Chapter 2: Problem Solving Under Accountability: Perspectives of Principals in High- and Low-Achieving Schools

Just as researchers developed a deeper understanding of teaching practice by broadening focus from behavior to include teachers’ thinking, a better understanding of leadership can come through examining principal thinking (Stein & Spillane, 2005). A useful approach is to compare expert and typical problem solvers (Chi, Glaser, & Farr, 1988). There has been relatively little research on principals as problem solvers (Leithwood & Steinbach, 1995), but the problems principals face keep growing. State and federal accountability policies—including, but not limited to, No Child Left Behind (NCLB)—create especially challenging problems.

This chapter explores how principals leading schools with unusually high and low test scores solve the accountability problems they face. It suggests that principals in high- and low-achieving schools use different capacities and processes to solve accountability problems. Principals in higher achieving schools have the capacity to maintain a broad conception of their problem and an inventive, optimistic stance while solving it. The processes they use engage more people actively in solving the problem while setting a broader range of goals. One issue that has rarely been identified in the past is that principals in wealthier, low-achieving schools tend to feel helpless, define their accountability problems narrowly, adopt narrow goals, and do not engage their teachers in solving accountability problems.