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Successful principals help teachers improve their individual practice, whether they are new or veteran.

hese principals gauge what their teachers need and arrange for the appropriate support. They assign mentor teachers; they send in instructional coaches or more-accomplished teachers to teach model lessons; they or their delegates observe instruction frequently and offer suggestions; and they meet with teachers regularly to look at student data, discuss relevant research, and explore options for their classrooms.

Successful principals work with groups of teachers to find patterns of instruction within grade levels and departments.

Principal leadership is critical in the transition to Common Core State Standards. NAESP has developed this checklist to help you determine what bodies of knowledge and skill sets you will need to gain as you prepare to lead your school into using the new standards.

How is technology changing the face and pace of K-12 education?  Information is abundant and as Daniel Pink discusses in his latest book, it is not about accessing information, but about curating it. When you have access to all of the information in the world, there is obviously some great stuff, and some stuff that is of a poor quality. How are students critical of what they see, and how do they reflect and share? Too many schools are worried about students “googling” answers on test because that would make them “cheaters”, yet as adults, we would be considered resourceful if we did the same thing. What we do with the information is much more important now than simply finding it. We need to look at how students are not only consumers of information, but creators of content as well. That is where the real learning happens and technology gives us the opportunity to be able to share easily with the entire world

the push is now to implement next-generation learning goals that encourage higher-order thinking skills.

A critical piece in this roadmap will be new assessments, which have the potential to give school leaders new and better tools to guide instruction, support teachers, and improve outcomes. Assessment decisions will have a big impact on principals, who know the difference between leading a school constrained by punitively used tests that fail to measure many of the most important learning goals, and a school that uses thoughtful assessments to measure what matters and inform instruction.

Become part of a new accountability system that replaces the old test-and-punish philosophy with one that aims to assess, support, and improve. Tests should be used not to allocate sanctions, but to provide information, in conjunction with other indicators, to guide educational improvement.