0.3 Peck, c., & Mullen, c. a. (april 2010). “feet to the fire”:  (Page 3/8)

Further, our line of analysis is relevant to the body of literature concerning school politics and accountability. Influential works have described the political role principals and superintendents play in responding to multiple constituency actors, competing for scarce resources, and assigning or receiving blame for negative organizational developments (Black&English, 2001; Cuban, 1988; Wolcott, 1973). Cooper, Cibulka, and Fusarelli (2008) explored how the changing nature of educational politics affects schooling. Ouchi (2003, 2009) investigated major urban districts where individual principals received broader autonomy, greater budgetary control, and increased performance accountability. Shipps and White (2009) examined how new accountability systems in New York City may be affecting the political approaches of principals. We augment the existing literature by examining district and reform leader rhetoric and symbols in regards to the urban school principalship and by aiming to illuminate how urban school districts operate as political terrains.

Methods used

For this study involving the examination of rhetoric and symbols in publicly accessible media, we collected and analyzed relevant news reports, Web pages, press releases, and organizational documents. We initiated this exploration in early 2009 by conducting a broad Internet search for media pertaining to urban school districts. Using Internet search engines such as Google and databases such as Lexis-Nexis Academic , we retrieved news media reports from national outlets and a broad range of U.S. cities. We also accessed district and organizational Web sites for further materials related to our subject. We eventually gathered over 100 items that constituted more than 400 total printed pages. Similar to the document analysis approach that Tyack and Cuban (1995) and Smith et al. (2004) utilized, we independently and together closely examined the evidence collected to gain insight into reform rhetoric and political symbols. Through our analysis of the compiled documents, we established interpretive coherence and identified two primary themes and each of the themes is discussed.

Results of our media search

With reference to media-disseminated rhetoric and symbols, we asked how urban school district and reform leaders have portrayed principals. After examining the evidence collected, we identified a two-part rhetorical and symbolic message that emanated from urban school district and reform leaders: principals are fundamentally important to and ultimately accountable for school improvement and student achievement.

Principals as fundamentally important to school improvement

The idea that principals are fundamentally important to school improvement and student achievement is a lasting one. In a 1916 work, influential Stanford University scholar Ellwood Cubberley (1916) wrote, “‘As is the principal, so is the school’… he [sic] must keep constantly growing if he is to continue to measure up to the demands of the position” (pp. 190-191). Almost a century later, in its overarching plan to transform urban school districts the prominent Broad Foundation (see Scott, 2009) publicly positioned principals as crucial for school achievement. In a press release announcing an $8.3 million grant for principal training in three urban districts, Broad Foundation founder Eli Broad explained, “Principals are the front-line leaders who are critical to the success of a school” (The Broad Foundation, 2007, p. 1). The Broad Foundation (2009) reports that it helped to financially support the New Leaders for New Schools (NLNS) organization, a national principal training program operating in major urban areas including Chicago, New York, and New Orleans. On its Web site, NLNS underscores the crucial role principals play in promoting academic success and communicating such organizational core beliefs as “Great schools are led by great principals” (New Leaders for New Schools, 2009).