Study Pinpoints Reasons for Principal Shortage

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The University of Arkansas’ educational leadership program has released a major study titled “The Status of School Leadership in Arkansas” that found the No. 1 reason teacher leaders do not want to become principals is the pressures of testing and accountability.

However, the teacher leaders said they would be interested in becoming principals if the current job could be changed in a positive way that would allow them to become effective instructional leaders. The study, conducted by Paul Hewitt, John Pijanowski, Leslie Carnine and George Denny, was designed to determine whether there was a shortage of candidates for the public school principalship in the state of Arkansas, and if a shortage exists, what is causing it?

The study surveyed 197 school district superintendents and 391 teachers who were identified either as leaders at their school or individuals with strong leadership potential. However, these teachers had stated that they have no desire to become a school principal. The study sought to determine why these established teacher leaders, who should be the next generation of school leaders, made the decision not to become school principals.

Among the study’s findings, the top five reasons that teacher leaders do not want to become principals:

• The pressures of testing and accountability

• The job is generally too stressful

• Too much time is required

• Societal problems making it difficult to be an instructional leader

• Difficulty satisfying the demands of parents and the community

Superintendents with more than 15 years of experience were asked to determine the number of applicants they would have had for a principal’s opening 15 years ago and what they would expect today. The superintendents stated they would have had 14.8 applicants 15 years ago and would expect 8.7 applicants today. Their responses corresponded fairly closely to the actual data showing a statewide average number of applicants of 10.3.

The number of applicants for a principal’s position varied by geographical region with the southeast region of Arkansas having only 5.4 candidates for a principal’s position and the northwest region of the state having 13.6 applicants for each principal’s position.

Small school districts (0-499 students) had the smallest number of applicants for a principal’s position with only 6.8 candidates. However, it should be noted that this number is distorted by three school districts out of the 23 districts surveyed that had a large number of applicants. Among the 23 small school districts, 16 of the districts had seven or fewer applicants with eight districts having four or fewer applicants. Large school districts (more than 5000 students) had the most applicants with an average of 14.6 applicants.

Initially, the number of applicants may seem adequate. However, the superintendents were asked to identify the number of applicants “who met interview criteria.” While the average number of applicants was 10.3 statewide, the number of applicants that met the criteria to be interviewed was only 4.9. It is the conclusion of this study that a “moderate shortage of principal candidates exists in the state of Arkansas.”

One of the most surprising findings of the study was the massive turnover in school principals throughout the state of Arkansas.

 “We were looking at the number of openings and applicants and didn’t expect to find such a massive rate of principal turnover,” Hewitt said.

Over the past three years, there have been 196 new principals hired at the elementary level out of 600 elementary schools in the state, 174 new middle school principals hired out of 201 middle schools in the state and 194 high school principals hired out of 311 high schools in the state. Hewitt pointed out that the study accounts for about 80 percent of school districts, so the actual number of principal changes may be higher. He also pointed out that every school didn’t change principals every three years, but some schools may have had a revolving door, having had three principals over the three-year period. The study did not identify the cause of the massive shift that may have been due to retirements, lateral job changes or people leaving the education profession. A further study is being conducted to determine the causes of this turn-over.

Another interesting finding of the study was the attitudes of the teacher leaders who didn’t want to become principals. When they were given “alternate” organizational structures for school sites, over half of them shifted their thinking and stated that they would be interested. The basic message was “we would be interested in being an educational leader for a school, but we don’t want the principalship in its current form.”

The study is the first comprehensive look at the principalship in the state of Arkansas. According to Hewitt, the overall message of the report is: “There are fewer applicants for the job of school principal than in past years, and the job has become so stressful that people who should become, and in past years would have become, school principals are saying, ‘no thanks.’ But these same people are also telling us that if the job can be changed to make it more ‘reasonable,’ they will then reconsider.”

Hewitt is assistant professor of educational leadership; Pijanowski is assistant professor of educational administration; Denny is professor of educational statistics and research methods; and Carnine formerly served as executive in residence in the College of Education and Health Professions.