Literacy Research Association Margaret-Mary Sulentic Dowell Dana L. Bickmore

1. School of Education An Examination of Literacy Leadership: Case Study of Two Urban Charter School Principals’ Literacy Leadership and Practices in an Era of Reform Literacy Research Association Margaret-Mary Sulentic Dowell Dana L. Bickmore Louisiana State University December 6, 2013 Session 6C Katy Trail – Level 2 – 3:00-3:40

2. Context: Charters Schools Defined Charter schools are public schools awarded a charter by individual states, entities, or local school boards that allow greater autonomy over curriculum, instruction, human resource functions, and operation than traditional public schools. Zimmer, R., Gill, B., Booker, K., Lavertu, S., Sass, T. R., & Witte, J. (2009).

3. Context: Expansion of Charters Over two million students attend more than 5,500 charter schools in the US in a political context that is supportive of continued proliferation of charter schools (National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, 2012; U.S. Department of Education, 2009).

4. Context: Expansion of Charters As the charter school movement in the US has shifted to become a neoliberal reform strategy, in Louisiana, charter schools have become a reform maneuver, a tactic for ameliorating education deficits, especially Post-Katrina (Isaacson, 2007). • 28 schools in Louisiana in 2005 • 218 schools in Louisiana in 2012 (Louisiana Department of Education, 2013).

5. Background There is a paucity of research that examines what happens inside charter schools with respect to instructional, curricular issues (Berends, Goldring, Stein, & Cravens, 2010; Center on Reinventing Public Education, 2007; Gross, 2011; Merseth, 2009).

6. Purpose The purpose of this embedded case study was to investigate novice principals’ literacy leadership in two Louisiana charter schools, a state (US) often touted as a model of educational reform. (Yin, 2009)

7. Theoretical Frame: Instructional Leadership Defined The principal as the instructional leader is an accepted, well-documented leadership paradigm in schooling in the United States (US). As the role of the principal has expanded, however, literacy leadership, as a subset of instructional leadership, has not been a primary focus of research, principal preparation programs, nor practicing principal leadership development.

8. Theoretical Frame: Literacy Leadership Defined Only recently has research outlining the principal’s role in literacy leadership emerged. A recent study established a framework of literacy leadership in an effort to both operationalize literacy leadership and provide a strategy of how principals may engage in literacy leadership. (Sulentic Dowell, Bickmore, & Hoewing, 2012).

9. Research Questions • How did two charter principals perceive their engagement in literacy leadership? 2. How did teachers view the two charter school principal’s engagement in literacy leadership? 3. In what kinds of literacy support practices did two charter principals engage in the two charter schools?

10. Study methods -Embedded case design (Stake, 2005; Yin, 2009) within a comparative case study (Merriam, 2009) of principal instructional leadership in two charter schools. -Embedded designs focus on smaller units of analysis rather than examining the case as a whole. -Unit of analysis in this embedded design was literacy leadership, specifically focused on the principals’ literacy knowledge, literacy-based decisions, and literacy support practices.

11. Participants & Study Sites Convenience and criteria sampling; selected two principals new to their setting. • Principal David @ JMS, recent immigrant to US, taught HS physics in home country; taught 2 years in Oklahoma (alternative certification), enrolled in an educational leadership alternative certification program; did not possess state school administrator certificate • Principal Chase @ CS, alternatively certified teacher Teach for America’s New Teacher Project; taught 3 years; spent 1 year in an incubator role; did not possess state school administrator certificate

12. Participants & Study Sites Teacher pool of volunteers; five teacher/coach participants from each school • JMS was in its initial year of operation and began the school year with 447 students, grades 6-8. JMS served a high poverty population of 447 students of which 87% were Black and 95% received free and reduced lunch. • CS was in its 12th year of operation and began the school year with 277 K-8 students; 95% were Black with approximately 91% receiving free and reduced lunch.

13. Data Collection & Analysis • Empirical materials: interviews observations, and documents • 14 informal semi-structured interviews (fall and spring) • observed in hallways, at meetings, before & after school • documents such as charter application, website, PD materials • Analysis: • Phase I: coded interviews, field notes generated from observations, and documents , line-by-line using Atlas TI ; initial as broad Literacy Principles and Practices a priori codes; inductively employed open coding as well, added in vivo codes such as commercial programs  • Phase II: used a typology as the analytical process, re-coded all 489 broad literacy code instances from the initial study ,added as a priori codes, the 35 categories that define the five themes of the Literacy Leadership Framework (LLF)

14. Results Content Knowledge Composition (spelling & writing) 121 Cognition; complex thinking 17 Comprehension 15 Personal-sociocultural aspects 8 Vocabulary 6 Fluency 4 Decoding 2 Oral language development 2 Print awareness 0 Linguistic knowledge 0 Phonemic awareness 0 Phonics 0 Narrative & expository literature 0 Functions of language 0

15. Results Knowledge of Best Practice Spanning Developmental Ages Ranges and Content Areas Daily reading & writing practice 31 Instruction based on assessment 16 Reading & writing co-development 11 Reading aloud 10 Age & developmentally appropriate reading material 9 Flexible groupings 5 Reading & writing processes 4 Provide School Structures to Support Literacy Access to print/literature 65 Organizing classrooms for optimal learning 3 (schedules/structure & use of blocks, workshops) Provision for literacy instruction & learning 0

16. Results Literacy Environment and Management Systems Mix of whole, small group teaching 16 Assessing literacy formally & informally 14 Flexible skill grouping 5 Teacher/child interactions 0 Establishing routines 0 Teaching at instructional level 0 Developing a Literacy Mission and Monitoring Evaluation of Literacy Instruction Support teachers & coaches 17 Evaluate teachers & coaches (walk thru) 17 Professional development 5 Classroom environment 3 Establishing relationships 0

17. Results Content Knowledge Composition (spelling & writing) 121 Cognition; complex thinking 17 Comprehension 15 Knowledge of Best Practice Spanning Developmental Ages Ranges and Content Areas Daily reading & writing practice 31 Instruction based on assessment 16 Provide School Structures to Support Literacy Access to print/literature 65 Literacy Environment and Management Systems Mix of whole, small group teaching 16 Assessing literacy formally & informally 14 Developing a Literacy Mission and Monitoring Evaluation of Literacy Instruction Support teachers & coaches 17 Evaluate teachers & coaches (walk thru) 17

18. Results Content Knowledge Composition (spelling & writing) 121 Knowledge of Best Practice Spanning Developmental Ages Ranges and Content Areas Daily reading & writing practice 31 Provide School Structures to Support Literacy Access to print/literature 65 Charter principals’ specific literacy content and pedagogical knowledge was limited; both principals’ support, feedback, and advice regarding literacy learning and literacy best practices was limited resulting in both principals’ heavy reliance on commercial programs, mimicking commercial program claims versus use of instructional strategies, methods, or configurations.

19. Impact Principals with limited teaching and administrative experience exhibited: 1) lack of self-awareness; 2) delegated to others; 3) myopic, narrow focus on state accountability measures and improving state testing results, this focus dictated many instructional decisions regarding literacy and impacted teachers. For example, writing instruction stressed by principals was formulaic and tended to emulate test writing prompts. Teachers echoed this stance, with one at JMS dismissing writing because, “it’s [writing] only worth 18 points on the LEAP test.”

20. Background: Expansion of Charters • US in era of accountability • No Child Left Behind. (2001). Public Law No. 107-1110 • Post-Katrina reform • Neoliberal reform strategies • Entrepreneurial reform • Commodification

21. Margaret-Mary Sulentic Dowell sdowell@lsu.edu Dana L. Bickmore danabick@lsu.edu