent with those
reported by Johnson, who studied the leadership roles of 12 newly appointed
superintendents in the Northwest during the first 2 years of their superintendency.
Johnson also concluded that effective superintendents were adept at combining
three types of leadership: political, managerial, and educational. These three
educational scholars presented similar conceptions of these three critical roles of
the modern urban superintendency.
Political Leadership Role
Historically, superintendents eschewed participating in partisan politics.
Rather, superintendents were expected to use their technical and organizational
skills to implement policies and programs decreed by others, such as school boards,
governors, state legislatures, and Congress (Cuban, 1998). According to Cuban,
modern urban superintendents do practice politics but such practice occurs most
frequently within their organizations. For instance, to promote their agenda, build
coalitions, and secure resources, superintendents must negotiate with the school
board, employee unions, principals, parent groups, and community stakeholders
(Cuban). In addition, superintendents must effectively utilize their political leader-
ship to garner support for school improvement, negotiate, build coalitions, and
empower others (Johnson, 1996; Owen, 1998). It is crucial that superintendents in

25
general and urban superintendents in particular bring together diverse stakeholders
with competing points of view and interest to work out differences (manage con-
flict and build coalitions) and set a common vision for the direction of the school
district.
More recently, given the growing influence of the state and federal govern-
ments in educational policy, the political leadership aspect of superintendents’
work has extended well beyond local communities and boards of education to
include policy issues being considered by state agencies, state legislatures, and the
federal government (Glass et al., 2000). For example, through membership in
organizations such as the Council for Great City Schools and the American
Association of School Administrators, urban superintendents have taken an active
role in lobbying Congress and U.S. Department of Education as those entities
consider re-authorization of the NCLB Act of 2002. However, the active involve-
ment in local, state, and federal politics has claimed valuable time of many urban
school superintendents and has taken them away from their schools and districts.
Bredeson (1996) asserted that the political leadership role, more than any
other role conceptualization, characterizes the work of the urban school superin-
tendent. Owen (1998) determined that superintendents spend over 45% of their
time dealing with indispensable political issues. Glass et al. (2000) found that 90%
of superintendents who served school districts larger than 25,000 students indicated
that interest groups’ influence was prevalent. In addition, 83% of the superintend-
ents responded that the micro-political relationship between the school board and
superintendent was a serious problem.

26
Managerial Leadership Role
Today the role of an urban school superintendent as an effective organiza-
tional manager is taken for granted. With the current era of high-stakes accounta-
bility increasing the demands for leadership from superintendents, especially in
urban districts, the percentage of time devoted to managerial functions has
diminished. In fact, Owen (1998) determined that superintendents allocate only
approximately 15% of their time to managerial tasks. Despite the lessening promin-
ence of the organizational managerial role of the position, few superintendents
would argue that this aspect of the job is not critical. As Johnson (1996) argued, if
buses do not run or children are unaccounted for, the superintendent will be judged
a failure. In fact, according to Glass et al. (2000), 36% of the superintendents
surveyed indicated that their board’s primary expectation was for them to be a
managerial leader. Kowalski (2006) and Glass et al. reported that a very large
percentage of superintendents identified managerial constraints as serious prob-
lems, including lack of adequate financial resources (97%), accountability (88%),
and compliance with state and federal mandates (82%). Kowalski contended that
the prevalence of these critical issues indicates the continued importance of the
organization managerial role of the superintendency.
Educational Leadership Role
Historically, superintendents have been expected to be well versed in curri-
culum and instruction. In fact, the earliest district leaders prided themselves on
being able to teach teachers and design curriculum. Although this role conceptual-
ization waned after 1910, it did not become completely irrelevant. During the past
two and a half decades widespread interest in school reform heightened expecta-
tions that urban school superintendents would provide leadership and expertise to

27
improve student academic achievement (Bjork, Glass, & Brunner, 2005). Urban
school superintendents are now expected to be curriculum reformers, engineers of
teacher development, and guarantors of significantly higher academic standards
(Usdan & Cronin, 2003). Johnson (1996) maintained that superintendents must
increasingly use their professional knowledge and experience to diagnose local
educational needs, discern problems of educational improvement, and recommend
strategies to improve teaching and learning.
Owen (1998) found that superintendents surveyed devoted 40% of their
time to educational leadership, second to only the political aspect of the position.
Glass et al. (2000) found that 48% of superintendents leading larger districts
(greater than 25,000 students) reported that their school board’s primary role
expectation of them was to serve as an educational leader.
However, these studies were conducted prior to the passage of the pro-
foundly influential NCLB Act of 2001. The era of high-stakes accountability
associated with NCLB necessitates that superintendents devote a significant portion
of their time and effort to improving teaching and learning (Lashway, 2002). The
superintendent’s role as the instructional leader is now more important than ever
(Gulek, 2003). In fact, instructional leadership by school superintendents has
emerged as the critical issue in continued efforts to reform urban public schools.
A national survey of school superintendents commissioned by Education Week
(Archer, 2005) found that 75% of urban superintendents agreed or strongly agreed
that NCLB had forced them to be more active in guiding the kind of instruction that
happens in the classroom. Although there is no recent research to confirm this
finding, it is highly likely that the amount of time devoted to the role of educational
leadership by urban superintendents may now surpass that of political leadership.

28
Unfortunately, as measured by their district’s AYP, the results of urban
superintendents’ instructional leadership practices have varied widely across the
nation (Archer, 2006). There is a dearth of research in the NCLB era of accounta-
bility that identifies what instructional leadership practices and strategies successful
urban superintendents are using to improve student achievement (Kowalski, 2006).
In addition, there is no research on whether there is a statistically significant differ-
ence in the leadership practices and strategies employed to improve student per-
formance between successful and unsuccessful urban superintendents. Therefore,
more research is needed to determine how successful urban superintendents are in
using their instructional leadership to improve student performance in their
districts.
Final Thoughts on the Roles of the
Modern Urban Superintendent
Table 1 summarizes the discussion in this section regarding the three
aspects of the roles of the modern superintendent. The demands of the modern
urban superintendency are more numerous, demanding, and complex than in the
past (Fuller et al., 2003; Glass et al., 2000). Moreover, the increasingly complex
environments in which urban school systems are embedded are radically altering
the work of school superintendents and how they lead (Leithwood & Riehl, 2003).
The current era of high-stakes accountability has placed an enormous amount of
political pressure on school superintendents to demonstrate leadership required to
improve achievement by all students (Kowalski, 2006).

29
Table 1

Knowledge and Skills Associated With Modern Superintendent Role
Conceptualizations

Role Pertinent knowledge and skills

Educational Pedagogy; educational psychology; motivational theory;
curriculum and instructional supervision; staff development;
educational philosophy; research-based best-practices; theory of
actions
Managerial Law; personnel administration; supervision/evaluation; personnel;
finance/budgeting; facility development/ maintenance; collective
bargaining/contract maintenance; public relations; accountability
Political Community relations; promoting agenda/vision; collaborative
decision making politics; effective communicator; conflict-
resolution; building coalitions; empower; negotiator; secure
resources; lobbying

Leadership Theory and the Urban Superintendency
As the research demonstrates, modern school district superintendents must
balance the evolving and often competing demands of three role conceptualiza-
tions—political, managerial, and educational (Cuban, 1998; Johnson, 1996; Owen,
1998)—if they are to lead their school systems successfully. A review of the
research in this section indicates that successful urban superintendents must
leverage specific skills and practices from each of the three leadership role
conceptualizations to transform the teaching and learning in their districts.
This section explicates three leadership approaches to the urban super-
intendency—transformational, distributive, and instructional—and the correspond-
ing strategies and practices that have been shown to improve district-wide instruc-
tion. The section develops a leadership approach to the urban superintendency that

30
integrates these three theories of leadership. The section also delineates the
relationships among the three leadership role conceptualizations of the urban
superintendency (political, managerial, and educational) and the three approaches
to leadership (transformational, distributive, and instructional).
As Bolman and Deal (1997) suggested, leadership is universally offered as
the panacea for almost all social problems. Increasing public indignation and
greater demands for holding school districts accountable for improving student
achievement have forced school boards of struggling urban school districts to seek
school leaders who can garner significant success (Cuban, 1998). Recent demands
have heightened expectations that superintendents provide leadership needed to
transform schools (Kowalski, 2006). The review of the literature in this section
seeks to gain greater insight into the approaches to leadership that have guided
urban superintendents in their efforts to transform instruction in their districts.
Leadership Defined
Leadership can be defined in a multitude of ways. In fact, Northouse (2004)
suggested that there are almost as many definitions of leadership as there are people
who have tried to define it. Despite the various definitions, Northouse delineated
four central components of leadership: (a) Leadership is a nonlinear process that
occurs between the leader and his or her followers; (b) leadership involves influ-
ence; (c) leadership occurs within a group context; and (d) leadership involves goal
attainment, in that leadership has to do with directing a group of people who have a
common purpose of accomplishing some goal or end. Northouse defined leadership
as “a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a
common goal” (p. 3). Those who engage in leadership are referred to as leaders,

31
while the people to whom leadership is directed are referred to as followers. Both
leaders and followers are involved in the leadership process; however, it is the
leader who often initiates the relationship, develops the channels of communica-
tion, and carries the onus for maintaining the relationship (Northouse).
Similarly, Leithwood and Riehl (2003) maintained that at the core of most
definitions of leadership are two functions: providing direction and exercising
influence. More specifically, leaders mobilize and work with others to achieve
shared goals. According to Leithwood and Riehl, there are three implications that
stem from this definition of leadership: (a) Leaders do not impose goals on the
followers; rather, they must work with others to create a shared sense of purpose
and direction; (b) leaders work primarily through and with others and they establish
the conditions that enable others to be effective; and (c) leadership encompasses a
set of functions that can be carried out by many persons in various roles in the
organization.
Three Approaches to Leadership
in the Superintendency
Many approaches to (or theories of) leadership have been influential in
guiding school leaders (Marzano, Waters, & McNulty, 2005). Over the past 3
decades, superintendents have been encouraged to be democratic, ethical, and
transformational in their approach to leadership (Kowalski, 2006). More recently,
with the rise of high-stakes accountability regimes such as California’s PSAA of
1999 and the federal NCLB, many have called for superintendents to become
instructional leaders (see Bjork, 1993; Lashway, 2002). Yet, Leithwood and Riehl
(2003) encouraged educators to be skeptical about “leadership by adjectives”
literature because adjectives such as instructional, distributive, and

32
transformational mask the important underlying themes common to successful
leadership. Despite their caution, these theories of leadership have been influential
in school reform and warrant further explanation. Three leadership approaches are
particularly relevant to the current study: transformational, distributive, and
instructional.
Transformational Leadership
This theory of leadership originated with James MacGregor Burns (1978) as
he studied political movements. The central idea of transformational leadership,
according to Kowalski (2006), is empowering others for the purpose of bringing
about significant change.
Burns (1978) defined leadership as the “reciprocal process of mobilizing,
by persons with certain motives and values, various economic, political, and
other resources, in a context of competition and conflict, in order to realize goals
independently or mutually held by both leaders and followers” (p. 425). From this
definition, Burns distinguished two types of leadership—transactional and trans-
formational—which he placed on opposite ends of a leadership continuum.
Transactional leadership occurs when goals of leaders and followers are “separate
but related” and the two trade one thing for another to satisfy their different
objectives. Transformational leadership, on the other hand, occurs when the leader
unites the interests of the leader and the followers to bring about significant change.
According to Burns, the power of the transformational leadership stems from the
alignment of interests between the leader and followers, in that leader and follower
elevate one another to higher levels of motivation. Ultimately, transformational

33
leadership is favored because it is believed to produce results beyond expectations
(Bass & Avolio, 1994; Burns, 1978).
Bass and Avolio (1994) described four factors that characterize the behavior
of transformational leaders: individual consideration, intellectual stimulation,
inspirational motivation, and idealized influence.
1. Intellectual stimulation: Transformational leaders help their followers
think of old problems in new ways.
2. Inspirational motivation: Transformational leaders motivate and inspire
those around them by providing meaning and challenge to the work of their
followers (Mullins & Keedy, 1998).
3. Individual consideration: Transformational leaders pay close attention to
the personal needs for achievement and growth by serving as a mentor or coach
(Mullins & Keedy).
4. Idealized influence: Transformational leaders serve as role models for
achievement, character and behavior.
Building on the work of Burns (1978) and Bass and Avolio (1994),
Leithwood (1994) developed a transformational leadership model for school
administrators. Summarizing Leithwood’s (1994) findings, Kowalski (2006) listed
the following elements: (a) building a shared vision of the school or district;
(b) creating and aligning school and district goals; (c) creating an intellectually
stimulating environment; (d) providing individual support and development
opportunities; (e) modeling best practices and learning-oriented organizational
values; (f) creating organizational structures that support authentic shared decision
making opportunities; and (g) establishing high expectations for student and adult

34
learning. Ultimately, Leithwood (1994) concluded that these transformational
leadership behaviors are necessary conditions for significant educational change.
Transformational leadership requires risk taking by the superintendent
because it involves increased opportunities for shared decision making (Norton,
Webb, Dlugosh, & Sybouts, 1996). However, this risk taking does not diminish the
superintendent’s importance. In fact, a higher level of leadership ability is required
of the transformational superintendent than of a transactional leader (Norton et al.).
Mullins and Keedy (1998) in their case study of a superintendent leading a
mid-size school district in North Carolina found that the transformational behaviors
of the superintendent changed the administrative behaviors of principals and the
instructional practices of teachers as well as improved student learning opportuni-
ties. The researchers determined that, by articulating his vision, values, and beliefs
about the district, the superintendent was the most significant factor in facilitating
systematic change. Mullins and Keedy also found that the highly visible superin-
tendent used metaphors and stories to provide meaning, communicate high expecta-
tions, and articulate the reasons why the current educational practices must be
changed. The researchers maintained that the superintendent built shared decision-
making power by developing site-based management capacity of the schools within
the district. Finally, the researchers concluded that the superintendent improved
teaching and learning by cultivating the four aspects of transformational leadership.
Distributive Leadership
This theory of leadership is similar to the transformational leadership
approach in that success is contingent on the meaningful involvement of others in
the leadership process. The distributive theory of leadership is premised on the

35
notion that neither superintendents nor principals can manage the whole leadership
task by themselves (Leithwood, Louis, Anderson, & Wahlstrom, 2004; Spillane,
Halverson, & Diamond, 2003). Thus, according to Leithwood et al., successful
superintendents and principals must develop and count on contributions from
others in their organizations. For example, superintendents must rely on leadership
from school board members and central office people at the district level and
principals and teachers at the individual site levels. However, it is important to note
that distributive leadership is more than the mere distribution of tasks; rather, it is
an interactive web of leaders and followers who at times change roles when
necessary (Marzano et al., 2005; Spillane et al.).
From their research case studies of eight elementary schools in Chicago,
Spillane and Sherer (2004) developed three leadership functions that can be
distributed or “stretched out” over multiple leaders: collaborative distribution,
collective distribution, and coordinated distribution. Collaborative distribution
occurs when the leaders and followers have to work together simultaneously on the
leadership activity. In essence, Spillane and Sherer found that the leadership
process unfolds as the leaders and followers interact among each other and the
situational context. Collective distribution occurs when the leaders act separately
but interdependently in pursuit of a shared goal. Coordinated distribution occurs
when people work separately or together on different leadership tasks that are
arranged sequentially. The implication of this approach to leadership, according to
Spillane and Sherer, is that, in order to understand the knowledge needed for
leadership practice, one has to move beyond the analysis of individual knowledge
and consider what leaders and followers know and do together and how they
interact with the particular situational context.

36
Although most of the research regarding distributed leadership revolves
around leadership at the site level and in particular the elementary school level
(Spillane, 2004; Spillane et al., 2003), the theory may offer promising insights for
district-level leadership (Leithwood et al., 2004). Leithwood et al., in their review
of the research on educational leadership, suggested that the distributive leadership
findings indicate that certain leadership functions should be performed at every
level in the organization while others should be carried out at a particular level. For
instance, the research indicates that stimulating people to think differently about
their work should happen at all levels, while building a shared vision for the
organization should happen at the top of the organization. While this theory or
approach provides greater conceptual understanding regarding the processes of
leadership, the research to date does not provide urban superintendents with much
practical guidance or insight into how to apply this model to improving student
learning.
Instructional Leadership
Perhaps the most popular theme in educational leadership over the past 25
years has been instructional leadership (Marzano et al., 2005). Since the early
1980s increasing political, economic, and social emphasis on public education has
placed significant demands on urban school superintendents to be more account-
able for student achievement (Hoyle et al., 2005). The pressure of accountability
culminated most recently with NCLB. The heightened pressure to produce aca-
demic results for all students has motivated superintendents to increase their role as
instructional leader (Hoyle et al.; Lashway, 2002; Petersen & Barnett, 2005).
Consequently, the superintendent’s role has moved from that of the organizational

37
manager to that of instructional leader focused on classroom instruction (Petersen
& Barnett).
However, according to Petersen and Barnett (2005), understanding the
multifaceted roles and practices of the school superintendent as an instructional
leader has proven to be a long-standing and elusive endeavor. Although there is
extensive research regarding the benefits of school principals as instructional
leaders, there is only limited research investigating the relationship between the
role of district superintendents as instructional leaders and improving student
achievement (Bjork, 1993; Muller, 1989; Murphy & Hallinger, 1988; Paine, 2002;
Petersen, 1998; Wirt, 1990). Rather, most of the research on superintendents has
investigated the relationship between instructional leadership and educational
change or instructional improvement.
Using qualitative interviews that focused on the principal’s relationship
with the central office, Peterson (1984) identified six mechanisms of control
(managerial levers) employed by the superintendent to manage the work of
principals. The first four he defined as hierarchical: (a) supervision; (b) control
over who is assigned what position and how resources are spent (input control);
(c) behavior control through the use of rules, procedures, directives, and required
activities; and (d) output control through student achievement testing. Two
mechanisms of control—selection and socialization—were classified as nonhier-
archical. Although, these findings are informative, they do not ultimately link
(directly or indirectly) the leadership practices of superintendents and student
achievement.
In a study of instructionally effective school districts, Murphy and Hallinger
(1986) found that superintendents who were successful instructional leaders

38
employed several strategies: (a) recruiting and hiring effective teachers and princi-
pals, (b) supervising and evaluating principals, (c) articulating clear goals for
curriculum and instruction, (d) monitoring the district’s goals for curriculum and
instruction, and (e) financial planning for instruction.
Coleman and LaRocque (1990) investigated the link between district ethos
and high levels of student achievement and concluded that leaders in high-function-
ing districts spent considerable amounts of time team building and collaborating
with school-level stakeholders. Herman (1990) studied 48 district superintendents
by means of interviews and found five instructional leadership-oriented skills and
competencies: (a) assignment of instructional personnel, (b) support for the instruc-
tional program, (c) development of instructional personnel, (d) organization of the
instructional program, and (d) planning for the instructional program.
Bredeson (1996) conducted a study to investigate the instructional leader-
ship roles of superintendents; in particular, Bredeson examined the superintend-
ents’ roles in curriculum development and instructional leadership. The superin-
tendents who responded described their role in curriculum development as one of
facilitation, delegation, or support. Bredeson identified four significant instructional
leadership roles that superintendents perform: instructional visionary, instructional
collaborator, instructional supporter, and instructional delegator.
Petersen (1998), in an exploratory case study of five district superintendents
in California, found that four attributes were fundamental to the ability to be
successful instructional leaders: (a) possession and articulation of an instructional
vision, (b) the creation of an organizational structure that supports their instruc-
tional vision and leadership, (c) assessment and evaluation of personnel and
instructional programs, and (d) organizational adaptation. In a follow-up

39
investigation with principals, community members, and board members from these
five districts, Petersen (2002) found a statistically significant relationship between
the articulated vision of the superintendent and the mission and goals of the district,
instructional planning, and community involvement in the academic success of the
district.
Although none of these research studies conclusively linked the instruc-
tional leadership of superintendents to student achievement, they clearly identified
leadership practices and strategies related to improvements in instruction. Accord-
ing to Peterson and Barnett (2005), the findings from most of these studies indicate
the importance of an instructional vision that was developed collaboratively, the
coordination and socialization of the individuals and groups responsible for teach-
ing and learning, developing principals as instructional leaders, the monitoring and
evaluation of instructional and curricular program implementation, and facilitating
instruction through the budget. Table 2 summarizes the similarities in the research
findings regarding the district superintendent and instructional leadership.
Despite increased pressure to improve the learning outcomes of all students,
superintendents of urban school districts face a multitude of challenges and have
many competing roles and responsibilities that often undermine their effort and
ability to successfully serve as an instructional leader. Leading urban school
districts has become increasingly more challenging over the past 20 years, due in
part to the increased public pressure to improve the academic performance of all
students, increased diversity of students, and an unstable political environment
within which urban school systems must operate (Goodman & Zimmerman, 2000).
Wirt (1990) argued that conflict management impedes superintendents’ abilities to
serve as instructional leaders. Wirt found that the level of conflict in the community

40

41

42
directly influence the behavior of superintendents. Superintendents that lead
districts characterized by more community conflict were less likely to fulfill their
roles as instructional leaders.
Fuller et al. (2003), in a survey of superintendents from the nation’s largest
urban school districts, found that the commitment of superintendents to improving
teaching and learning was constrained by the political demands of the position.
Specifically, they reported the following results: Superintendents believed that they
were not given enough authority to accomplish their mission; local school district
dynamics were driven by employment demands not instructional needs; and they
were unable to control their own agenda and were “whipsawed” by the competing
demands of the school board, teachers’ union, and central office. Similarly, Trump
(1986), in a survey of superintendents in Ohio, found two major time-consuming
obstacles to improving instruction: dealing with teacher associations and keeping
the school board happy.
An integrated approach to leadership in the urban superintendency. Accord-
ing to Kowalski (2006), scholars have found that, when urban superintendents
employ instruction leadership methods, serve as transformational leaders, and use
managerial levers at their disposal to support learning and teaching, they can
indirectly improve instruction (Bjork, 1993; Peterson & Barnett, 2005). Others
directly have linked instructional and transformational leadership (Hoyle et al.,
2005). Leithwood and Jantzi (1999) contended that transformational leadership is
an expansion of instructional leadership because it aspires to increase members’
efforts on behalf of the organization, as well as develop more skilled practice.
Similarly, Peterson and Barnett (2005) argued that superintendents can use
their organizational position and managerial roles to bring coherence to

43
transformational processes in teaching and learning. Using Murphy and Hallinger’s
(1986) framework for instructional leadership, Petersen and Barnett (2005)
developed a rationale that linked instructional and transformational leadership.
Through the selection and recruitment of staff, supervision of principals, articula-
tion of clear instructional and curricular goals, evaluation of the district’s instruc-
tional and curricular goals, and sound financial planning for instruction, superin-
tendents can convey to others the importance of improving curriculum, teaching,
and learning. The nature of these five instructional leadership roles communicates a
common vision of schooling and gives role cues to participants at lower levels in
the organization about the importance of student learning (Petersen & Barnett). In
doing so, superintendents unite or align the interests of the leader and the followers
to bring about transformational change in instruction.
Instructional and distributional leadership are clearly related. Through their
research, Spillane and Sherer (2004) found that instructional leadership was distri-
buted across the school community, with principals, superintendents, teachers, and
board members having complementary responsibilities. Spillane and Sherer con-
cluded that instructional leadership was distributed or “stretched out” over multiple
leaders at different levels of the organization. For example, superintendents frame
coherent district-wide goals and support systems, school level administrators
design and implement well-focused school improvement plans, and teachers trans-
late curriculum into meaningful learning experiences for students. Ultimately, all of
the actors at the various levels of the organization must collectively demonstrate
instructional leadership if system-wide improvements in instruction are to occur.
The empirical evidence indicates, that given the superintendent’s position in the
district organization and despite the remoteness of their central offices from the

44
classrooms in which decisions must ultimately be made, superintendents are in the
best position to support and facilitate improvements in instructional capacity
(Petersen & Barnett, 2005).
Leadership Roles of and Approaches
to the Superintendency
Although there is not a perfect match between the knowledge and skills
necessary for each of the three leadership role demands of the modern urban
superintendency (political, managerial, and educational) and the three approaches
to leadership in the superintendency (transformational, distributive, and instruc-
tional) relevant to this study, there is a significant overlap. In fact, each of the
approaches to leadership requires a blend of specific skills and practices found in
each of the three role demands. For instance, the research on effective instructional
leadership indicates that superintendents should involve the community in setting
goals (Coleman & LaRocque, 1990; Peterson, 2002), a practice that corresponds to
a specific demand associated with the political leadership role. Research from
Murphy and Hallinger (1986) and Bredeson (1996) demonstrates that managerial
skills, such as planning for instruction, facilitating instruction through the budget,
supervising and monitoring instructional practices, and evaluating instructional
effectiveness, are closely linked to successful instructional leadership. Petersen
(2002) showed that educational skills, such as developing principals as instructional
leaders, facilitating staff development, and developing instructional practices, were
inextricably associated with effective instructional leadership. Thus, the research
clearly indicates that effective instructional leadership by superintendents requires a
purposeful selection of leadership skills from each of the three dominant role

45
demands. Table 3 summarizes the similarities between leadership roles and
approaches that can be used by the urban superintendent.
In total, the corresponding nature of the approaches and roles of the super-
intendency provides both a theoretical and an empirical justification for the import-
ance of these role demands to improving the instructional practices of teachers. The
correspondence also demonstrates the importance of having to simultaneously
integrate the three approaches to leadership as well as balance the three inherent
role demands of the superintendency in order to effectively create the conditions
necessary for educational improvement.
Final Thoughts on Leadership and
the Urban Superintendency
Increasing public discontent with the performance of urban public schools
has heightened the pressure on urban superintendents to provide the leadership
needed to transform those schools (Kowalski, 2006). To do so, urban school
superintendents must possess a keen understanding of the various theories of
educational leadership, how approaches are related in practice, and how strategies
and practices associated with each approach are employed successfully.
Although these three perspectives of school leadership differ in approach to
some degree, they have underlying themes common to successful leadership
(Leithwood & Riehl, 2003). Taking the lessons learned from these three theories of
educational leadership provides modern urban superintendents with an empirical
framework and a practical blend of strategies and practices by which to transform
the instructional programs of their urban school districts.
Unfortunately, only limited research on the three approaches to leadership
in the urban superintendency has been conducted in the years following the passage

46

47

48

49
of the profoundly influential NCLB—an era in which many argue that the leader-
ship roles of the superintendent have been transformed. In fact, no scientifically
based research was found on transformational or instructional theories of leadership
in the years following NCLB. Given the pervasiveness of these leadership theories
in the realm of educational administration, it is critical that comprehensive research
be conducted to determine whether the leadership strategies and practices associ-
ated with each of these approaches to leadership have a positive effect on district
instruction and student achievement.
Districts and Student Achievement
This section examines the research on the strategies and policies that
districts use to improve student learning and evidence about the influence of the
district on improving student achievement. According to Leithwood et al. (2004),
much of this research treats the district as an independent variable acting as an
organizational entity without explicitly examining the leadership practices and
effects of the superintendent. In addition, due to the methodologies of these
research studies, most of their conclusions cannot causally link district-level
policies and strategies to higher student achievement. In fact, the empirical linkages
between the district’s role and actual changes in student learning outcomes are
more hypothetical than empirically demonstrated. Typically, if test results show
substantial improvement temporally associated with district reform plans, if these
trends are generalized across most schools in the districts, and if the performance
gap between historically low and high achieving students is diminished, then
researchers have argued that district reform efforts had a positive affect on student
achievement. Nevertheless, the research provides important knowledge about

50
district-level policies and strategies associated with educational improvement
(Leithwood et al.).
Twelve District Strategies for
Improving Student Learning
According to Leithwood et al. (2004), a synthesis of the relevant research
on district efforts to improve student learning indicates at least 12 common district
strategies. The current study adopts these 12 strategies as a framework for under-
standing the role of the district as an entity in improving instruction and student
academic achievement.
1. District-wide sense of efficacy. The research clearly indicates that super-
intendents and other district-level leaders in successful urban districts convey a
strong belief in the capacity of the district to achieve high standards of achievement
for all students, as well as high standards for teaching and leadership from all
school-level personnel (Leithwood et al., 2004).
2. District-wide focus on student achievement and the quality of instruction.
A review of the research indicates that academically successful urban districts
establish a clear focus on attaining high standards of student achievement, which
includes explicit goals and targets for student performance (Murphy & Hallinger,
1988; Snipes et al., 2002; Togneri & Anderson, 2003). These successful districts
also emphasize strong instruction as a key to improving student learning
(Leithwood et al., 2004).
3. Adoption and commitment to district-wide performance standards. A
synthesis of the research demonstrates that high-performing urban districts make a
serious commitment to state-mandated standards for curriculum, student learning,
and school performance (Leithwood et al., 2004). Researching five high-poverty

51
districts (four urban, one rural) making strides in improving student achievement,
Togneri and Anderson (2003) found that these districts extended performance
standards beyond school and student results to include areas of reform, such as
instruction, principal leadership, and professional development. Murphy and
Hallinger (1988) determined that the superintendents of the 12 “instructionally
effective” school districts in California that they studied were directly involved in
monitoring the performance of their schools by visiting school sites and meeting
with principals.
4. Development and adoption of district curricula and approaches to
instruction. Research shows that effective urban districts established district-wide
curricula to minimize inconsistencies and fragmentation across schools, as well as
made it easier to develop district-wide instructional strategies that aligned with the
content and learning outcomes (Leithwood et al., 2004). Although their conclusions
were limited by methodological problems (no comparison data from comparison
schools), Togneri and Anderson (2003) found that successful districts in their study
employed system-wide curricula that connected to their state’s standards and pro-
vided teachers with clear expectations about what to teach. Typically, the district-
wide curricula and instructional strategies were supported through district pro-
fessional development efforts (Snipes et al., 2002).
5. Alignment of curriculum, teaching and learning materials, and assess-
ment with relevant standards. Research indicates that successful districts pro-
actively ensured that all curriculum materials and assessments were aligned with
state-mandated standards. In addition, effective urban districts translated the state
standards into instructional practices and adopted them across the district (Snipes et
al., 2002). High-achieving challenged districts in Virginia were found to provide

52
direct support to teachers and schools through the use of district-level instructional
and curriculum specialists (JLARC, 2004).
6. Multimeasure accountability systems and district-wide use of data to
inform practice, hold school and district leaders accountable for results, and
monitor progress. According to the research, high-performing urban school
districts spent considerable amounts of time, effort, and money to develop their
capacity to assess the performance of students, teachers and schools. In addition,
successful urban districts developed and used assessments to inform decision
making about their areas of need and strategies for improvement (Leithwood et al.,
2004). All of the research on the district’s role in improving student achievement
indicates that districts used data analysis to improve performance and ensure
accountability. For example, the Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation
conducted a comprehensive outlier study of four successful urban districts
(Sacramento, Houston, Charlotte-Mecklenberg, and New York City Chancellor’s
District) and found that these districts created accountability systems that extended
beyond state requirements in order to hold district leadership and school-level
faculty responsible for producing results (Snipes et al., 2002). Massell (2000)
concluded that the 22 successful districts in her research study interpreted and used
data to plan professional development, identify achievement gaps, align curriculum
and instruction, assign and evaluate personnel, target interventions, and evaluate
programs.
7. Targeted and phased focuses of improvement. Research suggests that
effective school districts, while committed to improving achievement for all
students and schools, typically began with a focus on specific curriculum content
areas, such as reading, writing, and mathematics, and the reforms usually began at

53
the elementary level. Moreover, effective districts in the research targeted addi-
tional resources and energy toward low-performing schools and classrooms
(Leithwood et al., 2004; Massell, 2000; Snipes et al., 2002).
8. Investment in distributing instructional leadership across schools and the
district. According to Leithwood et al. (2004), one of the hallmarks of successful
urban districts in the research was an intensive, long-term investment in developing
instructional leadership capacity at the school and district levels. District efforts
included a heavy focus on principals as instructional leaders and the creation of
new school-based positions such as academic coaches to work with principals to
lead professional development for individual teachers or groups of teachers
(Massell, 2000; Togneri & Anderson, 2003). Moreover, Togneri and Anderson
ascertained that the successful districts in their research extended instructional
leadership from traditional positions—superintendent and principals—to include
other actors, such as assistant principals, teacher leaders, central office staff, union
leaders, and school board members.
9. District-wide professional development and support for teachers. High-
performing urban districts in the research perceived student learning and the quality
of instruction as inextricably linked, and thus they focused on the professional
learning of their teachers. Typically, professional development moved beyond the
traditional 1-day workshop format to include teacher intervisitations, demonstration
lessons, in-class coaching, teams of teachers doing lesson studies, curriculum
planning, and analysis of performance data (Leithwood et al., 2004; Togneri &
Anderson, 2003). Similarly, in a policy brief for the Consortium for Policy
Research in Education (CPRE), Massell (2000) reported that the majority of the 22
districts studied by CPRE researchers over a 2-year period used less-traditional

54
formats of professional development, such as teacher and school networks, peer
mentoring programs, and professional development centers.
10. District and school emphasis on teamwork and professional community.
A synthesis of the research indicates that collaboration was paramount in high-
achieving urban school districts. Grade-level teams, networks of teachers across
schools, school and district improvement teams, professional learning communities,
and other collaborative teams were central elements of school and district continu-
ous improvement efforts (Leithwood et al., 2004). JLARC (2004), in their mixed-
methods study of “high-performing challenged districts” in Virginia, found that
these districts provided extensive professional development opportunities, as well
as maintained a belief that success derives in part from a creation of a community
of learners at all levels of the organization. Moreover, JLARC found that collabora-
tion between the school board and superintendent was common among successful
districts. Murphy and Hallinger (1988) researched 12 “instructionally effective”
districts in California and found, in general, positive relationships among the
central district office, school board, and community.
11. New approaches to district-school relations. Research indicates a
tension between district-wide goals for reform and the need for educators at the
school level to plan and organize in ways that fit their specific contexts (Massell,
2000; Togneri & Anderson, 2003). According to Leithwood et al. (2004), more
successful district reform initiatives decentralized considerable autonomy to
individual sites to define student learning needs and to use structured professional
development resources. The solution, according to Leithwood et al., was to do this
in ways that did not fragment the coherence of overall reform efforts across the

55
district. [See the explanation of defined autonomy (Waters & Marzano, 2006) in the
next section for more details].
12. Strategic engagement with state and federal reform policies and
resources. Citing Spillane (1996), Leithwood et al. (2004) concluded that educa-
tional leaders at the district and school levels actively interrupted external policy
initiatives in light of their own beliefs, preferences, and experiences, and mobilized
resources to fit local reform agendas. More successful urban districts leveraged
state and federal influences to strengthen support for the district reform initiatives
and to influence the external context in favor of the local reform agenda (Spillane;
Togneri & Anderson, 2003).
Challenges Faced by Urban Districts
A review of the research identified several obstacles to district-wide
improvement that form part of the initial landscape of reform that must be
addressed in the process of reform (Leithwood et al., 2004). Snipes et al. (2002),
in their research of four urban districts, identified seven substantial challenges:
(a) unsatisfactory achievement, especially for minority and low-income students;
(b) district histories rife with internal political conflicts, factionalism, and lack of
focus on student achievement; (c) high percentage of inexperienced teachers, com-
pounded by high rates of teacher turnover and poor working conditions, leading to
gross discrepancy in the capacity of teaching staffs in schools serving different
populations; (d) low expectations and a lack of rigor for lower income and minority
students; (e) lack of instructional coherence across the district; (f) high student
mobility which possess challenges to continuity in student learning; and (g)

56
unsatisfactory business operations that lead to difficulties in acquiring the requisite
supplies to keep schools and classrooms functioning effectively.
Other researchers have also identified challenges districts faced in trying to
implement district-wide improvement efforts. For example, Togneri and Anderson
(2003) identified several major systemic challenges that had to be overcome
through the process of change: (a) old system structures, policies, and professional
development that did not support the more complex and demanding role expecta-
tions for teaching, data analysis, and collaboration required of teachers and princi-
pals; (b) finding funding to support new approaches to instructional improvement;
and (c) the lack of improvement at the high school level. Taken together, under-
standing the challenges faced by urban school districts at the initiation stage as well
as the implementation and sustaining stages of educational change provides
district leaders with a greater insight into how to achieve lasting educational
improvements.
Final Thoughts on the Role of the District
in Improving Student Achievement
Research clearly and definitively indicates that high-performing school
districts share many common strategic characteristics. Despite a number of well-
documented challenges specific to urban school districts, the various methodolo-
gies of research demonstrate that, when districts proceed with a deliberate and
coherent system-wide approach that includes the 12 common strategies identified
by Leithwood et al. (2004), instructional transformation and improvements in
student achievement are possible. Again, it is important to caution that the link
between the district-level strategic initiatives and improved student achievement is
more hypothetical or intuitive than empirical.

57
For the explicit purpose of the current study, two other observations warrant
noting as well. First, the entire collection of research reviewed regarding district-
level influences associated with improved student learning was conducted prior to
the passage of the federal NCLB in 2002—a high-stakes accountability regime that
has already been shown to have altered school and district-level behaviors. How-
ever, the full extent of the influence of NCLB on the leadership strategies and
practices of the urban superintendency is yet to be determined by research. Second,
according to Leithwood et al. (2004), this research treats the district as an inde-
pendent variable acting as an organizational entity without explicitly examining the
leadership practices and effects of the superintendent. Consequently, an analysis of
research on how urban superintendents affect improvements in student learning is
needed.
Superintendents’ Influences on Student
Academic Achievement
This section of the review of literature examines the extant research on the
influences of district superintendents on student achievement and develops a frame-
work of the leadership functions, practices, and strategies that have been shown to
improve student learning outcomes.
Despite the heightened pressure placed on urban superintendents by NCLB
to improve the learning outcomes of all students, relatively little research exists that
identifies the specific leadership strategies and functions carried out by superin-
tendents to improve student achievement (Glass et al., 2000; Kowalski, 2006). In
fact, a query of ERIC, a database of journal articles and reports on education-
related topics, for research on urban superintendents and student achievement
conducted in the years following NCLB (the 2001-2002 school year) returned only

58
three relevant matches. Nevertheless, the findings from these three studies (two
case studies and one meta-analysis) plus one study from the pre-NCLB era will be
used in conjunction with a leadership model put forth by Leithwood and Riehl
(2003) to develop a framework for how urban superintendents affect improvements
in instruction and student learning.
The Basic Leadership Functions
of Educational Leadership
The Task Force on Developing Research in Educational Leadership
released a report entitled What We Know About Successful School Leadership that
summarized several research-based conclusions about successful educational
leadership. First, the report concluded, “Leadership has significant effects on
student learning, second only to the effects of the quality of curriculum and
teachers’ instruction” (as cited in Leithwood & Riehl, 2003, p. 4). Although the
overall effects of leadership on student learning are small, they accounted for
nearly one quarter of the total effect of all school factors. The research indicated
that most of the influence of leadership on student performance is indirect: Leaders
influence student learning by promoting a vision and goals and by ensuring that
resources and processes are in place to support teachers and help them teach well
(Leithwood & Riehl).
The task force also concluded, “Successful school leaders respond pro-
ductively to challenges and opportunities created by the accountability-oriented
policy context in which they work” (as cited in Leithwood & Riehl, 2003, p. 8).
Polices directed toward increasing school and school district accountability provide
opportunities for leaders to design practices that fit unique school contexts and
needs. For instance, creating and sustaining a competitive school requires

59
responding to private market and choice options. When educational accountability
mechanisms require stakeholders to have a greater empowerment, school leaders
can ensure that shared governance or participatory decision making are focused on
improving student learning. Also, when state and federal accountability-oriented
programs stress standards-based performance for teachers, school leaders can
provide instructional guidance by being knowledgeable about research-based best
practices and creating conditions for professional growth of teachers and others in
the school (Hoyle et al., 2005).
Moreover, the Task Force on Developing Research in Educational Leader-
ship concluded that “a core set of leadership practices form the ‘basics’ of success-
ful leadership and are valuable in almost all educational contexts” (as cited in
Leithwood & Riehl, 2003, p. 5). While most of the research regarding educational
leadership pertains to site-level administrators, Leithwood and Riehl contended that
leadership “basics” apply to district-level administrators such as superintendents as
well. This set of leadership functions includes setting direction, developing people,
and redesigning the organization.
1. Setting direction: A leadership function that involves identifying, articu-
lating, and endorsing a collective vision that embodies the best thinking about
teaching and learning and modeling those beliefs in practice. Superintendents
should facilitate and nurture a shared meaning among all educational stake-
holders—staff, parents, and the community—about the school district’s vision.
According to the report, school district leaders must also convey high expectations
for performance, foster acceptance of group goals, monitor organizational perform-
ance, and effectively communicate with diverse stakeholders (Hoyle et al., 2005).

60
2. Developing people: A leadership function premised on the notion that the
district is only as good as the staff working for it (Hoyle et al., 2005). School
district leaders develop their human resources by offering intellectual stimulation,
providing individualized support for those engaged in change, and modeling shared
beliefs (Leithwood & Riehl, 2003).
3. Redesigning the organization: Successful educational leaders develop
their districts as effective organizations that support and sustain the performance of
administrators, teachers, and students (Leithwood & Riehl, 2003).
Effective school leaders contribute to developing and strengthening the
school culture, modifying organizational structures (assignments, allocation
of resources, and procedures) to create optimal conditions for learning and
teaching, building collaborative processes to enhance school performance,
and managing the environment by proactively engaging parents, community
citizens, agencies, and businesses and government leaders to learn about
legitimate concerns, develop shared understanding and meaning, and garner
support. (Hoyle et al., 2005, p. 4)
According to Leithwood and Riehl (2003), these three leadership practices
closely reflect a transformational approach to leadership. The first basic leadership
function—setting direction—corresponds to aspects of successful transformational
leadership, such as facilitating a shared vision and creation and alignment of goals.
Sill other aspects of the transformational approach to leadership, such as creating
an intellectually stimulating environment and providing individual support fall
under the basic leadership function of developing people. The transformational
leadership practice of creating organizational structures that support authentic
shared decision making (Leithwood, 1994) correspond very well to the basic
leadership functions of redesigning the organization.
The three basic leadership functions—setting direction, developing people,
and redesigning the organization—also reflect the skills and practices of both the

61
distributive and instructional approaches to leadership. According to research,
distributive leadership requires creating a shared vision of the organization
(Leithwood et al., 2004), developing the leadership capacities of people (Spillane &
Sherer, 2004), and creating collaborative processes (Spillane & Sherer), all of
which correspond respectively to the three basic leadership functions laid out by
Leithwood and Riehl (2003). Similarly, proponents of instructional leadership insist
that a shared vision (Petersen, 1998) and clear goals for curriculum and instruction
(Murphy & Hallinger, 1986), professional development for teachers and principals
(Massell, 2000; Murphy & Hallinger, 1986), and reorganization of the instructional
program (Herman, 1990), among other practices, are essential to improving
instruction. Again, theses skills and practices correspond highly to the three basic
leadership functions respectively espoused by Leithwood and Riehl.
Taken together, the conclusions presented by the Task Force on Developing
Research in Educational Leadership have strengthened the argument from those
who demand a greater role of the district superintendent in improving instruction.
More important, the three basic leadership functions that the task force explicates
provide urban superintendents with general empirical insight into how they can
approach instructional improvement and student achievement. Accordingly, this
study uses both the three basic leadership functions developed by Leithwood and
Riehl (2003) and the three approaches to leadership explicated earlier in the chapter
to form a conceptual framework by which to examine and organize the research on
the leadership function, strategies, and practices that urban school superintendents
employ to improve student achievement in their school districts.

62
Urban Superintendents’ Approaches
to Improving Student Achievement
Asera, Johnson, Ragland, and Joseph (1999), in their study of 10 high-
poverty districts in Texas, found that superintendents influenced improvements in
student achievement by (a) creating a sense of urgency for the improvement of
academic achievement, (b) using shared decision making to foster an environment
in which academic achievement became the top priority, (c) establishing shared
goals that were not negotiable, (d) maintaining a clear focus and vision for
improvement, and (e) changing the role of the central office from managerial to
support provider. The researchers concluded that “academic improvement in these
effective districts was not accidental, nor was it dependent upon good luck; it was
planned” (p. 13).
These findings were consistent with at least two of the three basic functions
of leadership described by Leithwood and Riehl (2003): setting a vision and
redesigning the organization. While not spelled out directly, the fifth finding
suggests that, by becoming a support provider, the district will offer professional
development to site-level personnel to support the new district vision, thereby
realizing the leadership function of developing people. Despite the direct relation-
ship between superintendent practice and student achievement, the research was
conducted prior to NCLB and may not reflect effective practices today.
Cudeiro (2005) conducted a 4-year case study that included interviews,
observations, and data collection from three superintendents who were successful at
increasing student achievement as measured by standardized tests, benchmark
assessments, and narrowing the achievement gap. Cudeiro also interviewed the
leadership teams and principals in the districts to determine what the superintend-
ents did that affected their own roles as instructional leaders. Cudeiro concluded

63
that the superintendents had a positive influence on student learning, primarily
through the promotion, support, and development of principals as instructional
leaders.
First, Cudeiro (2005) found that the three superintendents promoted the
instructional leadership of their principals by (a) establishing a district-wide vision
centered on meeting the learning needs of all students and tying district goals for
student performance to the vision, (b) establishing a clearly defined conceptualiza-
tion of what it means for principals to be instructional leaders and establishing
standards tied to evaluation, and (c) holding principals accountable for instructional
leadership by implementing site visits and walkthroughs that were followed up with
written feedback. At least the first two practices are strongly linked to Leithwood
and Riehl’s (2003) leadership function of setting a vision.
Second, Cudeiro (2005) found that the superintendents supported the
instructional leadership of their principals by reorganizing the work of the central
office so that staff members provided help, support, and coaching to principals.
Cudeiro (2005) concluded that the three effective superintendents had
strengthened the instructional leadership skills of their principals by providing
targeted professional development in the areas of instructional supervision, using
data to make decisions and drive instruction, creating target professional develop-
ment plans tied to measurable student learning goals, and building learning com-
munities. It is clear that these strategies for supporting the instructional leadership
of principals correspond closely with the leadership functions of developing people
and redesigning the organization.
Cudeiro (2005) also concluded that, through specific targeted leadership
strategies, the three superintendents had played a major role in improving student

64
learning. However, her conclusion should be tempered because the qualitative
methodology employed in the study limited the researcher’s ability to empirically
link the actions of the superintendents with improved student achievement. Rather,
the researcher inferred a hypothetical yet intuitive relationship between the two
variables, mediated ultimately by improvement in instructional practices.
The final ERIC query result was a meta-analysis of the effects of district-
level leadership on student achievement and the characteristics of effective superin-
tendents conducted by Waters and Marzano (2006) that examined findings from 27
studies conducted since 1970 (22 of which were conducted before NCLB) that used
what the researchers referred to as “rigorous, quantitative methods.” Waters and
Marzano concluded that “district-level leadership matters” and reported a statistic-
ally significant relationship between district leadership and student achievement. In
other words, according to Waters and Marzano, district leadership can influence
student achievement, based on their finding of a positive correlation of .24. The
researchers gave a hypothetical example of a superintendent whose measures of
leadership and district-level student achievement were at the 50th percentile. If that
superintendent’s leadership measure improved by 1 standard deviation (to the 84th
percentile), the district’s level of student achievement would be expected to jump to
the 59.5th percentile. The authors maintained that the findings of this meta-analysis
provided urban superintendents with a coherent set of leadership strategies by
which to approach improving student achievement.
Waters and Marzano (2006) concluded that effective superintendents
focused their efforts on creating goal-oriented districts and provided their principals
with “defined autonomy.” Specifically, the researchers found six district-level

65
leadership functions with a statistically significant (p < .05) correlation with
average student achievement:
1. Collaborative goal-setting (r = .24). According to Waters and Marzano,
effective superintendents included all relevant stakeholders—the central office
staff, building-level administrators, and board members—in establishing non-
negotiable goals for their districts. Relevant practices used by the superintendent to
fulfill this responsibility were (a) developing a shared vision for the goal setting
process, (b) using the goal setting process to set goals developed jointly by board
and administration, and (c) communicating expectations to central office staff and
principals.
2. Non-negotiable goals for achievement and instruction (r = .33). Effective
superintendents, according to Waters and Marzano, ensured that the collaborative
goal process results in non-negotiable goals in student achievement and instruction.
The identified practices associated with this leadership responsibility were
(a) modeling understanding of instructional design, (b) establishing clear priorities
among the instructional goals and objectives, (c) incorporating a variety of instruc-
tional strategies that allow for differences in learning styles, (d) adopting a 5-year
non-negotiable plan for achievement and instruction, and (e) ensuring that the
preferred instructional strategies are proficiently implemented.
3. Board alignment with and support of district goals (r = .29). Superin-
tendents ensured that the board of education remained committed first and foremost
to the non-negotiable goals. Successful superintendents used the following prac-
tices: (a) establishing agreement with the board president on the district goals and
on the type and nature of conflict in the district, (b) establishing agreement with the
board president on the nature of teaching/learning strategies to be used in the

66
district, (c) providing professional development for the board members, and
(d) establishing criteria with the board president on how to measure the effective-
ness of board trainings.
4. Monitoring goals for achievement and instruction (r = .27). The superin-
tendent monitored and evaluated implementation of the district’s instructional
program, influence of instruction on achievement, and effect of implementation on
implementers. Some of the leadership practices associated with this responsibility
were (a) using an instructional evaluation program, (b) monitoring achievement
through feedback from the instructional evaluation program, (c) annually evaluat-
ing principals, (d) reporting the data to the board on a regular basis, (e) observing
classrooms during school visits, and (f) coordinating efforts within the organization
to increase reliability of the system.
5. Use of resources to support the goals for achievement and instruction
(r = .26). Effective superintendents ensured that the necessary resources, including
time, money, personnel, and materials, were allocated to accomplish the district’s
goals. Successful practices used by superintendents included (a) providing extens-
ive teacher and principal professional development, (b) training all instructional
staff in a common but flexible instructional model, (c) controlling resource alloca-
tion, (d) adopting an instructional and resource management system supporting the
instructional philosophy of the district.
6. Defined autonomy; superintendent relationship with schools (r = .28).
Effective superintendents provided autonomy to principals to lead their schools but
expect alignment of district goals and use of resources for professional develop-
ment. Waters and Marzano (2006) delineated 22 leadership practices used by
superintendents to effectively carry out this leadership responsibility, but the

67
present study focuses on only eight such practices: (a) developing a shared vision
and understanding of “defined autonomy”; (b) using standards for content and
instruction as the basic design principles; (c) screening, interviewing, and selecting
teachers along with principals; (d) establishing teacher evaluations as priority for
principals; (e) ensuring that schools have clear missions focused on school per-
formance; (f) maintaining high expectations for school performance; (g) expecting
principals to fulfill instructional leadership responsibilities; and (h) developing
principal awareness of district goals and actions directed at goal accomplishment.
Given the quantitative methodology of their study, the conclusions drawn
by Waters and Marzano (2006) are among the most powerful to date. Not only did
this meta-analysis study identify the superintendent’s leadership responsibilities
and practices that are significantly related to average student achievement; it also
determined the effect sizes associated with these influences. In addition, the find-
ings are consistent with the three leadership functions—setting direction, develop-
ing people, and redesigning the organization—presented by Leithwood and Riehl
(2003). Table 4 for shows how the findings reported by Waters and Marzano
correspond to the three basic leadership practices.
Notwithstanding these findings, there is a concern about the relevance of
the findings to the study at hand. In particular, the current study calls into question
the relevance of the findings, given that a strong majority of the studies included in
the meta-analysis (22 of the 27) were conducted prior to the NCLB era of high-
stakes accountability, which era has altered the leadership roles of urban superin-
tendents. Moreover, of the five NCLB-era research studies included in the meta-
analysis, only two doctoral dissertations (Mocek, 2002; Vaughan, 2002) investi-
gated the direct relationship between leadership practices of superintendents and

68
Table 4

The Correlation of Three Basic Leadership Functions and the Findings Reported
by Waters and Marzano Regarding Superintendents and Student Achievement

Function Pertinent superintendent practices

Setting a vision Developing a shared vision of the goal setting process;
communicating the goal expectations to the central
office and principals; establishing clear priorities
among the instructional goals and objectives; develop-
ing a shared vision of defined autonomy; adopting a 5-
year non-negotiable plan for achievement and
instruction
Developing people Providing professional development to the board
members; training all instructional staff in a common
but flexible instructional model; developing principal
awareness of district goals; providing extensive teacher
and principal professional development
Redesigning organization Adopting an instructional and resource management
system supporting the instructional philosophy of the
district; using an instructional evaluation program;
annual evaluating principals; controlling resource
allocations; defined autonomy; collaborative goal
setting processes

student achievement, and neither of those studies found a statistically significant
relationship between the two variables. Mocek investigated the influence of super-
intendents’ leadership behaviors on student reading achievement in randomly
selected Illinois school districts and found no significant relationship between the
two variables. Vaughan examined the relationship between the transformational
and transactional leadership behaviors of Texas public school superintendents and
student achievement and found no statistically significant correlation between the
leadership behaviors of superintendents and student achievement. This concern is
not an attempt to diminish the significance of the research findings; rather, it is a

69
call for further research to investigate whether the leadership responsibilities and
corresponding strategies and skills are relevant to urban superintendents as they
meet the demands of NCLB.
Framework for Understanding Urban Superintendent
Leadership and Student Learning
The research findings on how urban superintendents improve student
academic achievement are consistent with the research base on the three basic
functions of leadership—setting direction, developing people, and redesigning the
organization—developed by Leithwood and Riehl (2003). Moreover, there is a
strong correspondence between the three theories of leadership in the urban super-
intendency (transformational, distributive, and instructional) explicated earlier in
the chapter and the research base on the practices that urban superintendents
employ to improve student achievement. The research findings on how urban
superintendents facilitate improvements in student learning demonstrate that
effective urban superintendents expertly utilize leadership strategies and practices
related to both leadership frameworks: the three theories of leadership in the urban
superintendency and the three basic functions of leadership.
A synthesis of the literature reviewed in this chapter yield 14 broad leader-
ship functions that are empirically linked to improvements in instruction and in
some cases student achievement. Leadership functions in the current study refer to
leadership responsibilities or categories of behaviors/actions that correspond to the
leader. Although Leithwood and Riehl (2003) maintained that three core leadership
responsibilities form the basics of successful leadership in almost all educational
settings, the current study expands on their work to include the following

70
leadership functions linked to improved instruction and achievement (see appendix
A for the research that corresponds with each leadership function).
1. Shared vision and setting direction: A leadership function that involves
identifying, articulating, and endorsing a collective vision that embodies the best
thinking about teaching and learning
2. Board relations: A leadership function that involves maintaining the
board of education’s commitment to improving student achievement and the
district’s non-negotiable goals
3. Collaboration and shared decision making. A leadership function that
involves including all relevant stakeholders in establishing the non-negotiable goals
for the district
4. Non-negotiable goals for achievement and instruction: A leadership
function that involves establishing explicit goals and targets for student perform-
ance and instructional practices as well as establishing timetables for meeting the
goals
5. Developing people through professional development and support: A
leadership function that involves building the instructional and intellectual capacity
of district personnel at all levels of the organization
6. Effective communication: A leadership function that involves maintain-
ing regular communication with relevant educational stakeholders
7. Selecting and assigning personnel: A leadership function that involves
the active involvement of the superintendent in staffing and assignment decisions
8. Creating accountability: A leadership function that involves creating
and monitoring a multimeasure program that holds individuals and schools
responsible for achieving the district’s non-negotiable performance goals

71
9. Using data: A leadership function that involves building the capacity of
the district to assess the performance of students, teachers, and schools and to use
that data to inform decision making
10. Unifying curriculum and instruction: A leadership function that
involves creating district-wide curricula and instructional strategies that align with
the state content and performance standards
11. Principals as instructional leaders: A leadership function that involves
developing and supporting the instructional leadership of school principals
12. Improving district operations: A leadership function that involves
changing the focus and organization of the central office to support teaching and
learning at school sites
13. Facilitating instruction through the budget: A leadership function that
involves ensuring that sufficient resources are allocated to accomplish the district’s
vision
14. Principal autonomy to run schools (defined autonomy): A leadership
function that involves setting clear, non-negotiable goals for learning and instruc-
tion while providing the school leadership teams with the responsibility and
authority for determining how to meet those goals
A synthesis of the research literature suggests that, when these 14 leader-
ship functions are applied in a systematic and coherent manner, urban superintend-
ents can improve teaching and learning in their school districts. However, the fact
that this conclusion is based primarily on findings from research conducted prior to
the passage of the influential NCLB warrants further research on the topic.
Consistent with the research findings of Snipes et al. (2002), the current
study presumes that certain leadership preconditions must occur before other

72
leadership strategies can be employed effectively by urban superintendents to
improve teaching and learning. The current study refers to these leadership precon-
ditions as first-order leadership practices and subsequent strategies as second-
order leadership practices. Snipes et al. found that the superintendents in the four
effective urban districts in their study employed several first-order leadership
practices to increase student achievement: creating a shared vision between the
superintendent and school board members, building capacity to diagnose instruc-
tional problems, creating a leadership vision for reform and selling it to community
stakeholders, focusing on revamping district operations to serve as support for
schools, and matching new resources to support the vision for reform. The current
study makes similar assumptions about first- and second-order leadership practices.
However, the lack of research on the topic begs the question: What first-order
leadership practices were employed by successful urban superintendents after
taking control of their school districts?
Conclusion
Given the increased pressure on urban superintendents to improve student
achievement and the paucity of research on the topic, it is imperative that educa-
tional researchers turn their attention to investigating the leadership functions,
strategies, and practices that successful urban superintendents have employed to
transform teaching and learning in their districts after NCLB. Ultimately, the men
and women who lead urban school districts are vital to the future success of
American public education (Glass et al., 2000). As Waters and Marzano (2006)
concluded, urban school leadership matters. However, the research base in the
NCLB era of accountability does not provide district superintendents with specific

73
direction on how to make their leadership matter most. Urban superintendents
today are relying on best practices that were ascertained from research conducted in
a radically different educational context. Given the high-stakes consequences for
continued failure associated with NCLB, it is not safe to assume that the effective
leadership practices and strategies of the past hold true today. If urban districts are
to meet or exceed the lofty learning performance targets set forth in NCLB, their
superintendents must possess current knowledge and skills to improve teaching and
learning. In turn, urban superintendents will need resources and training that pro-
vide them with modern research-based best practices and strategies for closing the
achievement gap and strengthening learning for all students. The current research
study is an attempt to determine these best leadership practices and strategies.

74
CHAPTER 3
METHODOLOGY
This chapter describes the population and participants of the study, the
instrumentation development, and the procedures used to collect and analyze the
data. The main purposes of this study were (a) to identify the leadership functions,
strategies, and practices that successful urban school superintendents in California
reported to be most responsible for improving student achievement in their school
systems during the years following NCLB; (b) to determine whether there are
differences between successful and unsuccessful urban superintendents in
California in the leadership functions, strategies, and practices used to improve
student achievement; and (c) to determine what leadership strategies and practices
should be used by newly hired urban superintendents during the first 90 and 365
days on the job to improve student achievement in their districts. Ultimately, this
study investigated the possibility that superintendents of urban districts in
California who improved academic improvement shared common leadership
strategies and practices as well as common approaches to applying their leadership.
Research Questions
The superintendents who participated in the study completed a survey
questionnaire to address the following research questions:
1. In the NCLB era of high-stakes accountability, what specific leadership
functions, strategies, and practices are employed by successful urban school super-
intendents in California to effectively promote improved student performance?

75
2. Are there significant differences between successful and unsuccessful
urban superintendents in California in the leadership functions, strategies, and
practices used to improve student achievement? If so, what are the differences?
The researcher recognized that simply knowing what successful superin-
tendents do is often not enough to help other superintendents to transform their
districts. District leaders must know why certain leadership practices were chosen,
when they should be used, and how to apply them skillfully in their own districts
(Waters & Cameron, 2006). Thus, two of the most successful urban superintend-
ents in California were interviewed to determine in greater detail how they led
consistent improvements in student learning in their districts. The qualitative
interviews were designed to address the following research questions:
3. What were the most essential leadership functions, strategies, and
practices used for improving student achievement and how were they effectively
employed?
4. What leadership strategies and practices should be employed by newly
hired urban superintendents during their first 90 and 365 days on the job to improve
student achievement in their districts?
Design of the Study
According to Gall, Borg, and Gall (1996), qualitative research is best used
to discover themes and relationships at the case level, whereas quantitative data are
best used to validate those themes and relationships within the sample and popula-
tion. To address the research questions, a mixed methodology—combining both
quantitative and qualitative methods—was used in collecting, analyzing, and
reporting the data in the study. Greene, Caracelli, and Graham (1989) provided a

76
strong rationale for utilizing mixed methodology in a research study, stating that
(a) triangulation seeks the convergence of results, (b) overlapping and differing
facets of the phenomenon may emerge, (c) each method is used sequentially to help
inform the other method, (d) contradictions may emerge, and (e) the breadth and
depth of the study are expanded. A major strength of using a mixed methodology is
that it enables the researcher to collect data as comprehensively and completely as
possible.
Quantitative Methodology
To address research questions 1 and 2, a quantitative methodology was used
to obtain, interpret, and report the data. Specifically, a survey questionnaire was
administered that focused on the leadership functions, strategies, and practices used
by California superintendents leading urban school districts to improve student
achievement during the 3 academic years 2003-2004, 2004-2005, and 2005-2006.
Survey research was well suited for this part of the study because it is a
form of descriptive research that involves collecting information about the beliefs,
attitudes, interests, or behaviors of participants via questionnaires (Gall et al.,
1996). Rea and Parker (2005) contended that surveys are well suited for collecting
three types of information: descriptive, behavioral, and attitudinal. The current
study sought all three types of information from urban superintendents in
California. First, the study sought to determine what leadership strategies and
practices (behaviors) were being used by successful urban superintendents in
California to improve student achievement in their districts. Second, the study
asked the respondents to rate how significant (attitudinal) each leadership strategy
and practice was in terms of their overall effort to improve student achievement.

77
Third, the study required demographic information (descriptive) from the superin-
tendents. Given the types of information sought by the study, survey research was
the best-suited methodology.
Qualitative Methodology
To address research questions 3 and 4, a qualitative approach was used to
collect, analyze, and report the data. Qualitative methodology was well suited for
this part of the study because it is a form of research that permits the researcher to
study selected issues, cases, or events in depth and in great detail (Patton, 2002).
According to McEwan and McEwan (2003), qualitative research has three principal
characteristics: (a) it is naturalistic, (b) it is descriptive, and (c) it is focused on
meaning and explanation. Qualitative research is naturalistic in that researchers do
not manipulate the environment or participants for the project; instead qualitative
researchers place themselves where things are happening and then try to determine
how and why the phenomenon works as it does (McEwan & McEwan). Moreover,
qualitative research is descriptive, in that researchers using qualitative methods
seek as much detail and information as possible about the phenomenon that they
are studying. Finally, qualitative researchers are focused on explaining and inter-
preting what they observe, hear, and read. Ultimately, qualitative research is about
explaining how and why things work as they do in a particular setting.
The study met all three criteria for qualitative research as explicated by
McEwan and McEwan (2003). First, the study was naturalistic in that superintend-
ents were interviewed in their district offices. Second, the study was both descript-
ive and focused on explanation because it sought to describe in detail how, when,

78
and why superintendents used particular leadership strategies and practices to
improve student achievement.
Participants
Population
The population for this study consisted of the superintendents leading the 43
public school districts in California that had been designated as urban by the CSBA
during the 2002-2003 school year, with the exception of the Los Angeles Unified
School District (LAUSD). The study purposefully excluded LAUSD from the
population because of its significant size differential (much larger than the other
districts) and its unique organizational structure (subdistricts).
To meet the CSBA’s definition of urban, a school district must have a
minimum enrollment of 20,000 students and student demographics that are above,
at, or within 5% of the state average in at least two of the following categories:
percentage of minority students, percentage of students who qualify for free/
reduced-price lunches, and/or percentage of students classified as ELLs. Based on
student data that the CSBA retrieved from the CDE in 2003, all but 1 of the 42
urban districts had minority student populations that exceeded 60% of the total
district enrollments, all but 11 of the urban school districts had higher percentages
of students who qualified for free/reduced-price lunches than the state average
(48.2%), and 13 urban districts did not exceed the California average (25%) for
percentage of students classified as ELL. However, all but 2 of these 13 urban
school districts were within 5 percentage points of the state average for the
percentage of ELLs.

79
The population of superintendents was further reduced to include only those
urban superintendents who had maintained tenure for 3 years or more in the same
district during the time frame studied (2003-2004, 2004-2005, and 2005-2006
school years) and who still served as district superintendent at the time of the study.
Superintendents who had started tenure before the end of February 2004 and
remained in that position at the time of this study were included in the population.
The reduced population based on tenure and CBSA criteria consisted of 18 superin-
tendents. The 2003-2004 and 2005-2006 California School Directories were used
as the sources in development of the study population. In addition, telephone calls
were made to each of the superintendents’ offices to confirm the start date of the
employment as district superintendent and to ensure that the superintendent still
served in that position at the time of the study. The entire population meeting these
selection criteria was included in the survey component of the study.
Two Population Subgroups
District student performance data for the 2003-2004 through 2005-2006
school years were pulled from the CDE’s Ed-Data Web site and analyzed for all 18
of the urban districts that met the study’s selection criteria for superintendent tenure
and student demographics. California superintendents who had led their urban
districts to improve student achievement for at least 2 of the 3 school years 2003-
2004 through 2005-2006, as evidenced by meeting AYP according to the stipula-
tions of NCLB, were categorized as successful. In contrast, California superintend-
ents who led urban districts in the study population that had not met AYP for at
least 2 of the 3 years were classified as having been unsuccessful at improving
student achievement.

80
According to EdSource (2004), AYP is a set of academic performance
benchmarks that states, districts, schools, and subpopulations of students are
supposed to achieve in order to receive federal money from Title I, Section A, of
the NCLB. In order for school districts in California to make AYP, they must
achieve the following measures: (a) a specified percentage of students scoring
proficient or advanced on CST in English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics
(for unified districts [K-12] and a few high school districts that include grades 7-12,
23.0% of their students must score proficient or above in ELA and 23.7% must do
so in Mathematics); (b) a participation rate of at least 95% on these state assess-
ments (including 95% participation rate by all significant subgroups); (c) a speci-
fied API score or gain (a 5% increase in the difference between the API base score
for the year and the benchmark score of 800); and (d) a specified graduation rate or
improvement in the rate for districts with high schools.
The current study used the criteria of making AYP for at least 2 of the past
3 years as a measure for improving student achievement because it is consistent
with the benchmark used by both the state and federal governments to determine
whether schools, districts, and/or states have improved student achievement.
Districts in California have struggled to make AYP. In fact, according to Archer
(2006), 37.7% of the 962 Title I districts in California did not make AYP for at
least 2 consecutive years and have been designated “in need of improvement.”
Given the large number of Californian districts judged to be in need of improve-
ment, it is a mark of accomplishment for a California district to have made AYP for
at least 2 of 3 years. Hence, this criterion was used to determine which urban
district superintendents were successful at improving student achievement.

81
Description of the Superintendents Leading
Successful Urban Districts
Of the 18 Californian urban superintendents who had been leading their
districts since at least February 2004, only 5 had met AYP for 2 of the 3 school
years 2003-2004 through 2005-2006. In fact, 2 superintendents in the total target
population of 18 had led their districts to make AYP for all 3 years included in this
study, and 3 urban superintendents had led their districts to make AYP for 2 of the
3 years. At the time of this study, these 5 urban California superintendents had been
leading their current districts for an average of 4.57 years. Three of the superintend-
ents in this subgroup were female and 2 were male.
Description of the Successful School Districts
On average, the five successful urban school districts in California, as
defined by this study, had an enrollment of 35,408 students, ranging from approxi-
mately 22,500 students to nearly 50,500 students. The five districts in the success-
ful subgroup had an average of 30.9% ELL students, ranging from nearly 21% to
almost 47%. An average of 51.5% of the students in these five successful urban
districts received free/reduced-price lunches (a proxy for determining the percent-
age of students from low-income families). An average of 75.02% of the students
who attended these five successful urban districts were from minority groups, with
Hispanics/Latinos representing the largest ethnic group in all but one of the districts
where Caucasians still made up a narrow majority. The percentage of minority
students in the five districts ranged from 42.7% to 87.7%, with four of the five
districts reporting minority enrollment exceeding 77%. The enrollment data for the
“successful” districts are summarized in Table 5.

82
Table 5

Description of the Enrollments in the 5 Successful School Districts in the
Population

Characteristic Mean Median SD Range

District enrollment 35,408 28,002 13,156 27,824
Percentage of English
Language Learners 30.88 28.80 9.33 25.90
Percentage of students receiving
receiving free/reduced-price 51.54 54.30 13.27 25.10
Percentage of minority students 75.02 82.20 19.69 45.00

Description of the Superintendents Leading Districts
That Failed to Make Adequate Yearly Progress
Of the 18 urban superintendents in California who had been leading their
districts since at least February 2004, 13 had failed to meet AYP for at least 2 of
the 3 school years 2003-2004 through 2005-2006. In fact, 9 of the superintendents
had failed to meet AYP in all 3 years of the study and 4 had made AYP only once.
At the time of the study, these 13 “unsuccessful” superintendents had been leading
their school districts for an average of 6.6 years—more than 2 years longer than the
average tenure of the 5 superintendents in the “successful” subgroup. In terms of
gender, 6 of the “unsuccessful” superintendents were female and 7 were male.
Description of the Unsuccessful Urban Districts
The13 districts that had not made AYP for at least 2 of the 3 years from
2003-2004 through 2005-2006 had an average enrollment of 36,014 students.
However, the average was skewed by the inclusion of one district that had 35,000

83
students more than the next largest urban district in this population subgroup. Using
the median—a more stable descriptive measure of central tendency when there is
an outlier in the data set—yielded an average of 30,715 students per district. Six of
the districts ranged in student enrollment from 20,000 to 29,999, 4 districts were in
the range of 30,000 to 39,999, and three districts exceeded 40,000 students. The 13
districts in the “unsuccessful” subgroup had an average of 29.9% ELL students,
ranging from 17.2% to 59.2%. The districts had an average of 59.8% of their
students receiving free/reduced-price lunches, with a median of 52.8%. On average,
79.6% of the students who attended these 13 districts were from minority families,
ranging from slightly less than 65% to more than 97%, with Hispanics/Latinos
making up the largest ethnic group in each of the districts (4 districts had greater
than 90% minority enrollment). The enrollment data for the “unsuccessful” districts
are summarized in Table 6.

Table 6

Description of the Enrollments in the 13 Unsuccessful Successful School Districts
in the Population

Characteristic Mean Median SD Range

District enrollment 36,014 30,715 20,096 72,899
Percentage of English
Language Learners 29.89 25.90 11.98 42.00
Percentage of students receiving
receiving free/reduced-price 59.75 52.80 14.08 39.60
Percentage of minority students 79.59 85.10 12.31 33.00

84
Superintendents Included in the Interview Sample
Purposeful sampling was used to select the superintendents for the struc-
tured interview (qualitative) portion of the study. According to Patton (2002),
“Purposeful sampling focuses on selecting information-rich cases whose study will
illuminate the questions under study” (p. 230). The two urban superintendents who
participated in the structured interview process were chosen because they were the
only two who had led their districts to meet the NCLB criteria for AYP for all 3
school years included in the study. To protect their anonymity, pseudonyms were
assigned for both the districts and the superintendents.
District A is located in southern California and has a student enrollment of
almost 50,000 students, 85% of whom were from minority families at the time of
the study. More than 45% of the district’s students were ELLs and slightly more
than 60% received free/reduced-price lunches. Superintendent A is a female in her
7th year as superintendent of the district.
District B is located in Los Angeles County and has a student enrollment of
just over 28,000 students, 57% percent of whom were Caucasian at the time of the
study. District B has the lowest percentage of minority student enrollment (42.7%)
of all 20 school districts who met the criteria for participation in the study, only
25% of the district’s students were ELLs, and slightly less than 40% received
free/reduced-price lunches. Nevertheless, District B was still classified as an urban
school district by the CSBA in 2003. Superintendent B is a male with almost 3.5
years of experience as the superintendent of District B.
Instrumentation
This study combined the methodologies of literature review, in-depth
interviews, and a survey questionnaire to address the research questions. The major

85
strength of the mixed-methods approach is that it enables the researcher to collect
data that are comprehensive and multiperspective.
Urban Superintendent Leadership Survey Questionnaire
All 18 urban Californian superintendents who met the criteria for the study
were mailed the Urban Superintendent Leadership Strategies and Practices for
Improving Student Achievement Survey (Urban Superintendent Leadership Survey
Questionnaire [USLSQ]; appendix B). The literature-based survey was designed by
the researcher to gather information concerning the leadership strategies and
practices that urban superintendents have used in their effort to improve student
achievement in their districts. The survey included 63 items divided into three
sections.
The first section of the survey asked respondents to answer 6 demographic
items regarding enrollment of the district, their gender, age, years of experience as
a school superintendent, years of experience as the superintendent of the current
school district, and highest degree held.
The second section of the survey consisted of 57 items that asked the super-
intendents to rate the importance of each leadership strategy and practice as it
related to their overall effort to improve student achievement in their districts.
Superintendents rated each item using a 5-point Likert-type scale (4 = very signifi-
cant aspect, 3 = somewhat significant aspect, 2 = somewhat insignificant aspect,;1
= very insignificant aspect, and 0 = not used at all). Each item in this section corre-
sponds to a superintendent or district-level leadership strategy or practice that pre-
vious research has demonstrated to be associated with improvements in instruction
or student learning (see appendix A for a list of the leadership strategies and

86
practices and their corresponding research). The 57 items were divided into 13
broad leadership functions based on the research in the literature review: (a) creat-
ing a shared vision and setting direction, (b) maintaining board relations, (c) estab-
lishing collaboration and shared decision-making, (d) developing non-negotiable
goals for achievement and instruction, (e) developing people through professional
development and support, (f) selecting and assigning personnel, (g) creating
accountability, (h) using data, (i) unifying curriculum and instruction, (j) promoting
principals as instructional leaders, (k) improving district operations, (l) facilitating
instruction through the budget, and (m) giving principals autonomy to run schools.
The survey was designed so that each leadership function consisted of at least two
specific leadership strategies or practices that have been shown empirically to
improve instruction or student achievement. Note that one of the 14 leadership
functions, effective communication, was eliminated from the survey after receiving
feedback from the three superintendents who participated in the pilot survey.
The third section of the survey consisted of one open-ended question that
asked respondents whether there were additional leadership strategies and practices
that they believed promoted student achievement in their districts but were not
included in the second section of the survey.
In order to ensure content validity, the superintendent survey instrument
was first piloted with three experienced superintendents in California who did not
participate in the formal study. Each superintendent reviewed the instrument for
wording, readability, clarity, and validity. Feedback and recommendations were
used to revise the survey instrument and to ensure content validity. Based on the
review, the instrument was presented to members of the dissertation committee for
approval. Feedback and recommendations were taken from the three members of

87
the dissertation committee and the data collection instrument was revised and
approved for use in August 2007.
Structured Interview Protocol
Following an extensive review of the literature related to urban superintend-
ent leadership and student achievement, a 5-item open-ended superintendent inter-
view protocol was constructed to determine how, when, and why successful urban
superintendents in California used various leadership strategies and practices to
improve student learning. The interview protocol included the following five items:
1. Please describe your approach to leadership.
2. In what ways do you think superintendents of urban school districts can
affect student achievement?
3. What are the most important leadership strategies and practices you have
used as superintendent to improve student achievement in your district?
4. What were your reasons for selecting these leadership strategies and
practices?
5. Imagine that I am a new superintendent of an urban school district much
like your own and I was hired to improve student achievement. In addition, you
were hired by my school board to be my leadership coach. What would you recom-
mend my plan of action be for the first 90 days on the job? The first year? Second
year?
In order to ensure the validity of the interview protocol, it was reviewed by
the study’s dissertation committee. Feedback and recommendations on each inter-
view item were used to revise and to ensure validity of the interview protocol.

88
To ensure consistency and reliability, a standardized open-ended interview
protocol was developed. According to Patton (2002), the standardized open-ended
interview approach “consists of a set of questions carefully worded and arranged
with the intention of taking each respondent through the same sequence and asking
each respondent the same questions with essentially the same words” (p. 342). The
benefits of the standardized interview approach include that (a) the exact instru-
ment used is available for inspection by those who will use the results of the study,
(b) the interviewer is highly focused so that the interviewee’s time is used effici-
ently, and (c) the analysis is facilitated by making the responses easy to find and
compare (Patton).
Procedure
Superintendent Survey Data Collection
Data were collected from the urban superintendents during the late fall of
2007, using the Superintendent Leadership Strategies and Practices for Improving
Student Achievement Survey instrument created by the researcher. The study
followed the seven steps necessary for a successful questionnaire described by Gall
et al. (1996): (a) define the research objective, (b) identify the population or
sample, (c) determine the variables of the study, (d) design the instrument, (e) pilot
test the instrument, (e) create a cover letter, and (f) distribute the questionnaire.
A cover letter (appendix C) and informed consent form (appendix D) was
included with the survey instrument to explain the purpose of the research and to
elicit participation by the superintendents. In addition, all 18 superintendents who
met the criteria for the current study were sent a return-addressed stamped envelope
to facilitate return of the surveys. As the surveys were returned, a log was

89
maintained by the researcher to account for respondents and to identify nonre-
spondents for subsequent mail-outs.
The first mailing was sent to superintendents on October 22, 2007. Within 2
weeks, 8 (44%) of the surveys had been returned. On November 12, 2007, the 10
nonrespondents were sent a second mailing that included a new cover letter,
addressed stamped envelope, and the survey instrument. This mailing eventually
procured an additional 5 superintendent surveys, yielding a 72% return rate.
Structured Interview Data Collection
Data for the qualitative component of the study were collected from two
participating urban superintendents using the Superintendent Leadership Interview
Protocol. The in-depth structured interview process permitted the researcher to
collect data regarding the perceptions and thoughts of each superintendent related
to how, when, and why they used particular leadership strategies and practices to
improve student achievement.
Once permission was granted from the University of Southern California’s
Institutional Review Board (IRB) in mid-September 2007, the superintendents were
contacted via email that explained the purpose of the study and requested their par-
ticipation in the interview portion of the study. Appendix E contains the Informa-
tion Sheet that was attached to the email. The researcher’s dissertation chair
assisted in contacting the participants and securing appointments with the superin-
tendents. In early October 2007, the dates, times, and locations of the interviews
were determined.
The two successful urban superintendents were each interviewed once for
approximately 1 hour. For convenience, both interviews took place in the

90
superintendents’ offices. The structured interview process began with a brief
explanation of the research study and its purposes as well as an overview of the
interview process. In an attempt to maintain the integrity and consistency of the
interview process, the interviews were conducted using a standardized format: The
questions were asked to both participants in the same order and using the same
emphasis. No time limits were imposed on any question, and each participant was
invited to ask for clarification before providing a response. In order to ensure the
accuracy of the data for transcription, both interviews were audiotaped (permission
was granted by both superintendents at the beginning of the interviews).
Data Analysis
Data analysis methods are described in terms of the quantitative data
gathered via the survey questionnaire and the qualitative data collected via the
structured interviews.
Superintendent Survey Data Analysis
The methodology for this part of the study employed quantitative tech-
niques. Data analysis of the 63 close-ended items on the superintendent survey
questionnaire was conducted using Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences
®

(SPSS) version 14. Each variable was defined and assigned a variable label. The
Likert-scale response (0 to 4) for each of the 63 closed-ended items on each coded
survey was entered into that data set. Next, descriptive statistics were computed for
the responses of both subgroups, including frequencies, means, and standard
deviations.
A chi-square test is a nonparametric statistical test used to determine
whether research data in the form of frequency counts are distributed differently

91
across groups (Rea & Parker, 2005). Due to the small population size, the study
was unable to perform a chi-square statistical test to determine whether there was
a statistically significant difference in the responses of the two superintendent
subgroups. However, the calculated frequencies and means provided important
information about the dominant leadership strategies and practices used by the
successful urban superintendents in California to improve student achievement and
whether those practices appeared to differ in relative importance from strategies
and practices employed by the subgroup of unsuccessful superintendents.
Structured Interview Data Analysis
Data collected from the structured interviews were analyzed to identify the
most essential leadership strategies and practices used to improve student achieve-
ment. The data collected from the interviews were critically examined to determine
how new urban superintendents should begin to take on the task of improving
student achievement. As Patton (2002) pointed out, the challenge of qualitative
analysis lies in making sense of the vast amount of data collected. To analyze the
transcribed interview data, the researcher used the following data analysis pro-
cedure. First, all handwritten notes, reflections, and audio tapes of the interviews
were transcribed. Second, each transcription was read carefully, without taking
notes. Following the first reading, the transcripts were read for a second and third
time and notes and observations regarding recurring themes and patterns were
recorded in the margins (inductive analysis). Next, the transcripts were reread to
identify aspects of the 13 leadership functions that were identified in the literature
review (deductive analysis) and coded as follows:

92
“SV” (shared vision/setting direction): A leadership function that involves
identifying, articulating, and endorsing a collective vision that embodies the best
thinking about teaching and learning
“BR” (board relations): A leadership function that involves maintaining the
board of education’s commitment to improving student achievement and the
district’s non-negotiable goals
“CSDMP” (collaboration and shared decision making): A leadership
function that involves including all relevant stakeholders in establishing the non-
negotiable goals for the district
“NG” (non-negotiable goals for achievement and instruction): A leadership
function that involves establishing explicit goals and targets for student perform-
ance and instructional practices as well as establishing timetables for meeting the
goals
“PD” (developing people through professional development and support): A
leadership function that involves building the instructional and intellectual capacity
of district personnel at all levels of the organization
“SAP” (selecting and assigning personnel): A leadership function that
involves the active involvement of the superintendent in staffing and assignment
decisions
“CA” (creating accountability): A leadership function that involves creating
and monitoring a multimeasure program that holds individuals and schools
responsible for achieving the district’s non-negotiable performance goals
“UD” (using data): A leadership function that involves building the capacity
of the district to assess the performance of students, teachers, and schools and to
use that data to inform decision making

93
“UCI” (unifying curriculum and instruction): A leadership function that
involves creating district-wide curricula and instructional strategies that align with
the state content and performance standards
“PIL” (principals as instructional leaders): A leadership function that
involves developing and supporting the instructional leadership of school principals
“IDO” (improving district operations): A leadership function that involves
changing the focus and organization of the central office to support teaching and
learning at school sites
“FIB” (facilitating instruction through the budget): A leadership function of
the superintendent that involves ensuring that sufficient resources are allocated to
accomplish the district’s vision
“PA” (principal autonomy to run schools): A leadership function of the
superintendent that involves setting clear non-negotiable goals for learning and
instruction while assigning to the school leadership teams the responsibility and
authority for determining how to meet those goals
Ultimately, the data from each interview were coded. These data were
compared across cases to determine whether overarching patterns and themes were
shared by the two successful urban superintendents with respect to how, when, and
why they applied particular leadership strategies and practices to improve student
achievement.
Validity Concerns
The current study employed triangulation to increase the validity of its
findings. Patton (2002) identified four basic types of triangulation: use of multiple
data sources, researchers, frameworks, and methodologies. The current study used

94
three forms of triangulation to ensure the validity of findings. First, a mixed
methodology—combining both quantitative and qualitative—was used to collect,
analyze, and report data. Survey questionnaires and in-depth interviews were con-
ducted to provide insight into the leadership strategies and practices successful
urban superintendents in California have used to improve student achievement. The
study employed theory triangulation by using multiple leadership frameworks (the
three basic leadership functions developed by Leithwood and Riehl and the trans-
formational, distributive, and instructional approaches to leadership) to develop the
survey questionnaire and the interview protocol, as well as to interpret the collected
data. The study used data triangulation by surveying and interviewing multiple
urban superintendents and by using both open-ended written responses on the
survey questionnaire and open-ended verbal responses to the interview questions.
Overall, these three triangulation techniques were used to ensure the validity of the
findings.
Summary
This chapter describes the mixed research methodology used in the study,
the population and participants, the development and administration of the data
collection instruments, and the procedures used to collect and analyze the data.

95
CHAPTER 4
FINDINGS
The purposes of this study were (a) to identify what successful urban super-
intendents in California reported to be the leadership functions, practices, and
strategies most responsible for improving student achievement in their respective
school systems during the NCLB era of high-stakes accountability, (b) to determine
whether there is a significant difference in the leadership functions, practices, and
strategies used by successful and unsuccessful urban superintendents in California,
and (c) to determine what leadership strategies and practices should be employed
by newly hired urban superintendents during their first few months on the job to
improve student achievement in their districts.
The quantitative findings from the urban superintendent survey question-
naire and the qualitative analysis of responses to the one-on-one interviews are
reviewed and analyzed in this chapter and aligned with the four research questions.
The responses to the research questions were formulated through triangulation of
the research literature, survey questionnaire, and interview response analysis.
Research Questions
The following four research questions were designed for this study:
1. In the NCLB era of high-stakes accountability, what specific leadership
functions, strategies, and practices are employed by successful urban school super-
intendents in California to effectively promote improved student performance?
2. Were there significant differences in the leadership functions, strategies,
and practices used to improve student achievement between successful and
unsuccessful urban superintendents in California? If so, what were the differences?

96
3. What were the most essential leadership functions, strategies, and
practices used for improving student achievement and how were they effectively
employed?
4. What leadership strategies, and practices should be employed by newly
hired urban superintendents to improve student achievement?
Results of the Urban Superintendent Leadership
Survey Questionnaire
The survey questionnaire (USLSQ) was designed by the researcher to
gather information concerning the leadership functions, strategies, and practices
used by urban superintendents to improve student achievement in their school
districts. The literature-based survey consisted of 63 items divided into three
sections. The first section asked the respondents to answer 6 demographic items
regarding enrollment of the district, their gender, age, years of experience as a
school superintendent, years of experience as the superintendent of their current
district, and highest degree held. The second section consisted of 57 items that
asked the respondents to rate the importance of each leadership strategy or practice
as it related to their overall effort to improve student achievement in their district.
The superintendents rated each item using a 5-point Likert-type scale (4 = very
significant aspect, 3 = somewhat significant aspect, 2 = somewhat insignificant
aspect, 1 = very insignificant aspect, 0 = not used at all). The third section con-
sisted of one open-ended question that asked the respondents whether there were
additional leadership strategies or practices that they used to improve student
achievement that had not been included in the survey.

97
Demographics of the Survey Questionnaire Sample
The initial population of this study consisted of the 18 superintendents who
led an urban public school district in California (as designated by CSBA) during
the time frame of the study (the 2003-2004, 2004-2005, and 2005-2006 school
years) and who had maintained tenure in their district at the time of this study (fall
2007). The population of 18 urban superintendents was divided into two subgroups:
(a) those urban superintendents who had led their districts to improve student
achievement for at least 2 of the 3 school years 2003-2004 through 2005-2006 as
evidenced by meeting AYP (n = 5), and (b) those urban superintendents who had
not led their districts to make AYP for at least 2 of those 3 school years (n = 13).
Successful Urban Superintendent
Population and Sample (n = 5)
Given a 100% return rate for this subgroup, the demographic data collected
via the survey questionnaire reflected the entire subgroup membership. Three of the
5 successful urban superintendents were female and 2 were male. On average, the 5
successful superintendents led districts that had an enrollment of 35,408 students
(ranging from 22,500 to 50,500). These superintendents reported an average of 8.4
years of experience as a superintendent and an average of 5.4 years tenure as super-
intendent in their current district. Three of the superintendents reported that they
were between the ages of 46 and 55 and 2 reported that they were between 56 and
65 years old. All 5 reported that they had earned a doctorate.
Unsuccessful Urban Superin-
tendent Population and Their
Districts (n = 13)
At the time of the study these 13 superintendents classified as unsuccessful
in improvement of student achievement had led their urban school districts for an

98
average of 6.61 years (1.2 years more than the superintendents in the successful
subgroup). Six of these superintendents were female and 7 were male. These 13
superintendents led school districts with an average student enrollment of 36,014
(median 30,715).
Unsuccessful Urban Superin-
tendent Sample and Their Districts
(n = 8)
Of the 13 unsuccessful superintendents in the population subgroup, 8 (61%)
returned the survey questionnaire. The tenure of these unsuccessful urban superin-
tendents in their current districts was 7.25 years, approximately half a year longer
than the subgroup population average. Three of the responding unsuccessful super-
intendents were female and 5 were male. These 8 unsuccessful superintendents led
school districts with an average enrollment of 32,680 (approximately 3,300 less
students than the overall subgroup population). While there were no comparison
data for the subgroup population, the 8 responding unsuccessful superintendents
reported an average of 10.38 years of experience as a superintendent. One superin-
tendent reported an age between 36 and 45, 6 reported ages between 46 and 55, and
1 reported an age between 56 and 65. Only 3 of the 8 unsuccessful superintendents
in the sample reported an earned doctorate.
Comparison of the Successful and
Unsuccessful Urban Superintendent
Subgroup Sample Demographics
Demographic data from the returned survey questionnaires revealed that
superintendents in the unsuccessful subgroup sample had 1.85 years more tenure in
their current districts than did those in the successful subgroup sample (7.25 years
vs. 5.4 years, respectively). The unsuccessful subgroup sample of 8 superintendents

99
had on average 1.98 more years experience as a superintendent than the 5 superin-
tendents in the successful subgroup sample (10.38 years vs. 8.4 years). The
successful superintendents subgroup reported a slightly higher average age than the
unsuccessful subgroup (3.4 scaled score vs. 3.0 scaled score, respectively, in which
3 = 46-55 years and 4 = 56-65 years). The successful superintendents subgroup
reported a higher level of education than did the unsuccessful subgroup; 100% of
the successful superintendents and 37.5% of the unsuccessful subgroup reported
holding a doctorate. The gender composition of the subgroups differed: The unsuc-
cessful subgroup had a higher percentage of males (62.5% vs. 40%, respectively).
Districts led by successful superintendents tended to be larger in student enrollment
than those led by unsuccessful superintendents (averages 35,408 vs. 32,680,
respectively). Table 7 summarizes the descriptive statistics self-reported by the two
subgroup samples.
Research Question 1: The Leadership Functions, Strategies,
and Practices Used by Successful Urban Superintendents
to Improve Student Achievement
The statement of the study problem was developed on the assumption that
the heightened pressure on urban superintendents in California to improve the
academic achievement by all students associated with the federal NCLB and the
California PSAA may have changed the way in which the superintendents
approached leading their districts. Given a dearth of current research on the topic,
the current study sought to produce a detailed list of the leadership functions,
strategies, and practices used by the most successful urban superintendents in
California to improve student achievement in their districts.

100
Table 7

Descriptive Statistics of the Successful and Unsuccessful Urban Superintendent
Subgroup Samples as Self-Reported

Category Minimum Maximum Mean SD

Unsuccessful Subgroup (n = 8)
District enrollment 20,000 55,000 32,680 11,471.78
Age of superintendent 2.00 4.00 3.00 0.53
Experience as superintendent 4.00 17.00 10.37 4.92
Year in current position 1.00 11.00 7.25 3.28
Gender .00 1.00 .62 0.51
Doctorate .00 1.00 .50 0.53
Successful Subgroup (n = 4)
District enrollment 27,000 50,000 35,408 13156.01
Age of superintendent 3.00 4.00 3.40 0.55
Experience as superintendent 5.00 11.00 8.40 2.41
Year in current position 4.00 9.00 5.40 2.38
Gender 0.00 1.00 .40 0.55
Doctorate 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.00

Leadership Functions Rated as Most Significant
by the Successful Urban Superintendents
The current study assumed that the individual leadership strategies or
practices that make up each of the 13 leadership functions was of equal significance
to the overall leadership function. Accordingly, the mean or composite mean of
each leadership function was calculated by summing the means for the leadership

101
strategies and practices that made up the leadership function and then dividing by
the number of leadership strategies and practices. Composite means of 4.0 were
considered to represent very significant functions, 3.5 significant functions, and 3.0
somewhat significant functions.
All 13 of the leadership functions were rated by the five successful superin-
tendents as more than somewhat significant aspect(s) (composite means of greater
than 3.0 out of 4.0) of their effort to improve student achievement. In fact, 12 of the
13 leadership functions were rated as significant or higher (composite means of at
least 3.5) by the 5 successful urban superintendents. However, several functions
were rated more highly than others. For instance, both the leadership functions of
shared vision and setting direction and principals as instructional leaders received
an overall composite rating of a very significant aspect (composite mean of 4.0 out
of 4.0). The results of the survey questionnaire indicated that identifying, articulat-
ing, and endorsing a collective vision that embodies the best thinking about teach-
ing and learning, as well as developing and supporting the instructional leadership
of school principals, were leadership functions rated by the successful urban super-
intendents to be the most significant aspects of their approach to improving student
achievement.
The leadership function of defined autonomy received a composite mean of
3.9 out of a possible 4.0. This rating signifies that the successful urban superintend-
ents in this study considered the leadership function of defined autonomy—setting
clear, nonnegotiable goals for learning and instruction while providing school
leadership teams with the responsibility and authority for determining how to meet
those goals—to be a very significant component of their efforts to improve student
achievement in their districts.

102
The leadership function of using data also had a high composite mean score
(3.8 out of 4.0). The 5 successful urban superintendents rated building the capacity
of their districts to assess the performance of students, teachers, and schools and to
use those data to inform their decision making as a very important part of their
reform effort. Table 8 shows the composite mean scores for all 13 leadership func-
tions on the USLSQ.
Despite the variance in importance assigned to the 13 leadership functions,
the value of each composite mean (substantially greater than somewhat significant)
demonstrates that these successful urban superintendents in California considered
that all of the leadership functions addressed in the survey were valuable aspects of
their approach to improving student achievement. Given that the 13 urban leader-
ship functions were identified from the research on effective superintendents con-
ducted primarily before NCLB, the successful urban superintendent subgroup
employed leadership functions consistent with those found during the 2 decades
preceding that influential legislation. In other words, the leadership functions used
by successful urban superintendents in California during the time frame of the
present study were consistent with those reported in earlier research to have been
linked with the leadership functions used by successful urban superintendents to
improve academic achievement.
Leadership Strategies and Practices Rated as
Most Significant by the Successful
Urban Superintendents
An analysis of the survey data from the 5 successful urban superintendents
revealed the 25 leadership strategies and practices that were rated as very signifi-
cant aspect(s) by all 5 respondents (mean of 4.0 out of 4.0). Table 9 lists the 25

103

Table 8

Composite Mean Scores for the 13 Leadership Functions on the Urban Superin-
tendent Leadership Survey Questionnaire as Rated by the Successful Urban
Superintendents (n = 5)

Number of leadership
strategies and practices Composite
Leadership function in the framework mean

Shared vision and setting
Direction 3 4.00
Principals as instructional leaders 3 4.00
Defined autonomy 4 3.90
Using data 5 3.80
Board relations 5 3.76
Improving district operations 4 3.75
Facilitating instruction through the budget 3 3.73
Developing people through professional
development and support 7 3.66
Unifying curriculum and instruction 4 3.65
Collaboration and shared decision making 2 3.60
Non-negotiable goals for achievement and
instruction 5 3.60
Creating accountability 9 3.57
Selecting and assigning personnel 4 3.45

Note. Composite mean score of 4.0 = Very Significant aspect and 3.0 = Somewhat
Significant aspect.

104
Table 9

Leadership Strategies and Practices Rated as Very Significant Aspects (Mean
Score 4.0) by All Surveyed Successful Urban Superintendents

Survey
Leadership strategy or practice item

Emphasizing that strong instruction is the key to improving student achievement 7
Create a sense of urgency for improving student achievement 8
Identify and endorse a collective vision that embodies the best thinking
about teaching and learning 9
Work with the board to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the district 13
Include school principals in the development of the non-negotiable goals
for the district 15
Establish explicit goals and targets for student performance that are
non-negotiable 17
Communicate performance expectations to the central office and
school principals 18
Develop the instructional leadership capacity of personnel throughout
the district 23
Model shared beliefs 25
Provide teachers and principals with training on how to use performance
data to drive improvement 27
Monitor the districts goals for curriculum and instruction 36
Monitor the district’s goals for achievement 38
Assess student progress throughout the school year 41
Use performance data to target professional development 42
Use performance data to target interventions 43
Align district curriculum with state standards and assessments 46
Use professional development to strengthen the instructional leadership
of principals 50

105
Table 9 (continued)

Survey
Leadership strategy or practice item

Clearly define what it means for principals to be instructional leaders 51
Support the instructional leadership of principals by restructuring the
central office to provide help, support, and coaching 52
Change the focus of the central office from manger to that of support provider 53
Shift funds into instructional priorities 58
Invest in the long-term instructional capacity of the district 59
Ensure schools have a clear mission focused on student performance 61
Ensure schools are using standards for content and instruction 62
Ensure that principals speak with teachers about performance results 63

leadership strategies and practices rated as very significant in the order in which
they appeared on the USLSQ.
An analysis of the survey results indicates that an additional 10 leadership
strategies and practices were rated by 4 of the 5 successful urban superintendents as
a very significant aspect (mean of 3.8 out of 4.0). All 5 successful urban superin-
tendents rated an additional 10 leadership strategies and practices as more than
significant aspects (mean of 3.6 out of 4.0) of their approach to improving student
achievement.
In all, the 5 successful superintendents rated only two leadership strategies
or practices lower than a somewhat significant aspect (mean of less than 3.0 out of
4.0) of their effort to improve student learning outcomes: determine the assignment
of teachers and use performance contracts tied to district goals. Thus, 55 of the 57

106
leadership strategies or practices presented on the USLSQ were rated on average by
the 5 successful urban superintendents as somewhat significant or higher aspects
(mean greater than 3.0 out of 4.0) with respect to their leadership approach to
improving student achievement.
The results of the analysis indicated that 45 of the 57 strategies and prac-
tices presented on the USLSQ were rated as significant or higher (mean greater
than 3.5 out of 4.0) by the 5 successful urban superintendents. See appendix F for a
complete listing of the leadership strategies and practices with their means in order
from the most significant aspect to the least significant aspect.
The USLSQ was developed by the researcher based on studies cited in the
literature regarding successful urban superintendents predating the passage of the
NCLB Act of 2001. Given the high significance attributed to all but two of the
leadership strategies and practices included in the literature-based survey question-
naire, it is apparent that these successful urban superintendents were employing , at
a minimum, a similar array of leadership strategies and practices in the NCLB era
of education as superintendents were reported to have used in the 2 decades preced-
ing that influential federal legislation. Although the results of the USLSQ revealed
that urban superintendents employed a similar set of leadership functions, strate-
gies, and practices in the pre- and post-NCLB eras of high-stakes accountability,
the researcher could not determine whether the functions, strategies, and practices
were applied with less or greater emphasis. Nevertheless, the findings are
informative.

107
Responses to the Open-Ended Survey Item
by the Successful Urban Superintendents
Only 2 of the 5 urban superintendents in the successful subgroup completed
the open-ended portion of the questionnaire, which asked the superintendents,
Please discuss any leadership strategy or practice that you believe improved
student achievement in your district but was not included in the previous section.
These 2 respondents were female superintendents who had been leading their
current districts for an average of 4.5 years in the smallest and largest districts in
the subgroup as measured by average student enrollment.
The superintendent of the smallest urban district in the successful subgroup
indicated that “hiring the best teachers and paying them well,” combined with
offering “strong support to new teachers” via the BTSA program and an internal
induction program were important strategies. Similarly, the superintendent of the
largest urban district in the successful subgroup identified “the use of outside
experts to build the knowledge and skill capacity of both teachers and principals.”
However, the superintendent of the largest district also indicated the importance of
a “professional development plan for the superintendent and the board on govern-
ance, effective transitions, working relationships, and building consensus on goals
with bargaining units.” Both superintendents emphasized the importance of pro-
fessional development as a key strategy for improving student achievement. This
finding is consistent with the leadership function of developing people through
professional development and support, but with an additional focus on professional
development for the superintendent. Nevertheless, the responses to the open-ended
survey item echoed those found in the pre-NCLB research: Effective urban superin-
tendents expertly used professional development to build the capacity of teachers,
principals, board members, and other important personnel.

108
Research Question 2: Differences Between the Successful
and Unsuccessful Urban Superintendents in Leadership
Functions, Strategies, and Practices Used to
Improve Student Achievement
Although it is informative to know what leadership functions, strategies,
and practices the successful urban superintendents in the current study employed to
improve student achievement in their districts, this information alone is inadequate
because it does not provide insight into how their leadership approach differed
from that of their less successful superintendent counterparts. Without a direct
comparison, it is difficult to know whether the unsuccessful urban superintendents
in California employed the same set of leadership functions, strategies, and prac-
tices with the same emphasis but achieved lower student achievement outcomes. It
is important to note that the methodology of the current study was not designed to
demonstrate a causal link between the leadership approaches of the two superin-
tendent subgroups and their student outcomes. Rather, the methodology was
intended to show a nonstatistical hypothetical relationship between the differences
in leadership approaches of the two urban superintendent subgroups and the
corresponding differences in their student achievement outcomes.
The study was guided by the assumption that the successful urban super-
intendents in California in the study employed a different set of leadership func-
tions, strategies, and practices from those employed by the urban superintendents in
the unsuccessful subgroup. It was also assumed that the differences in the leader-
ship approaches of the two urban superintendent subgroups were in part responsible
for the observed disparities in student achievement outcomes between the groups.
Accordingly, the study used the USLSQ to collect data on the leadership functions,
strategies, and practices used by both superintendent subgroups to determine
whether there were significant differences in their approaches to improving student

109
achievement. The subgroup means were calculated for each leadership function,
strategy, and practice and compared to determine whether there were measurable
differences between the approaches used by the two subgroups.
Given the inability to employ chi-squared tests for significance, standards
for significant differences were set in advance according to the following break-
down: (a) mean differentials of 0.30 ≥ 0.49 were classified as noteworthy, (b) mean
differentials of 0.50 to 0.74 were classified as moderate, and (c) mean differentials
of 0.75 or greater were classified as major.
Difference in the Leadership Functions Used by the
Successful and Unsuccessful Urban Superin-
tendents to Improve Student Achievement
An analysis of the differences in subgroup composite means for the 13
leadership functions indicated that the urban superintendents in the successful
subgroup rated 3 functions as more significant than did their less successful
counterparts. Specifically, the findings revealed two leadership functions with
notable differences in composite means and one function with moderate differ-
ences. On average, the unsuccessful subgroup rated five of the leadership functions
as more significant; however, none of the differences was measurably significant.
Table 10 summarizes the composite means for the two subgroups.
The greatest composite mean differential between the two subgroups was in
the leadership function of collaboration and shared decision making. The success-
ful urban superintendents had a composite mean of 3.60, compared to a composite
mean of 3.06 for the unsuccessful urban superintendents (difference of 0.54). The
size of this mean differential signifies a moderate difference in the emphasis placed
by the two urban superintendent subgroups on the leadership function of

110

Table 10

Comparison of Composite Means for the Successful and Unsuccessful Urban
Superintendents Subgroups Regarding the 13 Leadership Functions

Leadership function Successful Unsuccessful Differential

Shared vision and setting direction 4.00 3.79 +0.21
Principals as instructional leaders 4.00 3.96 +0.04
Defined autonomy 3.90 3.94 -0.04
b

Using data 3.80 3.73 +0.07
Board relations 3.76 3.33 +0.43
a

Improving district operations 3.75 3.44 +0.33
a

Facilitating instruction through the budget 3.73 3.58 +0.15
Developing people through professional
development and support 3.66 3.82 -0.16
b

Unifying curriculum and instruction 3.65 3.69 -0.04
b

Collaboration and shared decision making 3.60 3.06 +0.54
ac

Non-negotiable goals
For achievement and instruction 3.60 3.70 -0.10
b

Creating accountability 3.57 3.49 +0.08
Selecting and assigning
Personnel 3.45 3.31 +0.14

Note. Composite mean score of 4.0 = Very Significant aspect and 3.0 = Somewhat
Significant Aspect.

a
Successful urban superintendent subgroup rated the leadership function as notably
more significant.
b
Unsuccessful superintendents subgroup rated the leadership
function as measurably more significant.
c
Unsuccessful urban superintendent
subgroup rated the leadership function as measurably more significant.

111
collaboration and shared decision making as it related to their approach to improv-
ing student achievement in their districts. The successful urban superintendent sub-
group self-reported that they placed greater significance on including all relevant
stakeholders in setting non-negotiable goals for their districts.
There was also a notable difference between how the superintendent sub-
groups rated the leadership function of board relations, which involves maintaining
the board of education’s commitment to improving student achievement and the
district’s non-negotiable goals. The successful superintendents subgroup had a
composite mean of 3.76 and the unsuccessful subgroup had a composite mean of
3.33 (difference of 0.43). This finding suggests that the successful urban superin-
tendent subgroup felt that working with their board of education was a more signi-
ficant component of their effort to improve student achievement in their districts
than did the unsuccessful superintendents subgroup.
Successful superintendents rated improving district operations more highly
(3.75) than did the unsuccessful urban superintendent subgroup (3.44), a notable
differential of 0.33. Although the differential for this leadership function was less
than that of the previous two, the finding points out that the successful urban super-
intendents relied more heavily on changing the focus and organization of the
central office to support teaching and learning at the school sites.
In total, the results of the USLSQ revealed that the successful urban super-
intendents placed a significantly greater emphasis on three leadership functions
with respect to their leadership approach to improving student achievement in their
school districts: collaboration and shared decision making, board relations, and
improving district operations. Although methodological constraints limit causally
linking the differences in ranked significance on the three leadership functions with

112
the disparities in observed outcomes in student achievement as measured by AYP,
the results of the USLSQ imply a positive relationship between the two variables.
Differences in the Leadership Strategies and Practices
Used by Successful and Unsuccessful Urban
Superintendents to Improve
Student Achievement
An analysis of the 57 leadership strategies and practices included in the
urban superintendent leadership survey questionnaire revealed that six strategies
and practices were rated significantly higher by the successful urban superintend-
ents subgroup than by their unsuccessful peers (see appendix G for the subgroup
mean difference for each leadership strategy and practice). Two of the six leader-
ship strategies or practices had mean differentials consider major (0.75 or larger:
(a) work with the board to access the strengths and weaknesses of the districts, and
(b) improve the management side of the business operations to improve student
achievement. The subgroup mean differentials for these two leadership strategies
and practices were instrumental in driving the composite mean discrepancies for
the leadership functions of board relations and improving district operations. Table
11 compares the composite means for leadership strategies and practices rated as
significant by the two subgroups of superintendents.
As Table 11 shows, the survey responses yielded four leadership strategies
and practices with mean differentials considered moderate (0.50 to 0.74): (a) work
with the board to analyze the factors affecting student achievement, (b) include key
community members in the non-negotiable goal setting process, (c) use data to
assign school personnel, and (d) establish a multiple-measure accountability
program that extends beyond the state and federal accountability systems. The
magnitude of these differences represents significant differences in the importance

113
Table 11

Comparison of Composite Means for the Successful and Unsuccessful Urban
Superintendents Subgroups Regarding Leadership Strategies and Practices Rated
as Significant

Leadership strategy Successful Unsuccessful Differential

Work with the board to analyze the factors
affecting student achievement 3.60 2.88 +0.72**
Work with the board to access the strengths
and weaknesses of the district 4.00 3.13 +0.87***
Include key community members in the
non-negotiable goal setting process 3.20 2.50 +0.70**
Use data to assign school personnel 3.60 3.00 +0.60**
Establish a multiple-measure accountability
program that extends beyond the state and
federal accountability systems 3.80 3.25 +0.55**
Improve the management side of business
operations to increase student achievement 3.80 3.00 +0.80***

Note. Composite mean score of 4.0 = Very Significant aspect and 3.0 = Somewhat
Significant Aspect.

**Mean differential classified as moderate. ***Mean differential classified as
major.

attributed by the two superintendent subgroups in their use of these leadership
strategies to improve student achievement.
The findings clearly suggest a significant difference in the emphasis that the
two superintendent subgroups placed on using the six leadership strategies and
practices to improve student achievement in their districts. Although methodologi-
cal constraints limit conclusions of statistical correlation or causation, the results of
the analysis suggest a hypothetical positive relationship between the differences in
significance assigned by the two superintendent subgroups to the six leadership

114
strategies and the observed differences in student achievement outcomes, as
measured AYP.
Leadership Strategies and Practices Rated More
Significant by the Unsuccessful Urban
Superintendents Subgroup
Sixteen leadership strategies and practices were rated as more significant
by the unsuccessful superintendents subgroup. However, only one leadership
strategy—provide intellectual stimulation—had a moderate (0.50 to 0.74) mean
differential and 4 of the 16 leadership strategies had notable mean differentials of
0.35 or higher: (a) set specific time-tables for meeting the non-negotiable goals,
(b) develop a uniform professional development centered around curriculum and
instruction, (c) direct schools to use data to develop school improvement plans, and
(d) require teachers to adhere to curriculum pacing guides. Table 12 shows the
subgroup means for each leadership strategy and practice and the subgroup mean
differentials. The findings show that the urban superintendents in the successful
subgroup relied less heavily on these five strategies in their overall approach to
improving student achievement than did the unsuccessful subgroup. In fact, on all
five leadership strategies and practices the successful urban superintendent
subgroup provided an average rating of less than significant (below a mean of 3.5)
while the unsuccessful subgroup provided an average rating that exceeded
significant (mean greater than 3.5).
Again, while methodological constraints limit drawing conclusions of
statistical correlation or causation, the results of the USLSQ indicated a hypotheti-
cal relationship between the differences in emphasis placed by the two urban

115
Table 12

Comparison of Means for the Leadership Strategies and Practices Rated More
Significant by the Unsuccessful Urban Superintendents Subgroup

Leadership strategy Successful Unsuccessful Differential

Provide Intellectual Stimulation 3.00 3.63 -0.63**
Set specific time-tables for meeting the
non-negotiable goals 3.40 3.75 -0.35*
Develop a uniform professional development
centered around curriculum and instructions 3.40 3.75 -0.35*
Direct schools to use data to develop school
improvement plans 3.40 3.75 -0.35*
Require teachers to adhere to curriculum
pacing guides 3.40 3.75 -0.35*

Note. Composite mean score of 4.0 = Very Significant aspect and 3.0 = Somewhat
Significant Aspect.

*Mean differential classified as notable. **Mean differential classified as
moderate.

superintendent subgroups on the five leadership strategies and practices and the
corresponding differences in student learning outcomes as measured by AYP.
Comparison of the Responses to the Open-Ended Item
by the Two Urban Superintendents Subgroups
The open-ended item on the urban superintendent survey questionnaire
asked both groups of superintendents, Please discuss any leadership strategy or
practice that you believe improved student achievement in your district but was not
included in the previous section. Two of the 5 successful urban superintendents
provided a response. Both respondents were female and at the time of the study had
been leading their current school districts for an average of 4.5 years. Four of the 8

116
unsuccessful urban superintendents subgroup members provided a response. Two
were female and two were male, and at the time of the study they had been leading
their current school districts for an average of 8.5 years.
The low response rate by both subgroups made it difficult to make general-
izations within each subgroup and comparisons across the two subgroups. Never-
theless, it is informative to review their responses (Table 13). As noted earlier, the
two successful superintendents who responded to the open-ended item emphasized
the importance of building capacity and providing support through professional
development, which was consistent with the extant research on effective superin-
tendents. One of the unsuccessful superintendent also indicated that support and
professional development were provided to all new principals, particularly in the
areas of data-driven decision making and goal setting. Another unsuccessful super-
intendent identified the use of Professional Learning Communities (PLC) across
the district as a strategy for improving student achievement. In general, the concept
of a PLC implies something greater than just a model of professional development;
nevertheless, it is consistent with the theme of developing people through pro-
fessional development and support. One consistent theme emerged from these
responses: the use of professional development to improve student achievement.
Hence, the results for the open-ended survey item revealed no significant
differences between the two urban superintendent subgroups.
Applying the Same Set of Leadership Functions, Strategies,
and Practices But With Varying Emphasis
The findings from the survey demonstrate that all 13 urban superintendents
who participated in the present study used approximately the same set of leadership
functions, strategies, and practices. In fact, the results from the USLSQ showed that

117
Table 13

Responses to the Open-Ended Survey Item by the Two Urban Superintendent
Subgroups

Successful urban superintendents Unsuccessful urban superintendents

• Use of outside experts to build the
knowledge and skill capacity of both
teachers and principals.
• On-going monitoring and support of
principals and district leaders.
• Professional development plan for the
superintendent and board on
governance, effective transitions and
working relationships.
• The importance of building consensus
on goals with bargaining units.
• Data collection and the disaggregation
of data based on subgroups are
extremely critical.
• Attendance in an urban setting is a big
issue and attendance goals also need to
be a part of the strategies used.
• We also employ an induction process
for newly appointed principals that we
believe is helping our leadership at
each site to be data driven and goals
oriented. Our induction process
includes an entire month of district and
school training…
• Hiring the best teachers and paying
them well.
• We offer strong support to new
teachers via BTSA and our own
Induction Program in the early years to
increase their effectiveness.
• Systematic implementation of
Professional Learning Communities
(PLC) throughout the district.
• Formal strategic planning process
• The leadership must operate with
clearly defined adopted “values.”

(a) both subgroups rated the same 53 leadership strategies and practices on average
as at least somewhat significant aspects (means of at least 3.0 out of 4.0), (b) both
subgroups rated the leadership practices of using performance contracts tied to
district goals and determining the assignment of teachers as less than somewhat
significant (means of less than 3.0); and (c) both subgroups rated all 13 of the
leadership functions as somewhat significant or higher (composite mean of 3.0 or
greater). Overall, the analysis of the survey questionnaire responses indicates
clearly that the two superintendent subgroups used approximately the same set of

118
leadership functions, strategies, and practices as they approached improving student
achievement in their districts.
However, analysis of the results of the survey revealed measurable
differentials in composite means for 3 of the 13 leadership functions and 6 of the 57
leadership strategies or practices. The analysis revealed that the successful urban
superintendent subgroup viewed 5 of the 57 leadership strategies and practices as
moderately less significant than their unsuccessful peers. Thus, while all of the
responding urban superintendents used approximately the same set of leadership
functions, strategies, and practices to improve student achievement, it is clear that
the two subgroups placed different emphases on 3 of the 13 leadership functions
and 11 of the 57 leadership strategies and practices addressed in the survey. Table
14 summarizes these differences between subgroups.
In conclusion, the analysis of the survey response data suggests a nonstat-
istical relationship between the differences in the leadership functions, strategies,
and practices emphasized by the two urban superintendent subgroups and their
differences in student achievement outcomes. Specifically, the results suggest that
the successful urban superintendents were more effective at improving student
achievement because they applied different emphasis to an intuitively large number
of leadership functions, strategies, and practices within the common set of leader-
ship functions, strategies, and practices.
Qualitative Interview Findings
Data for the qualitative component of the study was collected from two
participating urban superintendents using the Superintendent Leadership Interview
Protocol (SLIP). The five-item open-ended SLIP was designed to determine (a) the

119

Table 14

Leadership Functions, Strategies, and Practices Applied by the Two Urban
Superintendent Subgroups With Significantly Different Emphasis

Rated by the successful subgroup Rated by the unsuccessful subgroup
as measurably more significant as measurably more significant (mean
(mean differential) differential)

Leadership functions
1. Collaboration and shared decision
making (0.54)**
2. Board relations (0.43)*
3. Improving district operations (0.33)*
Leadership strategies and practices
1. Work with the board to analyze the
factors affecting student achievement
(0.72)**
2. Work with the board to assess the
strengths and weaknesses of the district
(0.87)***
3. Include key community members in the
non-negotiable goal setting process
(0.70)**
4. Use data to assign school personnel
(0.60)**
5. Establish a multiple-measure
accountability program that extends
beyond the state and federal
accountability systems (0.55)**
6. Improve the management side of
business operations to increase student
achievement (0.80)***
Leadership Functions
None identified
Leadership strategies and practices
1. Provide intellectual stimulation (0.63)**
2. Set specific timelines for meeting the
non-negotiable goals (0.35)*
3. Develop uniform professional develop-
ment centered around curriculum and
instruction (0.35)*
4. Direct schools to use data to develop
school improvement plans (0.35)*
5. Require teachers to adhere to curriculum
pacing guides (0.35)*

*Mean differential classified as notable. ** Mean differential classified as
moderate. ***Mean differential classified as major.

120
most essential leadership functions, strategies, and practices used by two successful
urban superintendents in California to improve student achievement; and (b) the
leadership strategies and practices that newly hired urban superintendents should
employ during their first 90 and 365 days on the job to improve student achieve-
ment. The interview protocol included the following five questions:
1. Please describe your approach to leadership.
2. In what ways do you think superintendents of urban school districts can
affect student achievement?
3. What are the most important leadership strategies and practices you have
used as superintendent to improve student achievement in your district?
4. What were your reasons for selecting these leadership strategies and
practices?
5. Imagine that I am a new superintendent of an urban school district much
like your own and I was hired to improve student achievement. In addition, you
were hired by my school board to be my leadership coach. What would you
recommend my plan of action be for the first 90 days on the job? The first year?
Second year?
The two successful urban superintendents were interviewed once each for
approximately 1 hour. The structured interview process began with a brief
explanation of the research study and its purposes as well as an overview of the
interview process. To ensure the integrity and consistency of the interview process,
the questions were asked of both participants in the same order and with the same
emphasis. To maintain the accuracy of the data for transcription, both interviews
were audiotaped (permission was granted by both superintendents at the beginning
of the interviews).

121
Purposeful sampling was used to select the two Californian urban
superintendents for the interview portion of the study. The two superintendents
were chosen because they were the only urban superintendents in California who
had led their districts to meet the NCLB criteria for AYP for all 3 school years
included in the study (2003-2004 to 2005-2006). Pseudonyms were used to protect
the anonymity of the superintendents.
As self-reported on the USLSQ, Superintendent A had earned a doctorate
degree and has been leading her southern Californian district of almost 50,000
students for the past 9 years. District A student population was 85% minority, and
more than 45% of its students were identified as ELL and slightly more than 60%
received free/reduced-price lunches.
Superintendent B self-reported on the USLSQ that he had earned a
doctorate degree and had been leading his southern Californian district of 27,000
students for the past 4 years. However, he reported 11 years experience as a school
superintendent. At the time of the study District B was 57% Caucasian and had the
lowest percentage of minority student enrollment (42.7%) of all 18 urban districts
included in the study. In addition, only 25% of the district’s students were identi-
fied as ELL and slightly less than 40% received free/reduced-priced lunches.
Research Question 3: Most Essential Leadership
Functions, Strategies, and Practices Used
for Improving Student Achievement
Research question 3 was written to triangulate the findings from the USLSQ
and the research literature on effective urban superintendents in order to increase
the validity of the findings. The purpose of the research question was to provide
two of the most successful urban superintendents in California the opportunity to

122
elaborate on the leadership functions, strategies, and practices that they thought
were most essential to their effort to improve student achievement in their districts.
Therefore, the qualitative findings from this research question provided greater
insight and detail into how the most successful urban superintendents in California
approached improving student learning outcomes in their districts.
Non-Negotiable Goals and Targets
for Student Achievement
Setting Explicit and Measurable
Non-Negotiable Goals
Similar to the findings by Murphy and Hallinger (1988) and Waters and
Marzano (2006), Superintendent A focused heavily on establishing non-negotiable
goals and targets for student performance.
Well, first you have to set a target. Everyone needs to know you got to
come together in terms of everyone accepting . . . that this is the target.
Very specific, and for us we have set some very specific goals here that are
measurable and they are not the ones like life-long learners and all that
stuff. That is noble but not measurable and you would never know if you
met them.
So the only way to affect student achievement is to set a target to say,
“What do we want them to achieve? What is it going to take to do it? How
can we hold ourselves accountable for it to know if we have done it? And
then what are we going to do if we fall short? . . . What are we going to go
back and do?”
Superintendent A’s focus on establishing explicit goals and targets for
student performance was closely aligned to the survey questionnaire results that
indicated that the successful urban superintendent subgroup rated the leadership
strategy of establishing explicit goals and targets for student performance that are
non-negotiable on average as a very significant aspect (composite mean of 4.0 out
of 4.0).

123
Setting Specific Timetables for
Achieving the Non-Negotiable
Goals and Targets
Superintendent A and her district had set very explicit student outcome
targets to drive decision making, the allocation of resources, and professional
development. Superintendent A explained one such student achievement goal:
Every student that is with us after 5 years . . . will be Proficient or
Advanced in reading and math as measured by the state’s CST [California
Standards Test].
As described by Superintendent A, the goal of the district was to take all
students who enter school scoring Far Below Basic on the CST and in 5 years move
them to the level of Proficient or Advanced Proficient. To do so, District A and its
schools have to increase the learning of these students approximately one grade and
one performance band each school year. For instance, Superintendent A expects a
student who enters second grade at Far Below Basic to score at the Below Basic
level in grade 3, Basic in grade 4, Upper Basic in grade 5, and Proficient in grade 6.
This finding was consistent with the leadership practice of setting specific time-
tables for meeting the non-negotiable goals identified by Waters and Marzano
(2006) in their meta-analysis of effective urban superintendents. Although the
successful urban superintendent subgroup rated this leadership practice on average
as one of the lowest 10 important aspects of their overall approach to improving
student achievement, it had a mean of 3.4 out of 4.0 (slightly below a significant
aspect).
Communicating Expectations to
Those in the District, Including
School Principals
According to Superintendent A, to accomplish this district-wide
achievement goal, it was

124
the district’s job to clearly set the target, the goal. Then help provide the
data to say who is meeting it [the target], who is not, and then to support the
schools in terms of, “Okay, if you are perplexed and you have done every-
thing you know how to do and it is not working, we need to step in and
together figure out what else might work.”
Superintendent A emphasized that once the non-negotiable goals and targets
for student performance were established, it was imperative that everyone in the
district, including school principals, clearly understand the expectations. This is
consistent with findings reported by Hoyle et al. (2005) and Waters and Marzano
(2006), who found that effective urban superintendents communicate performance
expectations to the central office and school principals. This finding was also
aligned to the results of the survey questionnaire, which showed that the successful
urban superintendent subgroup unanimously rated the leadership practice as a very
significant aspect (mean of 4.0 out of a 4.0) of their effort to improve student
achievement.
Goal Setting Process
Consistent with the research findings reported by Petersen and Barnett
(2005), Superintendent B emphasized using an annual goal-setting process with his
board of education.
First of all, the most important thing that a superintendent does is help
support their [school board members’] understanding of what the mission of
the organization is and trying to keep them focused. . . . So we talk about it
consistently. We do what we refer to right now as the 2010 Strategic Plan. It
has 6 or 8 items, but the number 1 item is student achievement. Annually,
we go through a review to establish board priorities: we call them board-
superintendent priorities. Every year there are five or six of those. And once
again I have to get them [the board members] to agree that our number 1
priority is student achievement. Don’t be distracted chasing a lot of differ-
ent things. If you do, you need to understand that there is only so much
time, energy, and resources and you will compromise student achievement.
The importance of this leadership strategy was supported by the results of
the USLSQ, which indicated that the successful urban superintendent subgroup

125
rated the strategy on average as nearly a very significant aspect (mean of 3.8 out of
4.0). In addition, Superintendent B employed a longer-term “strategic plan” that
emphasized student achievement as the first priority, similar to the five-year non-
negotiable plan for achievement and instruction advocated by Waters and Marzano
(2006).
However, unlike Superintendent A, who set very explicit targets for student
achievement, when Superintendent B’s responses were probed regarding whether
specific targets for achievement were established during the goal setting process, he
responded,
They [the board] set the big picture now. We have to realize that this is an
incredibly diverse district with low socioeconomic schools here and
incredibly high socioeconomic schools up against the foothills. So we talk
about success as not being a specific score but success as being a pattern of
improvement.
Thus, Superintendent B focused specifically on schools making “measur-
able improvement in student achievement” over a period of several years.
I can understand when test scores fall. I mean, it happens. . . . So I never
worry about a blip for a year. It isn’t a big deal. But I do worry when you
don’t see any consistent improvement and I go to the principal and the
principal can’t explain to me why it has occurred.
Hence, according to Superintendent B, his role was to facilitate the annual
superintendent-board goal-setting process and ensure that the school board mem-
bers keep raising student achievement as their first priority. Although Superintend-
ent B did not establish explicit district-wide student achievement targets, he held
individual schools and principals within the district accountable for determining
site-specific growth targets that were tied to school improvement plans. Thus,
schools and their principals within District B were held accountable by the

126
superintendent for meeting measurable growth targets but the targets were tied to
each school’s individualized school improvement plans.
Both urban superintendents during their interviews emphasized the leader-
ship function of establishing non-negotiable goals for student achievement in their
approach to improving student achievement in their school districts. Although
neither superintendent explicitly elaborated on all of the leadership strategies and
practices that make up the leadership function, the findings from the USLSQ
supported that they were significant aspects of their overall effort to improve
student learning. In fact, as shown in Table 15, all five of the leadership strategies
and practices were rated on average as somewhat significant aspects (means of 3.0)
or higher, three were rated as significant (means of 3.5) or higher, and two were
rated as very significant (means of 4.0). The leadership strategy of adopt a 5-year
non-negotiable plan for achievement and instruction had the lowest average (mean
of 3.0) because one of the successful urban superintendents scored it as do not use
(Likert-type scale rating of 0 out of 4), which greatly influenced the overall mean.
However, the other four superintendents in the successful subgroup rated it as very
significant.
While both successful urban superintendents during their interviews identi-
fied the leadership function of non-negotiable goals for achievement and instruc-
tion as one of the most essential aspects of their approach to improving student
achievement, overall the leadership function was rated by the successful subgroup
as one of the least important (composite mean of 3.6 out of a 4.0) on the USLSQ.
In fact, the leadership function of non-negotiable goals for achievement and
instruction was tied with collaboration and shared decision making for the 10th-
lowest-rated leadership function, higher only than creating accountability

127
Table 15

The Successful Urban Superintendent Subgroup (n = 5) Descriptive Statistics for
the Leadership Strategies and Practices That Make Up the Leadership Function of
Non-Negotiable Goals for Student Achievement (Survey Questions 17-21)

Strategies/practices Min Max Mean SD

Goals and targets 4.00 4.00 4.00 0.000
Performance expectations 4.00 4.00 4.00 0.000
5-year plan 0.00 4.00 3.00 1.732
Goal setting process 3.00 4.00 3.60 0.548
Timetables for goals 3.00 4.00 3.40 0.548
Composite mean 3.00 4.00 3.60

(composite mean of 3.57) and selecting and assigning personnel (composite mean
of 3.45). Nevertheless, the absolute value of the mean rating (3.6 out of 4.0) signi-
fies that the successful urban superintendent subgroup considered this leadership
function to be a significant aspect of their approach to improving student learning
outcomes in their districts. The findings from the qualitative interviews support this
finding.
Use of Data
Building the District’s Capacity to
Use Data
Similar to the findings reported by Togneri and Anderson (2003), both
successful urban superintendents who were interviewed for the current study placed
great emphasis on the use of data to extensively monitor district-wide goals and

128
school performance. However, both superintendents explained that their districts
originally had not had an adequate infrastructure to collect, analyze, and disaggre-
gate data to make it meaningful and actionable. For example, Superintendent B
stated,
One of the things that we realized immediately when we started in the
process of trying to develop each school’s instructional focus was that the
data we had from our existing system was not adequate. So we ended up
moving to a new system that we absolutely love, called Data Director. And
that has made a significant difference because we can really focus in, bring
the data down to some real usable information and really target our inter-
ventions and strategies.
Superintendent A echoed this thought during her interview.
Data has been one of the best things that has happened for our district.
When you think about how we used to operate without much data . . . [but
now] we got equipped with the data system to allow us to get what we
needed in the way we needed it.
Consistent with the research findings reported by Leithwood et al. (2004), both
urban superintendents had to invest time and resources into developing their
district’s capacity to use data effectively to drive improvements in student
achievement.
Using Data to Monitor the
District’s Non-Negotiable Goals
An analysis of the interview data revealed that both urban superintendents
used data to monitor the progress of the district and individual schools toward the
attainment of the non-negotiable goals for achievement. Superintendent A
explained the relationship between data and the non-negotiable goals in her district:
So all of our data is driven around those goals [non-negotiable goals for
achievement] and then shown to them [schools] in a manner to show them
how they meet those other targets [API and AYP] as well.

129
Superintendent A explained that the data are disaggregated to the student
level so the principal and teachers can identify the students at each school whom
she called the “opportunity gap kids” because they had not met the goal of moving
up one grade level and one performance band. According to Superintendent A, the
district’s job is to set clear goals and targets and then provide the data to determine
which students are and are not meeting the goals. Next, she maintained that the
district must help the schools to determine why the students are not making the
targets, and then she claimed that the district must provide the resources—
knowledge, people, and systems—to help each school meet the non-negotiable
goals and targets. In all, Superintendent A’s use of data to identify achievement
gaps, target interventions, and direct district resources was highly consistent with
findings reported by Massell (2000) in her study of 22 successful school districts.
Superintendent B during his interview emphasized the importance of the
district’s Focus on Results program, which was implemented over 3 years, bringing
in 40% of the schools in year 1 and 30% in each of years 2 and 3. Given the diverse
needs of individual schools within District B, the Focus on Results program has
trained the principal, instructional leadership team, and teachers at each school to
analyze student achievement data and to identify a school-wide focus. According to
Superintendent B, the typical school-wide focus is “something like language arts or
some sort of literacy process.” Once the data are used to identify an area of school-
wide focus, then the district provides the school with resources and support to
target the focus.
We bring the teachers in once a month to do planning and what we try to do
is focus their expertise, their time and their attention on that particular area.

130
This finding from the interview with Superintendent B is supported by the results
of the USLSQ, which showed that the successful superintendents subgroup rated
the leadership strategy of directing schools to use performance data to write
improvement plans as almost a significant aspect (mean of 3.4). Table 16
summarizes the results from the USLSQ regarding the leadership strategies and
practices that make up the leadership function of using data.

Table 16

Successful Urban Superintendent Subgroup (n = 5) Descriptive Statistics for the
Leadership Strategies and Practices That Make Up the Leadership Function of
Using Data (Survey Questions 41-45)

Strategies/practices Min Max Mean SD

Assess student achievement 4.00 4.00 4.00 .000
Data/professional development 4.00 4.00 4.00 .000
Data/interventions 4.00 4.00 4.00 .000
District assessments 2.00 4.00 3.60 .894
Data improvement plans 2.00 4.00 3.40 .894
Composite mean 3.40 4.00 3.80

Using Data to Target Professional
Development
Although Superintendent B never stated explicitly a relationship between
the use of the Focus on Results program and professional development for teachers,
it could be argued that the monthly teacher meetings were a form of professional

131
development. Therefore, the interview findings are consistent with survey question-
naire results that found that the successful urban superintendents unanimously rated
the leadership strategy of using performance data to target professional develop-
ment for teachers a very significant aspect (mean of 4.0). The finding is also con-
sistent with the research of Togneri and Anderson (2003) and Massell (2000), who
found that successful urban districts used data to target professional development
for educators.
Using Data From Formative
Assessments
Both successful urban superintendents during their interviews emphasized
the importance of using formative benchmarks or common assessments throughout
the year to drive improvement in student learning. For example, Superintendent B,
discussing research on common assessments, stated, “Common assessments . . .
[are] one of the best tools for driving the student improvement process.” According
to Superintendent B, his district had already implemented common assessments at
the elementary and middle school levels and had begun the process at the
secondary level.
Superintendent A spent significantly more time during her interview dis-
cussing her district’s use of quarterly benchmarks aligned and “correlated” to the
CSTs for English Language Arts and Mathematics at the elementary level and all
core academic areas at the secondary level. Superintendent A described the data
from the CST exams as “trailing indicators” or “autopsy results”—not helpful
because they are returned after it is too late to re-teach. On the other hand, Superin-
tendent A described the results of the quarterly benchmarks as “lab tests” or “your
indicators along the way” that “give you a chance to look at what skills they [the

132
students] are missing, so that you have a chance to correct those things—to fill in
those holes or those gaps.” She claimed that students will thus have a better chance
of improving their performance on the end-of-the-year CST.
The findings about the use of benchmarks and common assessments
reported in the two interviews corroborated the quantitative results from the survey
questionnaire that showed that the successful superintendents subgroup rated the
leadership strategy of assess student progress throughout the year as very signifi-
cant (mean of 4.0; Table 16). However, given that neither successful urban superin-
tendent discussed directly using the results of the benchmarks or the common
assessments to adjust the instructional approach of teachers, the results of the
qualitative interviews did not support the findings of the quantitative survey that
the successful superintendents subgroup rated the leadership strategy of adjust
instructional approaches based on district-wide assessment as slightly higher than
a significant aspect (Table 16).
Both successful urban superintendents, during their interviews, emphasized
the importance of using data to drive improvements in student achievement. This
finding is supported by the quantitative data yielded by the USLSQ. Specifically,
the leadership function of using data received a composite mean rating of 3.8 or
slightly lower than a very significant aspect from the successful urban superintend-
ent subgroup. In addition, the leadership function was the fourth-highest rated of
the 13 functions.

133
Focus on Instruction
Endorsing a Collective Vision
About Effective Instruction
Consistent with Petersen and Barnett (2005) and Hoyle et al. (2005), the
two successful urban superintendents interviewed for the study emphasized articu-
lating and endorsing a collective vision that embodies the best thinking about
teaching and learning. This finding was consistent with the quantitative results of
the survey questionnaire, which showed that the superintendents who were part of
the successful subgroup unanimously rated this leadership strategy as a very signifi-
cant aspect (mean of 4.0). Superintendent B described his approach as follows:
Here is an example of what I try to do to simplify an approach that everyone
in the district should be able to understand. The acronym that I use is: I
want to see S.E.A.M. in every classroom. And what S.E.A.M. stands for is
that instruction is Standards-based [S.], students are engaged “E,” and a
piece that commonly gets missed is [that] there is a process of assessment
for mastery [A.M.]. This is an example of how I try to simplify things so
that we have a common language, common understanding, [and] common
expectations.
Much like her successful urban superintendent counterpart, Superintendent
A was very clear about what good teaching looks like.
Could I walk into a classroom and know if sound instruction was going on?
Absolutely, when kids know what the objective of the lesson is, when it is
broken down and scaffolded for those who need scaffolding. When a
teacher is checking to make sure that kids are getting it and going back and
intervening right now for those that aren’t . . . . we have to realize strategies
are different from content knowledge. I do not have know the content of
physics to be able to . . . in a half an hour I can tell you if that physics
teacher is using sound instructional strategies.
While supportive of instructional models, Superintendent A was more
cautious about instructional models.
There [are] lots of instructional models, but I think we have to be careful as
you put models out there—do you want to be driven by a model or driven
by results? And I think we need to be careful. Some people [teachers] are
unique, but they get the job done. And having said that, I believe you need

134
to have systems [instructional models]. You do need to have models and
good sound instructional models as foundations for people to work from,
but do not let them get in the way of the artist.
Superintendent A qualified her earlier statement:
So you needed processes, you need systems, you need all of that. But we
have to be careful that those systems do not become an end in themselves.
What has to be the end is getting the results. Then the systems are put in
place to help you get the results.
Superintendent A was adamant that her district of 50,000 students and 50
schools needed to have a clear instructional model that “keeps everyone marching
in line” but noted the instructional model had to yield the student achievement
results set forth in her district’s non-negotiable goals and targets.
In summary, the qualitative findings from the two superintendent interviews
regarding endorsing a collective understanding of and model for effective instruc-
tion corroborated the quantitative findings from the survey questionnaire and
research findings reported by Hoyle et al. (2005) and Petersen and Barnett (2005).
Direct Involvement of the
Superintendent in Instruction
An analysis of the interview transcripts showed that both successful urban
superintendents maintained the importance of being actively involved in classroom
instruction and the district instructional improvement process. For instance,
Superintendent A stated,
As a superintendent, luckily for me I had a strong instructional background
and I feel comfortable going into a classroom and teaching a lesson. Well,
okay, sometimes I fall on my face, but it’s okay because everyone falls on
their face sometimes. So, I am comfortable doing that. People know that I
am comfortable doing that [teaching lessons]. The principals know that they
are expected to become comfortable with that. Not all of them are, you do
not get there overnight.
Superintendent B qualified why it is important to be actively involved in
instruction.

135
If you are going to be a superintendent, and you are going to be held
accountable for student achievement, [then] you got to be intimately
involved in the process. Otherwise, people are going to say, “Well, yah,
does he really care, is it really important?” So it is a big piece of it.
If you are going to be an effective leader, you have to model the same
behavior. So my calendar pretty much has half a day a week that I spend at
schools visiting. [I] spend a lot of time at schools. You got to model
behavior[s] that you [are] trying to get of your principals.
This interview finding is consistent with the results of the national survey
conducted from which Archer (2005) reported that 75% of urban superintendents
agreed or strongly agreed that NCLB had forced them to be more actively involved
in classroom instruction. This interview finding is also supported by the quanti-
tative results from the USLSQ that indicated that the successful urban superintend-
ent subgroup rated the leadership practice of using school site visits/walkthroughs
to hold school principals accountable as nearly a very significant aspect (mean of
3.8).
Using the Instructional Leadership
of Principals to Improve
Instruction
An examination of the interview transcripts showed that the two successful
urban superintendents focused on using their school principals to improve class-
room instruction. Promoting and supporting the instructional leadership of their
principals was a significant aspect of their overall approach to improving student
achievement in their districts. For example, Superintendent A commented that she
expected her principals to be comfortable (as she was) in modeling lessons and
instructional strategies for teachers inside classrooms. Similarly, Superintendent B
indicated that principals must make classroom observations their first priority.
I had to figure out first how was I going to do it—get principals to under-
stand [that] if they are to make a difference, they have to be in the class-
rooms. So the first year, I began to work on that. That was the mantra—

136
“Principals, I want to see you spend at least 1 day a week or 2.5 days a
week directly in classrooms with observations of teachers in a formative
sense.”
In part, the mantra used by Superintendent B helped to define what the
concept of principals as instructional models meant in District B. This finding is
consistent with the results from the survey questionnaire that found that the leader-
ship practice of clearly defining what it means for principals to be an instructional
leader was rated by the successful superintendents subgroup to be a very significant
aspect (mean of 4.0). See Table 17.

Table 17

Successful Urban Superintendents Subgroup (n = 5) Descriptive Statistics for the
Leadership Strategies and Practices Associated With the Leadership Function of
Principals as Instructional Leaders (Survey Questions 51-53)

Strategies/practices Min Max Mean SD

Principals as instructional leaders 4.00 4.00 4.00 0.00
Define instructional leadership 4.00 4.00 4.00 0.00
Restructure district office 4.00 4.00 4.00 0.00
Composite Mean 4.00 4.00 4.00 0.00

To support principals in their effort to be in classrooms more frequently,
Superintendent B realized that he needed to provide them with a new framework.
So, after the first year I brought in [the] Breakthrough Coaching process,
which for some folks was a very different way of doing business . . . but
you cannot ask them to go be in classrooms unless you can show them how
to do that. So, Breakthrough Coaching provided that.

137
The finding of providing professional development to principals to
strengthen their instructional leadership is consistent with the quantitative findings
of the survey (Table 17) that showed that the successful urban superintendent
subgroup rated the leadership practice as a very significant aspect (mean of 4.0).
The finding is also supported by the case study research by Cudeiro (2005), who
studied three effective urban superintendents for 4 years and found that they
strengthened the instructional leadership of their principals by providing targeted
professional development in the areas of instructional supervision.
In summary, these findings are corroborated by the results of the USLSQ
that found that the successful urban superintendents subgroup rated the leadership
function of principals as instructional leaders as a very significant aspect (com-
posite mean of 4.0). The quantitative survey questionnaire found that the successful
urban superintendents subgroup unanimously assigned ratings of very significant
aspect to all three leadership strategies that made up this leadership function: (a)
use professional development to strengthen the instructional leadership of princi-
pals, (b) clearly define what it means for principals to be instructional leaders, and
(c) support the instructional leadership of principals by restructuring the central
office to provide help, support, and coaching. Over all, the research findings from
the qualitative interviews were supported by the results of the survey questionnaire.
Common Themes
An analysis of the successful urban superintendent interview data revealed
three common themes across the two superintendents. First, both successful urban
superintendents emphasized the importance of establishing and monitoring non-
negotiable goals for student achievement. This leadership function entailed

138
establishing a goal setting process, establishing explicit and measurable goals,
creating a timetable for meeting the non-negotiable goals, and communicating the
goals to central office staff and school principals. Second, both superintendents
stressed the importance of using data to drive improvement in student learning.
This leadership function involves building the district’s capacity to use data, using
data to monitor the district’s non-negotiable goals for achievement and instruction,
using data to target professional development, and using data from formative
assessments throughout the school year. Third, both superintendents emphasized
the importance of focusing on instruction. According to these superintendents, this
entailed articulating and endorsing a collective vision and model of effective
instruction, involving superintendents personally in the instructional process, and
cultivating and using the instructional leadership of their principals. Thus, the
findings from the qualitative interviews were consistent with the results of the
USLSQ as well as with the extant research on effective superintendent leadership
practices.
Research Question 4: Leadership Functions, Strategies,
and Practices That Should be Employed by Newly
Hired Urban Superintendents to Improve
Student Achievement
Consistent with the research findings reported by Snipes et al. (2002), the
current study presupposed that certain leadership preconditions must occur before
other leadership strategies can be employed effectively by urban superintendents to
improve student achievement in their districts. The present study refers to these
leadership preconditions as first-order leadership strategies or practices and the
subsequent strategies or practices as second-order leadership strategies or prac-
tices. Given the dearth of research on the topic, the purpose of research question 4

139
was to provide greater insight into what first-order leadership strategies and
practices were recommended by two of the most successful urban superintendents
in California. The findings from the two interviews are presented below.
First-Order Superintendent Leadership Strategies
Building Superintendent-Boards
Relationships
Both successful urban superintendents during their interviews emphasized
the importance of developing strong and trusting relationship with each school
board member from the first day on the job. For example, speaking of the first thing
that a new urban superintendent should do, Superintendent B suggested,
I think the first piece you have to do is . . . you have to build that trusting
relationship with the board, and that’s an ongoing process from the day you
start.
Superintendent B explained that new superintendents must employ effective
communication techniques with the school board so board members “understand
their role and responsibility as well as your [the superintendent’s] role and
responsibility.” He explained that effective communication techniques strengthen
the level of trust that the school board places in a superintendent. According to
Superintendent B, as the level of trust develops, “the area that they [the board]
allow you to work in becomes broader and broader, and that’s what you need over
a period of time.”
Similarly, when asked for her recommendations for working with the board
of education, Superintendent A stated,
I am very much a relationship person. I have to get to know people, to know
what makes them tick, [and] to let them get to know me. I find that you
work with people better when you know where they are coming from.

140
Superintendent A suggested that, as the superintendent-board member relationship
matures, the superintendent is more likely to learn what approach works with each
board member and thus is more likely to achieve what he or she has sought to
accomplish. However, she was quick to caution that, although it is possible to take
different approaches with different board members, ultimately, the superintendent
must “treat them all equally.” She suggested that it might required a night sitting
through a long dinner with one board member or a 3-minute telephone conversation
with another but it is critical that the same information be shared with each board
member.
In addition, Superintendent A asserted that a strong superintendent-board
relationship is premised on the notion of “no surprises.”
The other thing is that I try to have no surprises. I would not surprise you,
do not surprise me. If I hear something is coming, I am going to give you a
heads up on it. Please, if you hear something is coming give me a heads-up.
We better work as a team. Because when you are in tough times people are
going to look for cracks in your leadership team.
Superintendent A’s assertion implied that surprises undermine the trusting relation-
ships and teamwork required to accomplish the complex challenge of improving
student achievement.
Both of the successful urban superintendents interviewed for the study
stressed the importance of establishing a strong relationship—founded on mutual
trust and effective communication—with each member of the school board. This
finding is consistent with prior research that showed that positive superintendent-
school board relationships are critical to improving student achievement in a
district (JLARC, 2004; Togneri & Anderson, 2003; Waters & Marzano, 2006).
The priority assigned to this leadership strategy by the two successful urban

141
superintendents when asked question 5 on the SLIP signifies that they considered it
to be a first-order leadership strategy.
Although building relationships with board members was not specifically
included as a leadership strategy on the USLSQ, there is an intuitively close
relationship with the leadership function of board relations and the leadership
strategies and practices that make it up. In fact, this study posits that strong, trusting
superintendent-board relationships are the underpinnings of the leadership practices
and strategies that make up the leadership function of board relations. In other
words, building superintendent-board relationships is a precursor or a perquisite to
the development of the leadership function of board relations.
The leadership function of board relations is made up of five leadership
strategies and practices noted in the literature review: (a) develop non-negotiable
goals for improving student achievement with the Board of Education (Waters &
Marzano, 2006), (b) report student achievement data to the board on a regular basis
(Waters & Marzano), (c) work with the board to analyze factors affecting student
achievement (JLARC, 2004), (d) work with the board to assess the strengths and
weaknesses of the district (Togneri & Anderson, 2003), and (e) work with the
board to consider district options and strategies for improving student achievement
(Togneri & Anderson). This study contends that the effectiveness of all five leader-
ship strategies is contingent on how well the superintendent works with board
members individually and as a whole. In turn, the superintendent’s ability to work
with the school board and its individual members is in part dependent on the
strength of the superintendent-board member relationships. Thus, the leadership
strategy of building superintendent-board relationships is considered a first-order

142
leadership strategy and the five leadership strategies that make up the leadership
function of board relations are considered second-order leadership strategies.
The results from the USLSQ showed that the urban superintendents sub-
group rated the leadership function of board relations as slightly less than a very
significant aspect (mean of 3.76) of their approach to improving student achieve-
ment. Although the USLSQ did not contain a question to directly measure the first-
order leadership strategy of building trusting superintendent-board member
relationships, the strong significance attributed to the leadership function of board
relations and its accompanying leadership strategies and practices provide indirect
support for its importance. Thus, both the extant research on successful urban
superintendents and the results of the survey questionnaire corroborated the
qualitative interview findings that urban superintendents should build trusting
relationships with their board members from the first day on the job.
Assessing the Instructional
Strengths and Weaknesses of the
District
Both successful urban superintendents interviewed in this study indicated
that new urban superintendents who are charged with improving student achieve-
ment must first assess the strengths and weaknesses of the instructional side of the
district. The priority assigned to this leadership strategy by both superintendents
when asked question 5 on the SLIP indicates that they considered it to be a first-
order leadership strategy. In part, this qualitative finding is consistent with the
quantitative results of the survey questionnaire that indicated that the successful
urban superintendents subgroup rated the leadership strategies of working with the
board to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the district (mean of 4.0) and

143
working with the board to analyze the factors affecting student achievement (mean
of 3.6) as very significant and significant aspects, respectively.
Superintendent B recommended two strategies to new superintendents for
assessing the status of their district. First, he recommended going to the individual
members of the school board and asking each of them for a list of 25 to 30 people
whom they would like the new superintendent to meet. He suggested that, most
often, the names on the lists will be redundant. “I usually start with that because
they [board members] love that, they want you to meet the people they want you to
meet.” Superintendent B implied that the relationship between the board members
and the superintendent would be strengthened and the superintendent would
develop a clearer understanding of what is happening in the district.
Superintendent B recommended that new urban superintendents have indi-
vidually “planned conversations” with their board members and school principals
to ask four questions: “What is right with the district? What is wrong with the
district? How can I help you work more effectively in the district? What are you
willing to do to help me?” Again, Superintendent B implied that employing this
strategy would both cultivate key relationships and provide critical insight into the
strengths and weaknesses of the school district with respect to student achievement.
Superintendent A counseled new urban superintendents not to take a new
position if the board expects solutions within the first 90 days. “The whole idea of
90 days, everybody thinks something is supposed to happen, that is part of the
problem.” Her recommendation was that, during the first 90 days, the superintend-
ent should “spend a lot of time listening to really try to understand what’s going
on.”

144
To superintendents who are hired from outside of the school district she
recommended “building some relationships” because district people will be
“cynical about the new guy or gal coming in.” To assess the situation within the
district and foster important relationships, Superintendent A suggested more
generally that new superintendents “collect a lot of different points of view . . . this
means that you spend some time where they live—finding out what they do.” In
other words, Superintendent A suggested that new superintendents spend time with
key employees throughout the district with the intent of collecting relevant data on
the strengths and weaknesses of student learning.
In summary, both superintendents recommended that new superintendents
spend time during the first stage of their tenure employing the first-order leader-
ship strategy of assessing the instructional strengths and weaknesses of the district.
The importance of this first-order strategy is supported by the quantitative research
findings from the survey instrument that found that the successful urban superin-
tendents subgroup rated the leadership strategies of work with the board to assess
the strengths and weaknesses of the district and work with the board to analyze the
factors affecting student achievement as very significant and significant aspects,
respectively. However, the findings from the qualitative interviews indicated that
new urban superintendents must extend their assessment beyond working with just
the school board members to include the perspectives of key constituents and
personnel as well.
Common Themes From Research Question 4
Both successful urban superintendents identified two first-order leadership
strategies during their responses to question 5 on the SLIP: (a) building

145
superintendent-board relationships and (b) assessing the instructional strengths
and weaknesses of the district. Consistent with findings reported by Snipes et al.
(2002), the first-order leadership strategies identified in analysis of the interview
data indicated that certain leadership preconditions are necessary before other
leadership strategies and practices can be effectively employed by urban superin-
tendents to improve student achievement.
Summary
The quantitative findings from the USLSQ and the qualitative results of the
two one-on-one urban superintendent interviews were reviewed and analyzed in
this chapter and aligned with the four research questions. When possible, the
responses to the research questions were analyzed through triangulation of the
research literature, survey questionnaire findings, and interview response results.

146
CHAPTER 5
DISCUSSION
The high-stakes accountability provisions of the federal NCLB Act and the
California PSAA have greatly intensified public scrutiny of the performance of
urban school districts. More than ever, the state government, local boards of educa-
tion, and community stakeholders have been holding California urban school super-
intendents responsible for the performance of all students and schools within their
respective districts. As leaders of their school systems, urban superintendents have
responded to the growing pressure by taking on a greater role as instructional
leaders (Archer, 2005; Lashway, 2002; Petersen & Barnett, 2005).
To date, however, the results of their instructional leadership have varied
widely. According to Archer (2006), California has four urban districts with 40 or
more schools identified as “in need of improvement” under NCLB: 205 in Los
Angeles, 51 in Oakland, 44 in San Bernardino City, and 40 in San Diego. More-
over, 37.7% of the 962 Title I districts in California have been identified as “in
need of improvement.” Of the 43 districts considered “urban” by the CSBA, only 5
met their AYP for 2 of the 3 school years 2003-2004 through 2005-2006 and
retained the same superintendent until the time of the current study. Given the poor
performance of many urban school districts since the passage of NCLB, it appears
that the five successful urban superintendents from California who participated in
the study defied the odds by improving student achievement across all significant
demographic subgroups in their districts. Thus, from whom better to learn how to
improve student achievement in urban school districts?
Despite over 2 decades of intense public dissatisfaction with the ineffect-
iveness of most urban public school systems and heightened pressure placed on

147
urban school superintendents to improve the learning outcomes of all students,
there is a dearth of research that identifies specific leadership functions, strategies,
and practices used by successful urban superintendents to improve student achieve-
ment (Glass et al., 2000; Kowalski, 2006). The paucity of research on effective
urban superintendent leadership and student achievement is even more acute in the
NCLB era of high-stakes accountability—a time in which the success of urban
superintendents has become inextricably linked to improved student learning out-
comes. Therefore, the purposes of the current study were to determine the leader-
ship functions, strategies, and practices employed by successful urban superintend-
ents in California to improve student achievement and to determine whether those
practices differed from those used by their ineffective urban superintendent
counterparts.
Using a mixed-methodologies approach consisting of (a) quantitative
survey questionnaires distributed to the 18 urban superintendents in California who
led their districts through the 2003-2004 to 2007-2008 school years, and (b)
qualitative interviews with the two most successful urban superintendents in
California, the current study addressed four research questions:
1. In the NCLB era of high-stakes accountability, what specific leadership
functions, strategies and practices were employed by successful urban school
superintendents in California to effectively promote improved student
performance?
2. Were there significant differences in the leadership functions, strategies
and practices used to improve student achievement between successful and
unsuccessful urban superintendents in California? If so, what were the differences?

148
3. What were the most essential leadership functions, strategies, and
practices used for improving student achievement and how were they effectively
employed?
4. What leadership functions, strategies, and practices should be employed
by newly hired urban superintendents to improve student achievement?
Significant Findings
The current study used the USLSQ and the SLIP to collect pertinent data to
answer the four research questions. The study revealed several major findings about
the leadership functions, strategies, and practices used by the responding successful
urban superintendents in California to improve student achievement in their
districts. The significant findings of this study are reported below according to
the four research questions.
Leadership Functions, Strategies, and Practices Used
by Successful Urban Superintendents in California
to Improve Student Achievement
The research-based USLSQ was developed by the researcher to determine
the specific leadership functions, strategies and practices used by successful urban
superintendents in California. In addition, the survey questionnaire was designed to
measure how significant the successful urban superintendents believed each leader-
ship function, strategy, and practice to be as it related to their overall approach to
improving student achievement in their districts. Survey responses from the 5
successful urban superintendent respondents in California were used to determine
the means for the 57 leadership strategies and practices as well as the composite
means for the 13 leadership functions.

149
Essential Leadership Functions
The respondents in the successful urban superintendent subgroup rated 12
of 13 leadership functions on the USLSQ as significant aspects or higher for
improving student achievement in their districts. In fact, the leadership functions of
shared vision and setting direction and principals as instructional leaders received
a rating of very significant (composite means of 4.0 out of 4.0). Both defined auto-
nomy and using data received a rating of almost very significant (composite mean
scores of 3.9 and 3.8, respectively). All but one of the next nine leadership func-
tions earned a rating of significant (composite mean scores of 3.5 to 3.79) by the
respondents from the successful urban superintendent subgroup. The one exception
was the leadership function of selecting and assigning personnel, which received a
mean composite score of 3.45 or slightly below significant. In all, the current study
determined that the respondents in the successful urban superintendent subgroup
agreed that all 13 of the leadership functions included on the USLSQ were essential
aspects of their overall approach to improving student achievement in their
districts.
Forty-Five Essential Leadership
Strategies and Practices for
Improving Student Achievement
An analysis of the USLSQ data revealed 45 leadership strategies and prac-
tices rated by the 5 successful California urban superintendent respondents as the
most essential aspects of their overall approach to improving student achievement
in their districts. In fact, 25 of these most essential leadership strategies and prac-
tices were rated by all 5 successful superintendents as very significant aspects
(means of 4.0 out of 4.0). An additional 20 leadership strategies and practices were
rated by the successful urban superintendents as either almost very significant

150
aspects (mean of 3.8 out of 4.0) or as significant aspects (mean of 3.6 out of 4.0). In
all, 45 of the 57 leadership strategies and practices included on the survey question-
naire were rated on average by the 5 responding successful superintendents in
California as significant aspects (mean of 3.6) or higher. Thus, the successful urban
superintendents agreed that the 45 leadership strategies and practices were most
responsible for the observed improvements in student performance, as measured by
AYP, in their districts.
Applying Similar Leadership
Approaches Pre- and Post-NCLB
But With Different Emphasis
While the data revealed that the 5 successful urban superintendent respond-
ents from California rated 45 leadership strategies and practices as the most signifi-
cant, they scored 55 of the 57 strategies and practices included on the USLSQ as at
least somewhat significant aspects. The data clearly indicate that the successful
superintendent respondents rated to at least a somewhat significant degree a strong
majority (96.4%) of the leadership strategies and practices and all (100%) of the
leadership functions included in the USLSQ.
Moreover, only 2 of the 5 urban superintendents used the open-ended ques-
tion as an opportunity to discuss a leadership strategy or practice that they utilized
in their approach to improve student achievement that was not incorporated in the
USLSQ. In their responses, both urban superintendents stressed their use of pro-
fessional development; however, this finding was determined to be consistent with
the leadership function of developing people through professional development and
support. All told, no leadership functions, strategies, or practices were identified
that were not included on the USLSQ.

151
The USLSQ was developed based on the limited existing research on the
urban superintendency, which primarily predated the passage of NCLB in 2002.
Assuming that successful urban superintendents before NCLB utilized the majority
of leadership functions, strategies, and practices identified in the research literature,
then the high significance attributed to all but two of the leadership strategies and
practices on the USLSQ indicates that the 5 successful superintendent respondents
from California applied, at a minimum, a similar array of leadership strategies and
practices following NCLB.
Although the results of the USLSQ revealed potential similarities in leader-
ship approach between successful urban superintendents predating NCLB and the 5
successful urban superintendent respondents following NCLB, the study did not
determine whether the functions, strategies, and practices were applied with lesser
or greater emphasis. However, research shows that the accountability-oriented
pressures of NCLB have influenced the perceptions of urban school superintend-
ents with regard to their roles and responsibilities as instructional leaders. In fact,
according to a national survey of school superintendents commissioned by
Education Week, 75% of urban superintendents agreed or strongly agreed that
NCLB had forced them to be more active instructional leaders (Archer, 2005).
While at first glance these two findings may seem to be contradictory, this
researcher study posits that the set of leadership strategies and practices available to
urban superintendents has, for the most part, remained fairly constant over the past
10 to 15 years (as evidenced by the findings from the USLSQ), but the emphasis
placed on each of the strategies and practices has changed (as evidenced by Archer,
2005) due to the influences of NCLB.

152
The quantitative findings from the USLSQ are significant because they
provide the most current and comprehensive list of essential leadership functions,
strategies and practices used by successful urban superintendents to improve
student achievement since the passage of NCLB in 2001. Until this study, urban
superintendents who have struggled to meet the lofty expectations of NCLB have
had to turn to research-based best practices for improving student achievement that
were scarce or outdated. Thus, the results of the study significantly add to the
research base on what leadership functions, strategies, and practices successful
urban superintendent use to improve student achievement in the NCLB-era of high
stakes accountability. Ultimately, struggling urban superintendents can use the
findings of this study to evaluate whether they are using a set of leadership func-
tions, strategies, and practices consistent with those used by urban superintendents
in California who have successfully met the rigorous standards for student achieve-
ment established by NCLB.
Significant Differences in the Leadership Functions,
Strategies, and Practices Used by Successful
and Unsuccessful Urban Superintendents
in California to Improve Student
Achievement in their Districts
Although it is informative to know which leadership functions, strategies,
and practices were used by successful urban superintendents in California to
improve student achievement, these findings alone were insufficient because they
did not provide insight into whether or how their approach differed from that of
their less successful urban superintendent counterparts. It is not beyond possibility
that successful and unsuccessful superintendent groups in California applied similar
leadership approaches to improving student achievement but achieved different

153
student performance outcomes. To rule out this possibility, the current study used
the USLSQ to directly compare the leadership approaches of successful and
unsuccessful urban superintendents in California.
The 18 Californian urban superintendents who met the criteria for participa-
tion in the study were divided into two subgroups: (a) those urban superintendents
(n = 5) who had led their school districts to meet AYP for at least 2 of the 3 school
years 2003-2004 through 2005-2006, and (b) those urban superintendents (n = 13)
who had not led their districts to meet AYP for at least 2 of the 3 school years
2003-2004 through 2005-2006. All 18 urban superintendents who met the partici-
pation criteria were mailed an USLSQ. In all, 13 of the 18 (72%) survey question-
naires were completed and returned: 100% (5 of 5) of the successful urban superin-
tendents and 61% (8 of 13) of the unsuccessful urban superintendents.
Demographic Differences Between
the Two Urban Superintendent
Subgroups
The study results showed that the successful urban superintendents in
California who participated in the study were on average older and more educated
and led larger districts than their less successful counterparts. In contrast, the
unsuccessful urban superintendents in the study had on average more years
experience as a superintendent (overall and within their current districts).
Demographic data from the returned survey questionnaires revealed that the
respondents from the unsuccessful urban superintendent subgroup had on average
almost 2 years more experience serving as a superintendent (10.38 years compared
to 8.4 years) and nearly 2 years more tenure as superintendent of their current
school districts (7.25 years compared to 5.4). It is interesting that the tenure of both

154
subgroups far surpasses the estimated national average of 1 to 3 years tenure for
urban superintendents. Despite having average tenures that were at least 2.5 times
longer than the national average (Cuban, 1998; Hoyle et al., 2005), the responding
superintendents of the unsuccessful subgroup had still been unable to meet their
AYP for at least 2 of the 3 school years included in the study. Ultimately, this
finding is significant because it is counterintuitive: Urban superintendents with the
most professional experience (overall and as leaders of their current districts) were
least effective at improving student achievement in their districts.
The demographic data stemming from the USLSQ also revealed another
significant difference between the respondents of the two Californian urban super-
intendent subgroups: the successful subgroup had attained on average more educa-
tion than the unsuccessful subgroup. In fact, 5 of the 5 (100%) successful superin-
tendents had earned doctorates, whereas only 3 of the 8 (37.5%) superintendents in
the unsuccessful subgroup had done so.
Taken together, the findings suggest that the level of educational attainment
of the superintendents in the study was more closely associated with improved
student performance outcomes than the number of years experience as a superin-
tendent (overall or within the district). However, methodological limitations pre-
vent definitive conclusions of correlation. Specifically, the small sample sizes of
both subgroups prevented any form of statistical analysis that would control for
years of professional experience or educational attainment. Nevertheless, the
findings did reveal a demographic trend between the two subgroups that warrants
further investigation.

155
Applying Similar Leadership
Functions, Strategies, and
Practices But With Varying
Degrees of Emphasis
The current study determined that the two urban superintendent subgroups
employed similar leadership functions, strategies, and practices in their effort to
improve student achievement, but each group placed greater emphasis on different
leadership functions, strategies, and practices contained within the set. For
example, both superintendent subgroups rated the same 53 (93.0%) leadership
strategies and practices on average as at least somewhat significant aspect(s)
(means of at least 3.0 out of 4.0). However, the successful urban superintendent
subgroup placed measurably greater importance (mean composite differentials of
0.33 to 0.54) on 3 of the 13 (23.1%) leadership functions: collaboration and shared
decision-making, board relations, and improving district operations. Moreover, the
respondents in the successful urban superintendent subgroup viewed 6 of the 57
(10.5%) leadership strategies and practices as at least moderately more important
aspects (mean differentials of 0.55 to 0.87) than did their less successful superin-
tendent counterparts. The successful superintendent subgroup respondents placed
measurably less significance (mean differentials of 0.35 to 0.63) on 5 of 57 (8.8%)
leadership strategies and practices on the survey questionnaire. Table 14 lists the
leadership functions, strategies, and practices with measurable differences in
emphasis. The findings of the study clearly indicate that the two subgroups used
approximately the same leadership functions, strategies, and practices but with
significant differences in the emphasis placed on a considerable number of leader-
ship functions, strategies, and practices contained within the set.
The findings of this study (with respect to the second research question) are
significant because they provide one of the few comparative analyses of the

156
leadership approaches employed by successful and unsuccessful urban superintend-
ents. In fact, of all the research reviewed for the current study, only JLARC (2004)
employed a methodology that compared the practices of high-performing
challenged districts with those of low-performing challenged districts. However,
the findings of the JLARC research study were insufficient because they focused
on district-level factors instead of the leadership approaches of the superintendents.
With the exception of the meta-analysis conducted by Waters and Marzano (2006),
all of the other research studies cited in the literature review employed some form
of qualitative methodology that examined one to multiple high-functioning urban
districts or successful urban superintendents. In doing so, the studies identified
common themes and practices believed to be responsible for improved instruction
and/or student achievement across multiple cases but could not determine whether
unsuccessful urban districts or superintendents were employing similar approaches
and achieving different performance outcomes. As a result, the findings of the
present study provide new insight on the leadership approaches of successful urban
superintendents in California.
The current study is not without its own methodological shortcomings.
First, the current study was not intended to demonstrate a causal link between the
leadership approaches of the two superintendent subgroups and their student
performance outcomes. Rather, the current methodology was used to establish a
nonstatistical hypothetical relationship between the differences in significance
placed on certain leadership functions, strategies, and practices and the correspond-
ing differences in student achievement outcomes among the two urban superintend-
ent subgroups in California. In other words, it was assumed (an assumption
common among other research studies related to student achievement) that, if

157
significant improvements in student performance are temporally associated with
district or superintendent policies and practices and the trends are generalized
across most schools in the districts, it could be argued that these policies and
practices had a positive effect on student achievement. Based on this assumption, it
was concluded in the current study that the variance in student achievement out-
comes observed between the two urban superintendent subgroups could be attri-
buted, in part, to the significant differences in importance placed on different
leadership functions, strategies, and practices used to improve student performance.
Second, the findings of the current study were limited by the inherently
small population size (N = 18) as well as by the superintendent subgroup sample
sizes. Despite the relatively high participation rate (72.2%) by the superintendents
in the population, the small sample sizes prevented the use of a chi-square statisti-
cal test to determine whether there was a statistically significant difference in the
responses by the two superintendent subgroups. As a result, the study used calcu-
lated frequencies and means to determine whether the leadership functions, strate-
gies, and practices used by the successful urban subgroup differed in relative
significance from the functions, strategies, and practices used by the subgroup of
unsuccessful superintendents. In doing so, the validity of the findings was
weakened.
The Most Essential Leaderships Functions, Strategies,
and Practices Used by the Two Successful Urban
Superintendents in California to Improve
Student Achievement
Research question 3 was written to increase the validity of the study’s over-
all findings by triangulating the qualitative findings with the quantitative survey
results and the research literature on effective urban superintendents. In addition,

158
the purpose of this research question was to provide two of the most successful
urban superintendents in California with an opportunity to elaborate on the leader-
ship functions, strategies, and practices that they thought were the most essential to
their effort to improving student achievement. The qualitative findings related to
this research question provide greater insight and detail into how the two most
successful urban superintendents in California approached improving student
achievement in their districts. The findings identified three leadership functions that
were most essential to their effort to improve student learning: (a) establishing
non-negotiable goals and targets for student achievement, (b) using data to drive
improvements in student learning, and (c) focusing on instruction. Furthermore, the
study determined several leadership strategies and practices that were associated
with each of the three leadership functions. The significant leadership functions,
strategies, and practices associated with research question 3 are identified in Table
18, with corresponding evidence from the USLSQ and/or prior research.
With the exception of the newly identified leadership function and strate-
gies, all but two of the leadership strategies—setting specific timetables for achiev-
ing the non-negotiable goals and using data to develop school improvement
plans—were included in the list of the most essential leadership functions, strate-
gies, and practices highlighted in the findings from research question 1. Thus, the
qualitative results from the interviews of the two successful Californian urban
superintendents are consistent with the quantitative findings for the five successful
urban superintendent respondents on the USLSQ. Moreover, as shown in Table 18,
the majority of the qualitative findings are supported by prior research on effective
urban superintendents. Therefore, the qualitative findings strengthen the validity of

159
Table 18

Significant Findings Related to Research Question 3: The Essential Leadership
Functions, Strategies, and Practices Reported in Interviews by the Two Most
Successful Urban Superintendents in California to Improve Student Achievement
in Their Districts

Corroborating evidence Extant research
Qualitative findings from the USLSQ
a
on effective
from the interviews (survey item number)

superintendents

1. Establishing non-negotiable goals
and targets for student achievement
a. The use of an annual goal setting
process that keeps board
members focused on student
achievement
c

b. The non-negotiable targets for
student achievement need to be
explicit and measurable no
matter if they are set at the
district- or school-level
c. Importance of communicating
the expectations of the non-
negotiable goals to everyone in
the district including school
principals
d. District superintendents and
school boards need to set specific
time-tables for achieving the
non-negotiable goals for student
performance outcomes
• Significant
d

• A New Finding

• Very Significant
Aspect (17)
b

• Very Significant
Aspect (18)
b

• Almost Significant
Aspect (21)
b

• Waters &
Marzano
(2006)
• Not available

• Murphy &
Hallinger
(1988)

• Hoyle, Bjork,
Collier, &
Glass (2005);
Waters &
Marzano
(2006)
• Waters &
Marzano
(2006)
2. Using data to drive improvements in
student learning
a. Building district’s capacity to
use data
c

b. Using data to monitor district’s
non-negotiable goals
c. Using data to identify achieve-
ment gaps, target interventions,
and direct resources
d. Using data to develop school
improvement plans
e. Using data to target professional
developments
f. Using data from formative
assessments such as common
assessments and benchmarks
• Almost Very
Significant
b,e

• Not included on the
USLSQ
• Very Significant
Aspect (38)
b

• Very Significant
Aspect (43)
b

• Almost Significant
Aspect (45)
• Very Significant
Aspect (42)
• Very Significant
Aspect (41)
b

• Massell
(2000)

• Leithwood,
Louis,
Anderson, &
Wahlstrom
(2004)
• Waters &
Marzano
(2006)

• Massell
(2000)
• Togneri &
Anderson
(2003)
• Archer
(2005)

160
Table 18 (continued)

Corroborating evidence Extant research
Qualitative findings from the USLSQ
a
on effective
from the interviews (survey item number)

superintendents

3. Focus on instruction
c

a. Endorsing a collective vision
about effective instruction
b. Direct involvement of the
superintendent in instruction
c. Using the instructional
leadership of principals to
improve instruction
d. Clearly defining what it means
for principals to be instructional
leaders
• New Function
• Very Significant
Aspect (9)
b

• Almost Very
Significant (37)
b

• Very Significant
Aspect
f

• Very Significant
Aspect (51)
• Archer
(2005)
• Petersen &
Barnett
(2005); Hoyle
et al. (2005)
• Archer
(2005)

• Petersen &
Barnett
(2005);
Cudeiro
(2005)

• Cudeiro
(2005)

a
USLSQ = Researcher-designed Urban Superintendent Leadership Survey Ques-
tionnaire.
b
Rating of a leadership function, strategy, or practice on the USLSQ that
is a close approximation of the leadership strategy or practice identified during the
interview analysis.
c
A qualitative interview finding that does not correspond to a
leadership function, strategy, or practice on the USLSQ or a finding in the extant
research base reviewed for the current study.
d
Corresponds to the leadership func-
tion of non-negotiable goals for achievement and instruction, which was rated as
significant (composite mean of 3.6 out of 4.0).
e
Corresponds to the leadership func-
tion of using data, which was rated as almost very significant (composite mean of
3.8 out of 4.0).
f
Corresponds to the leadership function of principals as instruc-
tional leaders, which was rated as very significant (composite mean of 4.0 out of
4.0).

the overall findings of the study by triangulating both the quantitative results of the
USLSQ and the extant research on effective superintendents.
The qualitative findings related to research question 3 are significant
because they provide greater detail and insight into how the two most successful
urban superintendents in California applied the three leadership functions that they

161
believed were most essential for improving student achievement in their districts.
In essence, the qualitative findings described in Table 18 triangulate and add
substance to the significant quantitative findings associated with research question
1, which identified the 45 leadership strategies and practices rated as most signi-
ficant by the successful urban superintendent respondents. Moreover, the qualitat-
ive findings are significant because they identify two additional leadership strate-
gies and one leadership function thought to have been associated with improve-
ments in student achievement but not included on the USLSQ: (a) establishing an
annual goal setting process that keeps school board members focused on student
achievement, and (b) building the district’s capacity to use data. The new leader-
ship function was a focus on instruction. The results of this study not only add to
the research base on effective urban superintendents; they also serve as an import-
ant resource for urban superintendents who are seeking best-practice solutions for
meeting the rigorous student achievement standards set by NCLB.
Recommended Leadership Strategies for Newly
Hired Urban Superintendent Charged With
Improving Student Achievement
Similar to the research findings reported by Snipes et al. (2002), the current
study leads to the conclusion that certain leadership preconditions must occur
before additional leadership strategies or practices can be employed effectively by
urban superintendents to improve student achievement in their respective school
districts. This study refers to these leadership preconditions as first-order leader-
ship strategies or practices and the subsequent strategies and practices as second-
order leadership strategies or practices.

162
The purpose of research question 4 was to ascertain what first-order leader-
ship strategies and practices were recommended by the two successful urban super-
intendent interviewees. This portion of the study was designed to provide newly
hired urban superintendents charged with improving student achievement with
best-practice recommendations for how to successfully begin this challenging and
complex process.
The study results identified two significant first-order leadership strategies
that were recommended by the two successful urban superintendent interviewees:
(a) building superintendent-board relationships, and (b) assessing the instructional
strengths and weaknesses of the district. The major findings are summarized in
Table 19, with the corroborating evidence from the USLSQ and the extant research
on effective superintendents.
The findings of the present study related to research question 4 are import-
ant because they provide newly hired urban superintendents with practical leader-
ship strategies and applications to employ as they begin the complex and perilous
process of improving student achievement in their districts. The abysmal success
rate of urban superintendents in California and across the country, as evidenced by
the number of urban districts that have failed repeatedly to meet their AYP (Archer,
2005) and high urban superintendent turnover (Hoyle et al., 2005), demonstrates
the urgency with which new urban superintendents need practical strategies to help
them to sustain early leadership victories. While arguably common sense, the two
recommendations distilled from the interviewees provide new urban superintend-
ents with applicable strategies for starting the process of improving student
learning.

163
Table 19

Recommended First-Order Leadership Strategies for Newly Hired Urban Superin-
tendents Charged With Improving Student Achievement in their Districts and the
Corroborating Evidence From the Survey Questionnaire (USLSQ) and Prior
Research

Recommended Recommended
first-order Supporting evidence Supporting evidence application of the
leadership strategy from the USLSQ
a
from prior research leadership strategy

Building
superintendent-
board relationships
• Although con-
sidered second
order, leadership
function of board
relations was
rated moderately
higher than signi-
ficant (composite
mean of 3.76 out
of 4.0)
b

• JLARC (2004)
• Togneri &
Anderson (2003)
• Waters &
Marzano (2006)
• Effective com-
munication tech-
niques with the
board to clarify
their roles and
responsibilities
• Taking different
approaches with
individual board
members while
communicating
same message
• A mutual policy of
“no surprises”
Assessing the
instructional
strengths and
weaknesses of the
district
• The leadership
strategy of work-
ing with board to
assess strengths
and weaknesses
of the district was
rated as a very
significant aspect
(mean of 4.0)
• The leadership
strategy of work-
ing with board to
analyze factors
affecting student
achievement was
rated as a “signifi-
cant” aspect
(mean of 3.6)
• Waters &
Marzano (2006)
• Waters &
Marzano (2006)
• Meeting with 25-
30 important
people recom-
mended by each
board member
• “Planned conver-
sations” with
individual board
members and
school principals
(four questions
c
)
• Collect many
points of view on
instructional pro-
gram by meeting
with important
personnel through-
out the school
district
d

164
Table 19 (continued)

a
USLSQ = Researcher-designed Urban Superintendent Leadership Survey Ques-
tionnaire.
b
The current study maintained that the effectiveness of the leadership
strategies and practices that made up the leadership function of board relations
were contingent on the first-order leadership strategy of building superintendent-
board relationships. As a result, they were considered second-order leadership
strategies and practices.
c
The four questions were as follows: What is right with
the district? What is wrong with the district? How can I help you work more
effectively in the district? and What are you willing to do to help me?
d
This newly
identified leadership strategy that was not included on the USLSQ. The finding
indicates that new urban superintendents must extend their analysis of instructional
program beyond working with the school board to include important district
personnel.

The findings of the study related to research question 4 are also significant
because they validate the concept of first-order leadership strategies and practices
(leadership preconditions) as identified by Snipes et al. (2002). In other words, the
findings provide evidence consistent with the theory that urban school superin-
tendents need to execute certain leadership strategies (first-order/preconditions)
effectively before they can employ additional leadership strategies and practices
that, in turn, may lead to improved student achievement across the district.
Implications for Practice
Urban Superintendents
Leadership by urban superintendents matters in improving student learning
outcomes (Waters & Marzano, 2006). However, until the present study, under-
standing of how urban superintendent leadership matters in the NCLB-era of high-
stakes accountability has remained largely nonexistent or has depended on outdated
research. Mounting pressure from federal and state departments of education,
boards of education, and community stakeholders to improve achievement for all
students necessitates current research that elucidates what leadership approaches

165
successful urban superintendents have used to improve student achievement. Thus,
the findings of the current study have important implications for urban school
district superintendents who are looking for ways to meet the demanding expecta-
tions set forth by NCLB.
Through a mixed-methods approach, this research study has developed the
most current and comprehensive findings regarding the essential leadership
functions, strategies, and practices used by successful urban superintendents in
California to improve student achievement since NCLB was enacted. Conducting a
comparative analysis of the leadership approaches of 5 successful and 8 unsuccess-
ful urban superintendents in California via the USLSQ, the study identified several
key areas of difference in the emphasis placed on leadership functions, strategies,
and practices. The researcher posits that these differences might explain at least
part of the observed variance in student achievement outcomes between the two
superintendent subgroups in California. Qualitative findings from the interviews
with the two most successful urban superintendents in California provide newly
hired urban superintendents with practical leadership strategies and applications for
beginning the complex process of improving student achievement. As a whole,
these findings give urban superintendents clear and practical best-practice leader-
ship strategies and practices for making their leadership matter where it is needed
most—improving student learning outcomes in their districts.
A synthesis of the current research findings indicates that urban superin-
tendents should employ the following leadership functions, strategies, and practices
to improve student achievement in their districts:
1. Creating a shared vision and setting direction: an urban superintendent
leadership function that entails (a) emphasizing that instruction is the key to

166
improving student achievement, (b) creating a sense of urgency for improving
student achievement, and (c) identifying and endorsing a collective vision that
embodies the best thinking about teaching and learning.
2. Developing and supporting principals as instructional leaders: a super-
intendent leadership function that involves (a) using professional development to
strengthen the instructional leadership of principals, (b) defining clearly what it
means for a principals to be an instructional leaders, and (c) supporting the instruc-
tional leadership of principals by restructuring the central office to provide help,
support and coaching for principals.
3. Setting clear, non-negotiable goals for learning and instruction while
providing schools leadership teams with the responsibility and authority for
determining how to meet the goals (defined autonomy): an urban superintendent
leadership function that requires (a) ensuring that schools have a clear mission
focused on student performance, (b) ensuring that schools are using standards for
content and instructions, and (c) ensuring that principals are speaking with teachers
about performance results.
4. Establishing non-negotiable goals and targets for student achievement:
a superintendent leadership function that involves (a) using an annual goal setting
process that keeps board members focused on student achievement, (b) including
key community members and school principals in the non-negotiable goal setting
process, (c) communicating expectations to everyone in the district, and (d) work-
ing with the school board to set specific timetables for achieving the non-negotiable
goals.
5. Using data to improve student learning: an urban superintendent
leadership function that entails (a) building the district’s capacity to use data,

167
(b) assessing the instructional strengths and weaknesses of the district, (c) monitor-
ing the district’s non-negotiable goals, (d) using data to identify achievement gaps,
target interventions, direct resources, and assign school personnel, (e) developing
school improvement plans based on data, (f) using data to target professional
development, and (g) using data from district-wide formative assessments to drive
instructional improvements.
6. Cultivating board relations: an urban superintendent leadership function
that includes (a) building superintendent-board member relationships, (b) working
with the school board to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the district,
(c) working with the board to analyze the factors affecting student achievement,
and (d) reporting achievement data to the board on a regular basis.
7. Improving district operations: a urban superintendent leadership function
that requires (a) improving the management side of business operations to increase
student achievement, (b) changing the focus of the central office from manager to
support provider, and (c) creating organizational structures that support the
district’s instructional vision.
Local Boards of Education
The findings of this research study also benefit local boards of education
who either seek to hire new superintendents or evaluate sitting school superintend-
ents. In most instances, school board members are elected officials, under greater
pressure from community stakeholders to improve achievement for all students in
their district. To do so, urban school board members often seek solutions in the
form of school superintendents whom they believe possess the leadership knowl-
edge and skills necessary to transform underperforming school systems. Given the

168
large number of urban districts failing repeatedly to make AYP and the high urban
superintendent turnover rate, it appears that finding such solutions is an allusive
endeavor. However, urban public school board members who utilize the findings
stated above during their search for candidates may be more successful because
they will have a keener understanding of the essential leadership knowledge and
skills that superintendents must possess to improve student achievement. In
addition, once an urban superintendent is hired, the research findings give school
board members criteria by which to evaluate the superintendent’s effectiveness.
More specifically, school boards need to use the findings of this research
study to develop an evaluation tool that aids them in accurately measuring the
ability of potential or acting urban superintendents to (a) articulate and endorse a
collective vision of good teaching, (b) cultivate the instructional leadership of
school principals, (c) create an inclusive process for setting non-negotiable goals
for instruction and student achievement, (d) use data to drive improvements in
instruction and student learning, (e) work with board members both individually
and collectively, and (f) redesign the district to better support the needs of
individual schools and the instructional vision.
Professional Standards
The findings of this study should be used to update professional standards
developed by professional organizations such as AASA and ISLLC. These
standards have played a seminal role in guiding improvements in professional
preparation programs and providing templates for reviewing state credentials for
licensure (Hoyle et al., 2005). The most recent standards, which synthesized the
earlier standards set forth by AASA and ISLLC, were released in 2002 by the

169
NCATE. Given that these influential standards were written and released before the
full effects of NCLB on the urban superintendency could be determined, it is time
to revisit and revise their contents to reflect the growing demand for instructional
leadership. Ultimately, the professional organizations that lead the revision process
must ensure that the most current findings, including those of this study, are
reflected in the revised standards. This would ensure that the future standards that
will be used to drive improvement in professional preparation programs and state
licensure requirements will reflect the best understanding of the superintendency.
Graduate and Professional Preparation Programs
The results of this study also provide graduate schools of education and
superintendent preparation programs with greater insight into the leadership skills,
knowledge, and expertise that aspiring urban superintendents must develop and
hone to be successful. While schools of education and professional preparation
programs are often maligned, the results of this study showed that all of the partici-
pating successful Californian urban superintendents possessed a doctorate, whereas
only 3 of the 8 unsuccessful respondents had reached the same level of education.
Although the methodology of the study precludes any statement of correlation, the
finding is nevertheless interesting and warrants further investigation. In the mean-
time, graduate schools of education and superintendent preparation programs
should incorporate the significant findings of this study into their course curricu-
lums so that all future superintendents possess the most current leadership knowl-
edge and skill sets. In doing so, graduate schools of education will become more
effective at producing qualified and capable candidates for the superintendency.

170
Implications for Research
The findings of the current research study make significant contributions to
the research base on urban superintendent leadership and student achievement.
Prior to this study, little was known about how urban superintendents improved
student achievement in the NCLB era of high-stakes accountability. This remained
true, until now, despite the fact that many had argued that the increased pressure
placed on urban superintendents by states, boards of education, and local stake-
holders fundamentally altered the position of the superintendent and how the super-
intendent leads. The current findings provide greater insight into (a) the leadership
functions, strategies, and practices used by successful urban superintendents in
California to improve student achievement in their districts; (b) how the leadership
approaches of successful urban superintendents in California differed from that of
their less successful counterparts; and (c) how newly hired urban superintendents
should start the process of improving student learning.
Although this study has made important contributions to the knowledge
base on urban superintendency and leadership, several issues warrant further
investigation. First, due to the inherently small population sizes of the successful
and unsuccessful Californian urban superintendent subgroups, the study could not
utilize a chi-square test to determine whether there were statistically significant
differences between the subgroup response means for the leadership functions,
strategies, and practices included on the USLSQ. As a result, the researcher was
forced to make judgments regarding significance based on predetermined qualifica-
tions, which may or may not have corresponded with statistical significance. To
correct this shortcoming, future research projects must be large enough in scope
(perhaps regional or national) to include a sufficient number of urban

171
superintendents in each subgroup to allow for rigorous statistical analyses. While
such an undertaking is sure to require substantial resources in terms of people, time,
and money, the gains in understanding could have profound influence on the
effectiveness of urban superintendent leadership across the United States, and in
turn the performance outcomes of the students served by those superintendents.
If statistically significant differences are found between successful and
unsuccessful urban superintendent subgroups, then researchers should follow up
those quantitative findings with in-depth qualitative interviews with randomly
selected superintendents. The purpose of the interviews would be to glean greater
understanding of how the leadership strategies and/or practices were employed
across the two subgroups and to determine whether there were significant differ-
ences in the approaches. The broad trends and themes derived from the qualitative
portion of the study would provide more contextual details and insights, which may
better support other urban superintendents as they tried to implement the identified
best-practice findings.
As part of this larger research project, further quantitative analysis should
be conducted to examine the relationship between the educational attainment of
urban superintendents and their ability to increase student achievement as measured
by AYP. In other words, with sufficient urban superintendent sample sizes (both
successful and unsuccessful), the research study could determine whether there is a
positive correlation between the educational attainment of an urban superintendent
and the district consistently achieving AYP. The outcome of this research could
have far-reaching implications for professional preparation programs and state
licensure requirements.

172
There is a need for further research on whether the sequencing of leadership
strategies and practices influences the effectiveness of the urban superintendent’s
overall leadership approach to improving student achievement. Given the findings
regarding first- and second-order leadership strategies and practices, it is necessary
to ascertain whether it is possible for urban superintendents to apply equal empha-
sis to the same set of leadership strategies but employ them in different chronologi-
cal sequences that result in similar student performance outcomes.

173
REFERENCES
Asera, R., Johnson, J., Ragland, M., & Joseph, J. (1999). Urgency, responsibility,
efficacy: Preliminary findings of a study of high-performing Texas school
districts. Austin, TX: University of Texas at Austin, Charles A. Dana
Center.
Archer, J. (2005, September 13). Guiding hand. Education Week, 25(3), S5-S8,
S10.
Archer, J. (2006, September 13). Building capacity—Leading for learning: States
are taking on new roles as they provide support for low-performing schools
and districts. Education Week [Electronic version]. Retrieved March 21,
2007 from Edweek.org.
Bass, B. M., & Avolio, B. J. (1994). Improving organizational effectiveness
through transformational leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Bjork, L. (1993). Effective schools, effective superintendents: The emerging in-
structional leadership role. Journal of School Leadership, 3, 246-259.
Bjork, L. (1996). The revisionists’ critique of the education reform reports. Journal
of School Leadership, 7, 290-315.
Bjork, L., Glass, T., & Brunner, C. C. (2005). Characteristics of American school
superintendents. In L. G. Bjork & T. J. Kowalski (Eds.), The contemporary
superintendent: Preparation, practice and development (pp. 19-44). Thou-
sand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (1997). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice,
and leadership (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Bredeson, P. V. (1996). Superintendent’s role in curriculum development and in-
structional leadership: Instructional visionaries, collaborators, supporters,
and delegators. Journal of School Leadership, 6, 243-264.
Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper & Row.
Carter, G. R., & Cunningham, W. G. (1997). The American school superintendent:
Leading in an age of pressure. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Chubb, J. E., & Moe, T. M. (1990). Politics, markets, and America’s schools.
Washington, DC: Brookings Institute.
Coleman, P., & LaRocque, L. (1990). Struggling to be good enough: Administra-
tive practices and school district ethos. London, UK: Falmer Press.
Cuban, L. (1998). The superintendent contradiction. Education Week, 18(7), 56.

174
Cudeiro, A. (2005). Leading student achievement: A study finds superintendents
affecting instructional gains through their strong relationship with princi-
pals. School Administrator, 62(11), 16-19.
DiPaola, M., & Stronge, J. H. (2001). Superintendent evaluation in a standards-
based environment: A status report from the states. Journal of Personnel
Evaluation in Education, 15(2), 97-110.
EDSource. (2004). California’s school accountability system under the federal
No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Retrieved February 21, 2007, from
http://www.edsource.org/edu_nclb.cfm
Fuller, H. L., Campbell, C., Celio, M. B., Harvey, J., Immerwahr, J., & Winger, A.
(2003). An impossible job? The view from the urban superintendent’s chair.
Seattle: University of Washington, Center on Reinventing Public Educa-
tion.
Fusarelli, L. D. (2004). The potential impact of No Child Left Behind Act on equity
and diversity in American education. Educational Policy, 18, 71.
Gall, M., Borg, W., & Gall, J. (1996). Educational research: An introduction (6th
ed.). New York: Longman.
Glass, T. E. (1992). The study of the American school superintendency: America’s
education leaders in a time of reform. Arlington, VA: American Associa-
tion of School Administrators.
Glass, T. E., Bjork, L., & Brunner, C. C. (2000). The study of the American school
superintendency, 2000: A look at the superintendent of education in the new
millennium. Arlington, VA: American Association of School Administra-
tors.
Goodman, R. H., & Zimmerman, W. G., Jr. (2000). Thinking differently: Recom-
mendations for 21st-century school board/superintendent leadership, gov-
ernance, and teamwork for high student achievement. Marlborough, MA:
New England School Development Council.
Greene, J. C., Caracelli, V. J., & Graham, W. F. (1989). Toward a conceptual
framework for mixed-method evaluation designs. Educational Evaluation
and Policy Analysis, 11, 255-274.
Gulek, C. (2003). Preparing for high-stakes testing. Theory Into Practice, 42(1),
42-50.
Herman, J. L. (1990, November). Instructional leadership skills and competencies
of public school superintendents: Implications for preparation programs in
a climate of shared governance. Paper presented at the Southern Regional
Council on Educational Administration Conference, Atlanta. (ERIC Docu-
ment Reproduction Service No. ED 328 980)

175
Hoyle, J. R., Bjork, L. G., Collier, V. P., & Glass, T. (2005). The superintendent as
CEO. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Jencks, C., & Phillips, M. (Eds.). (1998). The Black-White test score gap. Wash-
ington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
Johnson, S. M. (1996). Leading to change: The challenge of the new superin-
tendency. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission. (2004). Review of factors and
practices associated with school performance in Virginia (Senate Docu-
ment No. 8). Richmond, VA: Author.
Kearney, K. (2005). Guiding improvements in principal performance. Leadership,
35(1), 19-21.
Kowalski, T. J. (2006). The school superintendent: Theory, practice, and cases
(2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Lashway, L. (2002). The superintendent in an age of accountability. Retrieved
January 25, 2008, from http://eric.uoregon.edu/publications/digests/
digest161.html
Leithwood, K. A. (1994). Leadership for school restructuring. Educational Ad-
ministration Quarterly, 30, 498-518.
Leithwood, K. A. (Ed.). (1995). Effective school district leadership: Transforming
politics into education. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Leithwood, K. A., & Jantzi, D. (1999). Transformational school leadership effects:
A replication. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 10, 451-479.
Leithwood, K. A., Louis, K. S., Anderson, S., & Wahlstrom, K. (2004). How lead-
ership influences student learning: Review of research. Minneapolis: Uni-
versity of Minnesota, Center for Applied Research and Educational
Improvement.
Leithwood, K. A., & Riehl, C. (2003). What we know about successful school lead-
ership. Nottingham, UK: National College for School Leadership.
Lytle, J. H. (2007, February 7). The snake in the “No Child Left Behind” woodpile.
Education Week [Electronic version]. Retrieved March 21, 2007, from
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2007/02/07/22lytle.html
Marzano, R. J., Waters, T. J., & McNulty, B. A. (2005). School leadership that
works: From research to results. Aurora, CO: Mid-Continent Research for
Education and Learning.

176
Massell, D. (2000). The district role in building capacity: Four strategies (CPRE
Policy Briefs RB-32). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, Graduate
School of Education. Consortium for Policy Research in Education.
McEwan, E. K., & McEwan, P. J. (2003). Making sense of research: What’s good,
what’s not, and how to tell the difference. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Mocek, R. C. (2002). The influence of educational administrators’ leadership be-
havior on student achievement in reading. Unpublished doctoral disserta-
tion, Northern Illinois University.
Moore, A. D., Dexter, R. R., Berube, W. G., & Beck, C. H. (2005). Student as-
sessment: What do superintendents need to know? Planning and Changing,
36(1-2), 68-89.
Morgan, C., & Petersen, G. J. (2002). The superintendent’s role in leading aca-
demically effective school districts. In B. S. Cooper & L. D. Fusarelli
(Eds.), The promise and perils of the modern superintendency (pp. 175-
196). Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
Muller, R. W. (1989). Instructional leadership superintendent competencies related
to student achievement. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of
Texas at Austin.
Mullins, A., & Keedy, J. (1998, April). Examining a superintendent’s transforma-
tional leadership: From the model to successful practice. Paper presented at
the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association,
San Diego, CA.
Murphy, J., & Hallinger, P. (1986). The superintendent as instructional leader:
Findings from effective school districts. Journal of Educational Ad-
ministration, 24, 213-236.
Murphy, J., & Hallinger, P. (1988). Characteristics of instructionally effective
school districts. Journal of Educational Research, 81, 175-181.
National Center for Educational Statistics. (2001). Characteristics of the 100
largest public elementary and secondary districts in the United States:
1999-2000. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.
Northouse, P. G. (2004). Leadership: Theory and practice (3rd ed.). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Norton, M. S., Webb, D. L., Dlugosh, L. L., & Sybouts, W. (1996). The school
superintendency: New responsibilities, new leadership. Boston: Allyn and
Bacon.
O’Day, J., Bitter, C., & Perry, M. (2003). California’s Public Schools Accountabil-
ity Act (PSAA): Evaluation findings and implications. Washington, DC:
American Institutes for Research.

177
Orfield, G., & Lee, C. (2005). Why segregation matters: Poverty and educational
inequality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, The Civil Rights Project.
Owen, J. C. (1998, April). The roles of the superintendent in creating a community
climate for educational improvement. Paper presented at the Annual Meet-
ing of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego, CA.
Paine, S. L. (2002). The relationship of superintendent instructional leadership
behavior and student achievement in high-performing High Schools That
Work Network public high schools in West Virginia. Unpublished doctoral
dissertation, West Virginia University.
Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3rd ed.). Thou-
sand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Petersen, G. J. (1998, April). Demonstrated actions of instructional leaders: A case
study of five superintendents. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the
American Educational Research Association, San Diego, CA.
Petersen, G. J. (2002). Singing the same tune: Principals’ and school board mem-
bers’ perceptions of the superintendent’s role in curricular and instructional
leadership. Journal of Educational Administration, 40, 158-171.
Petersen, G. J., & Barnett, B. G. (2005). The superintendent as instructional leader:
Current practice, future conceptualizations, and implications for prepara-
tion. In L. G. Bjork & T. J. Kowalski (Eds.), The contemporary superinten-
dent: Preparation, practice and development (pp. 109-138). Thousand
Oaks, California: Corwin.
Peterson, K. D. (1984). Mechanisms of administrative control over managers in
educational organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 29, 573-597.
Peterson, K. D., Murphy, J., & Hallinger, P. (1987). Superintendents’ perceptions
of the control and coordination of the technical core in effective school dis-
tricts. Educational Administration Quarterly, 23(1), 79-95.
Ratner, G. M. (2007). Why the No Child Left Behind Act needs to be restructured
to accomplish its goals and how to do it. University of the District of
Columbia Law Review, 9, 1-45.
Rea, L. M., & Parker, R. A. (2005). Designing and conducting survey research: A
comprehensive guide (3rd ed.). San Francisco: Wiley.
Snipes, J., Doolittle, F., & Herlihy, C. (2002). Foundations for success: Case
studies of how urban school systems improve student achievement. Wash-
ington, DC: Council of the Great City Schools.
Spillane, J. P. (1996). Districts matter: Local educational authorities and state in-
structional policy. Educational Policy, 10, 63-87.

178
Spillane, J. P., Halverson, R., & Diamond, J. B. (2003). Distributed leadership:
Towards a theory of school leadership practice. Evanston, IL: Northwestern
University, Distributed Leadership Study.
Spillane, J. P., & Sherer, J. Z. (2004). A distributive perspective on school leader-
ship: Leadership practices as stretched over people and place. Evanston,
IL: Northwestern University, Distributed Leadership Study.
Togneri, W., & Anderson, S. (2003). Beyond Islands of Excellence: What districts
can do to improve instruction and achievement in all schools. Washington,
DC: Learning First Alliance.
Trump, J. M. (1986). What hinders or prevents superintendents from working on
instructional improvement? (Unpublished report). (ERIC Document Repro-
duction Service No. ED 284 366)
U.S. Census Bureau. (2007). Earnings gap highlighted by the Census Bureau data
on educational attainment (CB07-40). Washington, DC: U.S. Department
of Commerce. Retrieved March 21, 2007 from http://www.census.gov/
Press-Release/www/releases/archives/education/009749.html
Usdan, M. D., & Cronin, J. M. (2003, April). Rethinking the urban school superin-
tendency: Nontraditional leaders and new models of leadership. Paper pre-
sented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Asso-
ciation, Chicago.
Vaughan, N. K. (2002). The relationship between student performance and the
leadership behavior of superintendents in Texas public school districts.
(Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Texas A&M University)
Waters, T. J., & Cameron, G. (2006). The balanced leadership framework: Con-
necting vision with action. Denver, CO: Mid-Continent Research for Edu-
cation and Learning (MCREL).
Waters, T. J., & Marzano, R. J. (2006). School district leadership that works: The
effect of superintendent leadership on student achievement—A working
paper. Denver, CO: Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning
(MCREL).
WestEd. (2003). District implementation of No Child Left Behind. San Francisco:
J. W. Lewis.
Wirt, F. (1990). The missing link in instructional leadership: The superintendent,
conflict, and maintenance: Project report. Urbana, IL: National Center for
School Leadership.

179
APPENDIX A

Urban Superintendent Leadership
Survey Variable Construct

Variable/Function Leadership Practice/Strategy Evidence
Shared
Vision/Setting
Direction
• Building a shared vision of the district
• Possession and articulation of an instruc-
tional vision
• Having a vision for instruction
• Shared vision of the organization
• Establish a clear focus on attaining high
standards of student achievement
• Emphasize strong instruction as a key to
improving student learning
• Identifying, articulating, and endorsing a
collective vision that embodies the best
thinking about teaching and learning
• Facilitate and nurture a shared meaning
among all educational stakeholders about
the district vision
• Creating a sense of urgency for the
improvement of student achievement
• Maintaining a clear focus and vision for
improvement
• Establishing a district-wide vision centered
on meeting the learning needs of all students
and tying district goals for student per-
formance to the vision
• Leithwood, 1994
• Petersen & Barnett,
2005

• Petersen & Barnett,
2005
• Leithwood et al.
• Murphy & Hallinger,
1988
• Leithwood et al.

• Hoyle et al., 2005

• Leithwood & Riehl,
2003

• Asera et al., 1999

• Aesera et al.
• Cudeiro, 2005

Board Relations • Ensure that the board of education remains
committed to the non-negotiable goals
• Establish agreement with the board presi-
dent on the district goals and on the type
and nature of non-negotiable goals
• Establish agreement with the board presi-
dent on the nature of instructional strategies
to be used in the district
• Provide professional development for board
members
• Reporting data to the board on regular basis
• Collaboration between board and
superintendent
• Work with the board to analyze factors
affecting student achievement
• Work with the board to assess the strengths
and weaknesses of the district
• Work with the board to consider district
options and strategies
• Waters & Marzano,
2007

• JLARC, 2004

• Togneri & Anderson,
2003

180

Collaboration and
Shared Decision-
Making Processes
• Collaboratively develop goals with the
school board
• Involve the community in goal setting
• Meaningful collaboration with others
• Build collaborative processes
• Collaboration between superintendent and
school board
• Using shared decision-making to foster an
environment that places academic achieve-
ment as the top-priority
• Build shard decision-making power by
developing site-based management capacity
of schools within the district
• Collaboration between superintendent and
board is paramount
• Include all relevant stakeholders—the cen-
tral office staff, building-level administra-
tors, and board members—in establishing
non-negotiable goals for the district
• Petersen & Barnett,
2005

• Petersen & Barnett,
2005

• Spillane & Sherer,
2004
• Hoyle et al., 2005
• JLARC, 2004

• Asera et al. 1999

• Mullins & Keedy,
1998
• JLARC, 2004

• Waters & Marzano,
2007
Non-Negotiable
Goals for
Achievement and
Instruction
• Creating and aligning district goals
• Articulating clear goals for curriculum and
instruction
• Explicit goals and targets for student per-
formance
• Foster acceptance of group goals
• Establish shared goals that are non-negotia-
ble
• Develop a shared vision for the goal setting
process
• Using the goal setting process to set goals
developed jointly by the board and ad-
ministration
• Communicating expectations to central
office and principals
• Establish clear priorities among the instruc-
tional goals and objectives
• Incorporating a variety of instructional
strategies that allow for differences in
learning styles
• Adopting a 5-year non-negotiable plan for
achievement and instruction
• Ensuring that the preferred instructional
strategies are proficiently implemented
• District use goals to build consensus and
rally support
• Districts set specific time-tables for meeting
goals and targets
• Leithwood, 1994
• Murphy & Hallinger,
1986
• Murphy & Hallinger,
1988
• Hoyle et al. 2005
• Waters & Marzano,
2007

Togneri & Anderson,
2003

181

Selling Reform • Listens extensively to community needs

• Exclaim urgency, high standards, and no
excuses
• Creating a sense of urgency for the
improvement of academic achievement
• Communicating expectations to central
office and principals
• Communicating district expectations
• Effectively communicate with diverse stake-
holders
• Togneri & Anderson,
2003

• Asera et al, 1999

• Waters & Marzano,
2007
• Petersen, 2005
• Hoyle et al., 2005
Communication • Maintain regular communication with stake-
holders within the community
• Maintain regular communication with the
board of education
• Maintain regular communication with
campus principals
• Communicate expectations
• Articulate district vision and priorities
• Collaborates and shares information
• Dissertation
Developing People
through
Professional
Development and
Support
• Providing individualized support and devel-
opment opportunities
• Development of instructional personnel
• Developing instructional practices
• Develop leadership capacity of people

• Develop instructional capacity of schools
and the district
• Develop professional development that
moves beyond traditional one-day work-
shops
• Intellectual stimulation and modeling shared
beliefs
• Develop principals as instructional leaders
• Develop a uniform professional develop-
ment built on curriculum
• Focuses professional development on class-
room practices
• Provide teacher support when needed
• Training for teachers and principals on
using performance data
• Induction program for new teachers
• Leithwood, 1994

• Herman, 1990
• Petersen & Barnett,
2005
• Spillane & Sherer,
2004
• Leithwood et al., 2004
• Leithwood et al. 2004;
Togneri & Anderson,
2003
• Leithwood & Riehl,
2003
• Cudeiro, 2005
• Togneri & Anderson,
2003

• Archer, 2005
Selecting Personnel • Control over who is assigned what position
• Recruiting and hiring effective teachers and
administrators
• Assignment of instructional personnel
• Selecting personnel
• Using data to assign personnel
• Petersen, 1984
• Murphy & Hallinger,
1986
• Herman, 1990
• Petersen & Barnett,
2005
• Massell, 2000

182

Creating
Accountability
• District goes beyond the state accountability
system
• Senior staff are placed on performance
contracts tied to district goals
• School principals are placed on performance
contracts tied to district goals
• Create a system of rewards and recognition
for progress on goals and targets
• Establish high expectations for student and
adult learning
• Output control through student achievement
testing
• Supervising and evaluating principals

• Monitoring the district’s goals for curricu-
lum and instruction
• Assessment and evaluation of personnel and
instructional programs
• Evaluating instructional effectiveness
• Evaluate and monitoring
• Extend performance standards beyond
schools and students to include areas of
reform such as instruction, principal leader-
ship, and professional development
• Directly involved in monitoring the per-
formance of their schools by visiting school
sites and meeting with principals
• Holding principals accountable for instruc-
tional leadership by implementing site visits
and walkthroughs which are followed with
feedback
• Monitoring goals for achievement and in-
struction
• Using an instructional evaluation program

• Monitoring achievement through feedback
from the instructional program
• Annual evaluating principals
• Reporting evaluation data to the school
board on a regular basis
• Observing classrooms during school visits
• Instructional Walkthroughs
• Togneri & Anderson,
2003

• Leithwood, 1994

• Peterson, 1984

• Murphy & Hallinger,
1986
• Murphy & Hallinger,
1986
• Petersen, 1998

• Petersen & Barnett,
2005
• Togneri & Anderson,
2003

• Murphy & Hallinger,
1988

• Cudeiro, 2005

• Waters & Marzano,
2007

• Archer, 2005

183

Using Data • Uses data extensively to monitor system and
school progress
• Assesses student progress throughout the
school year
• Dissaggregates data in numerous ways
• Provides training in interpretation and use of
test score results
• Uses data to target professional develop-
ment
• Uses data to target interventions
• Spend considerable amounts of time, effort,
and money to develop district capacity to
assess the performance of students, teachers,
and schools
• Develop and use assessments to inform
decision-making about areas of need and
strategies for improvement
• Use data to plan professional development,
identify achievement gaps, align curriculum
and instruction, assign and evaluate person-
nel, target interventions, and evaluate pro-
grams
• Adjusts instruction based on district-wide
assessments
• Administer own district-wide assessments
• Togneri & Anderson,
2003

• Leithwood et al. 2004

• Massell, 2000

• Archer, 2005

Unifying
Curriculum and
Instruction
• Develops and adopts uniform curriculum or
frameworks for instruction
• Uses more prescriptive reading and math
curriculum or tight frameworks
• Differentiates instruction and provides ex-
tended time
• District curriculum is explicitly aligned to
state standards and assessment
• Has clear grade-to-grade alignment in cur-
riculum
• Use scientifically-based reading curriculum
• Develops and uses pacing guides for class-
room teachers
• Planning for the instructional program
• Planning for instruction
• Establish district-wide curricula and instruc-
tional strategies
• Common district curriculum
• Same mathematics program across the
district
• Same reading program across the district
• Togneri & Anderson,
2003

• Herman, 1990
• Petersen & Barnett,
2005
• Leithwood et al., 2004
• Archer, 2005

184

Principals as
Instructional
Leaders
• Development of instructional personnel
• Development of principals as instructional
leaders
• Intensive long-tem investment in developing
instructional leadership capacity
• Establishing a clearly defined
conceptualization of what it means for prin-
cipals to be instructional leaders and
standards tied to evaluation
• Holding principals accountable for instruc-
tional leadership by implementing site visits
and walkthroughs with follow up feedback
• Support for the instructional leadership of
principals by reorganizing the work of
central office so that staff members provide
help, support, and coaching to principals
• Providing targeted professional develop-
ment in the areas of instructional supervi-
sion, using data to make decisions and drive
instruction, creating target professional de-
velopment tied to measurable student
learning goals, and building learning com-
munities
• Herman, 1990
• Petersen & Barnett,
2005
• Leithwood et al., 2004
• Cudeiro, 2005
Improving
Operations
• Revamps business office to be more effec-
tive
• Central office develops a new sense of cus-
tomer service with schools
• Create organizational structures that support
authentic shared decision-making
• Creation of organizational structures that
support the district instructional vision
• Decentralize considerable autonomy to
individual sites
• Changing the role of the central office from
managerial to that of support provider
• Togneri & Anderson,
2003

• Leithwood, 1994

• Petersen, 1998

• Leithwood et al., 2004
• Asera et al., 1999
Facilitating
Instruction through
the Budget
• Pursues funds to initiate reforms and launch
priorities
• Shifts funds into instructional priorities
• Financial planning for instruction

• Facilitating instruction through the budget

• Long-term investment in developing the
instructional capacity of the district

• Ensure that the necessary resources includ-
ing time, money, personnel, and materials
are allocated to accomplish the district’s
goals
• Controlling resource allocation
• Togneri & Anderson,
2003

• Murphy & Hallinger,
1986
• Petersen & Barnett,
2005
• Leithwood et al., 2004

• Waters & Marzano,
2007

185
• Adopting a resource management system
that supports the instructional philosophy of
the district
Defined Autonomy • Provide autonomy to principals to lead their
schools, but expect alignment of district
goals and use of resources for professional
development
• Develop a shared vision and understanding
of defined autonomy
• Using standards for content and instruction
as the basic design principles
• Screening, interviewing, and selecting
teachers along with principals
• Establishing teacher evaluations as priority
for principals
• Maintaining high expectations for school
performance
• Expecting principals to fulfill instructional
leadership responsibilities
• Developing principals awareness of district
goals and actions directed at goal accom-
plishment

• Waters & Marzano,
2007; Leithwood et al.,
2004

186
APPENDIX B

Urban Superintendent Leadership Strategies and Practices
for Improving Student Achievement
Survey

Thank you for taking 20 to 25 minutes to complete this survey about the leadership strategies
and practices that you use to improve student achievement in your district. Please read each
statement carefully. Your response to each item will help develop an accurate and comprehen-
sive framework of leadership strategies and practices for improving student achievement. Your
responses will remain strictly confidential. Survey responses will be reported in the aggregate
so that your responses cannot be identified to you or your school district.

I. BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Please complete the following by checking one appropriate blank for each item.

1. School District Enrollment: ____________
2. Gender: Male Female
3. Age: ≤35 36-45 46-55 56-65 ≥66
4. Years of experience as a school superintendent: __________
5. Years of experience as the superintendent of your current school district: __________
6. Highest degree held: Masters Doctorate

187
II. SUPERINTENDENT LEADERSHIP STRATEGIES AND PRACTICES USED FOR
IMPROVING STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

Please rate the importance of the following leadership strategies and practices as they relate
to your overall effort as the superintendent to improve student achievement in your current
school district.

0 = Do Not Use
1 = Very Insignificant Aspect
2 = Somewhat Insignificant Aspect
3 = Somewhat Significant Aspect
4 = Very Significant Aspect

Very
Significant
Somewhat
Significant
Somewhat
Insignificant
Very
Insignificant
Do
Not
Use
7. Emphasize that strong
instruction is the key to
improving student
learning
4 3 2 1 0
8. Create a sense of
urgency for improving
student achievement
4 3 2 1 0
9. Endorse a collective
vision that embodies
the best thinking about
teaching and learning
4 3 2 1 0
10. Develop non-
negotiable goals for
improving student
achievement with the
Board of Education
4 3 2 1 0
11. Report student achieve-
ment data to the board
on a regular basis
4 3 2 1 0
12. Work with the board to
analyze factors affect-
ing student achieve-
ment
4 3 2 1 0
13. Work with the board to
assess the strengths and
weaknesses of the
district
4 3 2 1 0
14. Work with the board to
consider district options
and strategies for im-
proving student
achievement
4 3 2 1 0

188
Very
Significant
Somewhat
Significant
Somewhat
Insignificant
Very
Insignificant
Do
Not
Use
15. Include school princi-
pals in the development
of the non-negotiable
goals for the district
4 3 2 1 0
16. Include key community
members in the non-
negotiable goal setting
process
4 3 2 1 0
17. Establish explicit goals
and targets for student
performance that are
non-negotiable
4 3 2 1 0
18. Communicate per-
formance expectations
to the central office and
school principals
4 3 2 1 0
19. Adopt a 5-year non-
negotiable plan for
achievement and in-
struction
4 3 2 1 0
20. Use the goal setting
process to build con-
sensus and support
4 3 2 1 0
21. Set specific time-tables
for meeting the non-
negotiable goals
4 3 2 1 0
22. Provide individualized
support and develop-
ment opportunities
4 3 2 1 0
23. Develop the instruc-
tional leadership ca-
pacity of personnel
throughout the district

4 3 2 1 0
24. Provide intellectual
stimulation to district
employees
4 3 2 1 0
25. Model shared beliefs
4 3 2 1 0
26. Develop a uniform
professional develop-
ment program centered
around curriculum and
instruction
4 3 2 1 0
Very
Significant
Somewhat
Significant
Somewhat
Insignificant
Very
Insignificant
Do
Not
Use

189
27. Provide teachers and
principals with training
on how to use per-
formance data to drive
improvement
4 3 2 1 0
28. Provide new teachers
with an induction pro-
gram to build instruc-
tional capacity
4 3 2 1 0
29. Control the assignment
of principals
4 3 2 1 0
30. Use data to assign
school personnel
4 3 2 1 0
31. Emphasize the impor-
tance of recruiting ef-
fective teachers and
administrators
4 3 2 1 0
32. Determine the assign-
ment of teachers
4 3 2 1 0
33. Establish a multi-
measure accountability
program that extends
beyond the state and
federal accountability
systems
4 3 2 1 0
34. Use performance con-
tracts tied to district
goals
4 3 2 1 0
35. Supervise and evaluate
principals annually
4 3 2 1 0
36. Monitor the district’s
goals for curriculum
and instruction
4 3 2 1 0
37. Use school site
visits/walkthroughs to
hold school principals
accountable
4 3 2 1 0
38. Monitor non-negotiable
performance goals for
achievement
4 3 2 1 0
39. Use an instructional
evaluation program
4 3 2 1 0
40. Use rewards and recog-
nition when district
goals are met
4 3 2 1 0
Very
Significant
Somewhat
Significant
Somewhat
Insignificant
Very
Insignificant
Do
Not
Use
41. Assess student progress 4 3 2 1 0

190
throughout the school
year
42. Use performance data
to target professional
development for teach-
ers
4 3 2 1 0
43. Use performance data
to target interventions
4 3 2 1 0
44. Adjust instructional
approaches based on
district-wide assess-
ments
4 3 2 1 0
45. Direct schools to use
performance data to
write improvement
plans
4 3 2 1 0
46. Align district curricu-
lum with state stan-
dards and assessments
4 3 2 1 0
47. Require teachers to
adhere to curriculum
pacing guides
4 3 2 1 0
48. Require district-wide
math programs
4 3 2 1 0
49. Require district-wide
reading programs
4 3 2 1 0
50. Use professional devel-
opment to strengthen
the instructional leader-
ship of principals
4 3 2 1 0
51. Clearly define what it
means for principals to
be instructional leaders
4 3 2 1 0
52. Support the instruc-
tional leadership of
principals by restruc-
turing the central office
to provide help,
support, and coaching
4 3 2 1 0
53. Change the focus of the
central office from
manager to that of
support provider
4 3 2 1 0
Very
Significant
Somewhat
Significant
Somewhat
Insignificant
Very
Insignificant
Do
Not
Use
54. Develop the site-based
management capacity
of individual schools
4 3 2 1 0

191
within the district
55. Improve the manage-
ment side of business
operations to increase
student achievement
4 3 2 1 0
56. Create organizational
structures that support
the district’s instruc-
tional vision
4 3 2 1 0
Very
Significant
Somewhat
Significant
Somewhat
Insignificant
Very
Insignificant
Do
Not
Use
57. Pursue funds to initiate
reforms and launch pri-
orities
4 3 2 1 0
58. Shift funds into instruc-
tional priorities
4 3 2 1 0
59. Invest in the long-term
instructional capacity
of the district
4 3 2 1 0
60. Establish teacher
evaluations as a priority
for principals
4 3 2 1 0
61. Ensure schools have a
clear mission focused
on student performance
4 3 2 1 0
62. Ensure schools are
using standards for
content and instruction
4 3 2 1 0
63. Ensure principals speak
with teachers about
performance results
4 3 2 1 0

192

III. PLEASE DISCUSS ANY LEADERSHIP STRATEGY OR PRACTICE THAT
YOU BELIEVE IMPROVED STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT IN YOUR
DISTRICT BUT WAS NOT INCLUDED IN THE PREVIOUS SECTION.

Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey. Please check the box below to receive a
report of the research results at the conclusion of the study.

Please Return To: Gordon Gibbings
[return address]

(Stamped return envelope provided)

193
APPENDIX C

Superintendent Survey Cover Letter

Dear Superintendent,

Thank you for taking the time from your busy schedule to review the information enclosed
in this packet. You have been invited to participate in a graduate research study that will
determine what leadership strategies and practices successful urban superintendents in
California use to improve student achievement in the NCLB-era of high-stakes account-
ability. Given the increased pressure placed on urban superintendents to improve student
achievement, the current study will serve as a useful best-practices resource for those
superintendents who strive to improve teaching and learning in their districts.

My name is Gordon Gibbings and I am currently the principal of Ánimo South Los
Angeles Charter High School and a graduate student at USC in the Rossier School of Edu-
cation’s Ed.D. program. My dissertation committee chairman is one of your former
colleagues Dr. Rudy Castruita, retired Superintendent of San Diego County Office of Edu-
cation.

If you agree to participate in this research study the approximate total time required will be
30 minutes to complete a survey questionnaire. You may complete the enclosed superin-
tendent survey questionnaire and return it in the enclosed self-addressed stamped envelope
along with the signed statement of consent. You may also indicate if you are interested in
having a copy of the findings once the study is complete.

Your participation in the study is voluntary and you have the right to withdraw at anytime
without penalty. Any data collected will be destroyed per your request. All information
obtained in connection with this study will be confidential and the data will be reported in
aggregate so that your responses cannot be linked back to you. There are no perceived
risks to participants.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the participation in this study, you can
contact Gordon Gibbings or Dr. Rudy Castruita at the University of Southern California.
Thank you very much for your time and assistance.

Sincerely,

Gordon M. Gibbings

Researcher: Faculty Supervisor:
Gordon M. Gibbings Dr. Rudy Castruita
Gibbings@usc.edu rcastrui@usc.edu

194
APPENDIX D

Informed Consent Form

University of Southern California
Rossier School of Education

INFORMATION SHEET FOR NON-MEDICAL RESEARCH

HOW SUCCESSFUL URBAN SUPERINTENDENTS IN CALIFORNIA IMPROVE
STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

You are asked to participate in a research study conducted by Gordon M. Gibbings and Dr.
Rudy Castruita at the University of Southern California because you are an urban school
superintendent in California. This research study will be the basis for a dissertation done
in completion of the Ed.D. program. You must be at least 18 years of age to participate. A
total of 20 subjects will be selected from all urban superintendents in California to partici-
pate. Your participation is voluntary. You should read the information below, and ask
questions about anything you do not understand, before deciding whether to participate.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of the study is to determine what leadership strategies and practices successful
urban superintendents in California have used to improve student achievement in the
NCLB era of high-stakes accountability.

Completion and return of the questionnaire will constitute consent to participate in
this research project.

PROCEDURES
If you volunteer to participate in this study, you will be asked to complete a 75 item survey
questionnaire that consists of six demographic items, 67 items that ask you to rate the im-
portance of each leadership strategy and practice as it relates to your overall effort to
improve student achievement in your districts, and one open-ended question that asks you
if there are any additional leadership strategies or practices that you have used to improve
student achievement that was not included in the survey.

POTENTIAL RISKS AND DISCOMFORTS
There are no foreseeable risks to you for participating in this study. Any discomforts that
you may experience with questions may be managed by simply not answering the question.

POTENTIAL BENEFITS TO SUBJECT AND/OR TO SOCIETY
You will not directly benefit from the study. However, your participation in this study will
add to the professional knowledge and understanding about the leadership strategies and
practices used to improve student achievement. The findings will benefit other superinten-
dents who strive to improve teaching and learning in their districts.

195
PAYMENT FOR PARTICIPATION
You will not be paid for your participation in this study.

CONFIDENTIALITY
Any information that is obtained in connection with this study and that can be identified to
you will remain confidential and will be disclosed only with your permission or as re-
quested by law.

Only the researcher will have access to the data associated with this study. The data will
be stored in the investigator’s office in a locked file cabinet and a password protected com-
puter.

The data will be stored for three years after the study has been completed and then de-
stroyed. When the results of the research are published or discussed in conferences, no
information will be included that would reveal your identity.

PARTICIPATION AND WITHDRAWAL
You can choose whether to be in this study or not. If you volunteer to be in this study, you
may withdraw at anytime without consequence of any kind. You may also refuse to
answer any questions you don’t want to answer and still remain in the study. The investi-
gator may withdraw you from this research if circumstances arise which warrant doing so.

RIGHTS OF RESEARCH SUBJECTS
You may withdraw your consent at anytime and discontinue participation without penalty.
You are not waiving any legal claims, rights, or remedies because of your participation in
this research study. If you have any questions regarding your rights as a research subject,
contact the University Park IRB, Office of the Vice Provost for Research Advancement,
Stonier Hall, Room224A, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1146, (213) 821-5272 or
uprib@usc.edu.

IDENTIFICATION OF INVESTIGATORS
If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact
Gordon M. Gibbings at Gibbings@usc.edu or Dr. Rudy Castruita, Faculty Sponsor, at
rcastui@usc.edu.

196
APPENDIX E

INFORMED CONSENT FORM

University of Southern California
Rossier School of Education

INFORMATION SHEET FOR NON-MEDICAL RESEARCH

CONSENT TO PARTICIPATE IN RESEARCH

HOW SUCCESSFUL URBAN SUPERINTENDENTS IN CALIFORNIA IMPROVE
STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

You are asked to participate in a research study conducted by Gordon M. Gibbings and Dr.
Rudy Castruita at the University of Southern California because you are an urban school
superintendent in California. This research study will be the basis for a dissertation done
in completion of the Ed.D. program. You must be at least 18 years of age to participate. A
total of 2 subjects will be selected to participate from the urban superintendents who have
completed the related survey and have met their AYP for 2 out of the last 3 years. Your
participation is voluntary. You should read the information below, and ask questions about
anything you do not understand, before deciding whether to participate.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of the study is to determine what leadership strategies and practices successful
urban superintendents in California have used to improve student achievement in the
NCLB era of high-stakes accountability.

Answers to the interview questions will constitute consent to participate in this
research project.

PROCEDURES
If you volunteer to participate in this study, you will be asked to complete a one-hour in-
terview on how, why and when you decide to use particular leadership strategies. You be
asked permission to audio-tape the interview.

POTENTIAL RISKS AND DISCOMFORTS
There are no foreseeable risks to you for participating in this study. Any discomforts that
you may experience with questions may be managed by simply not answering the ques-
tions.

POTENTIAL BENEFITS TO SUBJECT AND/OR TO SOCIETY
You will not directly benefit from the study. However, your participation in this study will
add to the professional knowledge and understanding about the leadership strategies and
practices used to improve student achievement. The findings will benefit other superinten-
dents who strive to improve teaching and learning in their districts.

197
PAYMENT FOR PARTICIPATION
You will not be paid for your participation in this study.

CONFIDENTIALITY
Any information that is obtained in connection with this study and that can be identified to
you will remain confidential and will be disclosed only with your permission or as re-
quested by law.

The audio-tapes will be transcribed and the original tapes will be erased after transcription
is completed. Only the researcher will have access to the data associated with this study.
The data will be stored in the investigator’s office in a locked file cabinet and a password
protected computer. You may continue in the study should you decline to be taped.

The data will be stored for three years after the study has been completed and then de-
stroyed. When the results of the research are published or discussed in conferences, no
information will be included that would reveal your identity.

PARTICIPATION AND WITHDRAWAL
You can choose whether to be in this study or not. If you volunteer to be in this study, you
may withdraw at anytime without consequence of any kind. You may also refuse to
answer any questions you don’t want to answer and still remain in the study. The investi-
gator may withdraw you from this research if circumstances arise which warrant doing so.

RIGHTS OF RESEARCH SUBJECTS
You may withdraw your consent at anytime and discontinue participation without penalty.
You are not waiving any legal claims, rights, or remedies because of your participation in
this research study. If you have any questions regarding your rights as a research subject,
contact the University Park IRB, Office of the Vice Provost for Research Advancement,
Stonier Hall, Room224A, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1146, (213) 821-5272 or
uprib@usc.edu.

IDENTIFICATION OF INVESTIGATORS
If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact
Gordon M. Gibbings at Gibbings@usc.edu or Dr. Rudy Castruita, Faculty Sponsor, at
rcastui@usc.edu.

Can ask for permission to audiotape the interview:
I agree to be audiotaped
I do not want to be audiotaped

198
APPENDIX F

Superintendent Leadership Strategies and Practices Rated
From Very Significant to Very Insignificant

N Min. Max. Mean SD
Align Curriculum 5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
Data and
Interventions
5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
Perform Data PD 5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
Assess St. Ach. 5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
Monitor Perf Goals 5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
Monitor Goals 5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
Data PD 5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
Model Shared
Beliefs
5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
Instruc Leadership 5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
Perform. Expect 5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
Goals and Targets 5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
Principals_Goals 5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
Strengths_Weak 5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
Collective Vision 5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
Urgency 5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
Strong Instruction 5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
Instr. Eval Program 5 3.00 4.00 3.8000 .44721
Site Visits 5 3.00 4.00 3.8000 .44721
Eval Principals 5 3.00 4.00 3.8000 .44721
Multiple Measures 5 3.00 4.00 3.8000 .44721
Recruitment 5 3.00 4.00 3.8000 .44721
Teacher Induction 5 3.00 4.00 3.8000 .44721
Report Data 5 3.00 4.00 3.8000 .44721
Non-Neg Goals 5 3.00 4.00 3.8000 .44721
DW Reading Prog 5 3.00 4.00 3.6000 .54772
DW Math Prog 5 3.00 4.00 3.6000 .54772
Dist Assess 5 2.00 4.00 3.6000 .89443
Data to Assign 5 3.00 4.00 3.6000 .54772
Assign Principals 5 2.00 4.00 3.6000 .89443
Individual Support 5 3.00 4.00 3.6000 .54772
Goal Set Process 5 3.00 4.00 3.6000 .54772
District Options 5 3.00 4.00 3.6000 .54772
Factors Affecting 5 2.00 4.00 3.6000 .89443
Pacing Guides 5 3.00 4.00 3.4000 .54772
Data Improv Plans 5 2.00 4.00 3.4000 .89443

199
Uniform PD 5 2.00 4.00 3.4000 .89443
Time Tables for
Goals
5 3.00 4.00 3.4000 .54772
Reward and Recogn 5 2.00 4.00 3.2000 .83666
Community_Goals 5 2.00 4.00 3.2000 .83666
Intellectual Stimul. 5 2.00 4.00 3.0000 1.00000
5 Year Plan 5 .00 4.00 3.0000 1.73205
Assign Teachers 5 .00 4.00 2.8000 1.78885
Performance
Contract
4 .00 4.00 1.7500 2.06155
Valid N (listwise) 4
Data Conversations 5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
Content Stand 5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
Clear Mission 5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
Invest in Instr Cap 5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
Shift Funds 5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
Support Provider 5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
Rest Dist Off 5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
Define Inst Lead 5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
PD Prin Ins Lead 5 4.00 4.00 4.0000 .00000
Org Structures 5 3.00 4.00 3.8000 .44721
Business Ops 5 3.00 4.00 3.8000 .44721
T Evals as Priority 5 3.00 4.00 3.6000 .54772
Shared Dec Making 5 2.00 4.00 3.4000 .89443
Pursue Funds 5 2.00 4.00 3.2000 .83666
Valid N (listwise) 5

200
APPENDIX G

Superintendent Subgroup Mean Differences for the 57 Leadership Strategies and
Practices Included on the Urban Superintendent Leadership Survey Questionnaire

Successful
Subgroup Mean

Unsuccessful
Subgroup Mean
Subgroup
Mean
Differential
7. Emphasize that strong instruction
is the key to improving student
learning
4.0000 3.8750 0.125
8. Create a sense of urgency for
improving student achievement
4.0000 3.6250 0.375
9. Endorse a collective vision that
embodies the best thinking about
teaching and learning
4.0000 3.8750 0.125
10. Develop non-negotiable goals for
improving student achievement
with the Board of Education
3.8000 3.6250 0.175
11. Report student achievement data
to the board on a regular basis
3.8000 3.5000 0.300
12. Work with the board to analyze
factors affecting student achieve-
ment
3.6000 2.8750 0.725
13. Work with the board to assess the
strengths and weaknesses of the
district
4.0000 3.1250 0.875
14. Work with the board to consider
district options and strategies for
improving student achievement
3.6000 3.5000 0.100
15. Include school principals in the
development of the non-
negotiable goals for the district
4.0000 3.6250 0.375
16. Include key community members
in the non-negotiable goal setting
process
3.2000 2.5000 0.700
17. Establish explicit goals and targets
for student performance that are
non-negotiable
4.0000 3.8750 0.125
18. Communicate performance expec-
tations to the central office and
school principals
4.0000 4.0000 0.000
19. Adopt a 5-year non-negotiable
plan for achievement/instruction
3.0000 3.1250 -0.125
20. Use the goal setting process to
build consensus and support
3.6000 3.7500 -0.150
21. Set specific time-tables for meet-
ing the non-negotiable goals
3.4000 3.7500 -0.350
22. Provide individualized support
and development opportunities
3.6000 3.8750 -0.275
23. Develop the instructional leader-
ship capacity of personnel
throughout the district
4.0000 4.0000 0.000

201
24. Provide intellectual stimulation to
district employees
3.0000 3.6250 -0.625
25. Model shared beliefs 4.0000 4.0000 0.000
26. Develop a uniform professional
development program centered
around curriculum and instruction
3.4000 3.7500 -0.350
27. Provide teachers and principals
with training on how to use per-
formance data to drive improve-
ment
4.0000 3.8750 0.125
28. Provide new teachers with an
induction program to build in-
structional capacity
3.8000 3.6250 0.175
29. Control the assignment of princi-
pals
3.6000 3.8750 -0.275
30. Use data to assign school person-
nel
3.6000 3.0000 0.600
31. Emphasize the importance of
recruiting effective teachers and
administrators
3.8000 3.5000 0.300
32. Determine the assignment of
teachers
2.8000 2.8750 -0.075
33. Establish a multi-measure
accountability program that
extends beyond the state and
federal accountability systems
3.8000 3.2500 0.550
34. Use performance contracts tied to
district goals
1.7500 2.1250 -0.375
35. Supervise and evaluate principals
annually
3.8000 3.7143 0.086
36. Monitor the district’s goals for
curriculum and instruction
4.0000 3.8750 0.125
37. Use school site visits/
walkthroughs to hold school
principals accountable
3.8000 3.8750 -0.075
38. Monitor non-negotiable perform-
ance goals for achievement
4.0000 3.8750 0.125
39. Use an instructional evaluation
program
3.8000 3.5000 0.300
40. Use rewards and recognition when
district goals are met
3.2000 3.3750 -0.175
41. Assess student progress through-
out the school year
4.0000 3.7500 0.250
42. Use performance data to target
professional development for
teachers
4.0000 3.6250 0.375
43. Use performance data to target
interventions
4.0000 3.8750 0.125
44. Adjust instructional approaches
based on district-wide assessments
3.6000 3.6250 -0.025
45. Direct schools to use performance
data to write improvement plans
3.4000 3.7500 -0.350
46. Align district curriculum with
state standards and assessments
4.0000 4.0000 0.000

202
47. Require teachers to adhere to
curriculum pacing guides
3.4000 3.7500 -0.350
48. Require district-wide math
programs
3.6000 3.5000 0.100
49. Require district-wide reading
programs
3.6000 3.5000 0.100
50. Use professional development to
strengthen the instructional
leadership of principals
4.0000 4.0000 0.00
51. Clearly define what it means for
principals to be instructional
leaders
4.0000 4.0000 0.00
52. Support instructional leadership
by principals by restructuring the
central office to provide help,
support, and coaching
4.0000 3.8750 0.125
53. Change the focus of the central
office from manager to that of
support provider
4.0000 3.8750 0.125
54. Develop the site-based manage-
ment capacity of individual
schools within the district
3.4000 3.3750 0.025
55. Improve the management side of
business operations to increase
student achievement
3.8000 3.0000 0.800
56. Create organizational structures
that support the district’s
instructional vision
3.8000 3.5000 0.300
57. Pursue funds to initiate reforms
and launch priorities
3.2000 3.3750 -0.175
58. Shift funds into instructional
priorities
4.0000 3.6250 0.375
59. Invest in the long-term
instructional capacity of the
district
4.0000 3.7500 0.250
60. Establish teacher evaluations as a
priority for principals
3.6000 3.7500 -0.150
61. Ensure schools have a clear
mission focused on student
performance
4.0000 4.0000 0.000
62. Ensure schools are using standards
for content and instruction
4.0000 4.0000 0.000
63. Ensure principals speak with
teachers about performance results
4.0000 4.0000 0.00

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Due in large part to the high-stakes accountability measures of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2002, the success and longevity of urban superintendents have become increasingly contingent on their ability to strengthen instruction and increase learning for all students in their districts. This study examined the leadership strategies and practices that successful urban superintendents in California used to improve students achievement in their districts after the passage of NCLB. The study also sought to determine how the leadership functions, strategies, and practices of successful urban superintendents in California differed from those used by their less successful Californian urban superintendent counterparts.

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

How urban school superintendents effectively use data-driven decision making to improve student achievement

PDF

Sustaining student achievement: Six Sigma strategies and successful urban school district superintendents

PDF

Superintendents and Latino student achievement: promising practices that superintendents use to influence the instruction and increase the achievement of Latino students in urban school districts

PDF

Superintendent's leverage: a case study of strategies utilized by an urban school district superintendent to improve student achievement

PDF

Systemic change and the system leader: a case study of superintendent action to improve student achievement in a large urban school district

PDF

How professional learning communities use student data to increase achievement

PDF

The superintendent and reform: a case study of action by the system leader to improve student achievement in a large urban school district

PDF

Reform strategies implemented to increase student achievement: a case study of superintendent actions

PDF

Superintendents' viewpoint of the role stakeholders can play in improving student achievement

PDF

Promoting student achievement: a case study of change actions employed by an urban school superintendent

PDF

CAHSEE intervention strategies implemented by successful urban California superintendents

PDF

Reclaiming the superintendency: the skills, strategies and experiences of successful women superintendents in California

PDF

Effective strategies superintendents utilize in building political coalitions to increase student achievement

PDF

The sustainability of superintendent-led reforms to improve student achievement

PDF

Defined autonomy: how superintendents work with principals to create the defined autonomy at schools necessary for improved student achievement

PDF

Sustainable reform: a follow-up case study on one urban superintendent’s efforts to improve student achievement

PDF

Resource allocation to improve student achievement

PDF

The role of the superintendent in raising student achievement: a superintendent effecting change through the implementation of selected strategies

PDF

Reform strategies used by system leaders in education to impact student achievement: a case study

PDF

California urban superintendents and their selection criteria for secondary school principals

Asset Metadata

Creator Gibbings, Gordon M. (author)

Core Title How successful urban superintendents in California improve student achievement

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Education (Leadership)

Publication Date 06/10/2008

Defense Date 04/14/2008

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag leadership,OAI-PMH Harvest,urban superintendency

Place Name California (states)

Language English

Advisor Castruita, Rudy M. (committee chair), Datnow, Amanda (committee member), Mafi, Gabriela (committee member)

Creator Email gibbings@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m1265

Unique identifier UC1173626

Identifier etd-Gibbings-20080610 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-75715 (legacy record id),usctheses-m1265 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Gibbings-20080610.pdf

Dmrecord 75715

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Gibbings, Gordon M.

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu