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theses

Understanding how the behaviors and actions of building principals impact student achievement is a major goal of educational leadership, in which both direct and indirect factors exist. There is a wealth of research which focuses on the importance of school leadership and demonstrates that building level administrators are second only to classroom teachers in influencing student achievement (Leithwood, Luis, Anderson & Wahlstrom, 2004). Principals have many important roles to fulfill in order to establish a successful school. The significance of these roles has created an interest in the population of principals in recent years (Baker, Punswick & Belt, 2010). Despite this increased interest there has been little focus on the descriptive characteristics of the population of principals and the specific career paths of individuals in this position (Fuller, Young & Orr, 2007). Examining these characteristics and career paths may enable school and district leaders, as well as policy makers, to better understand and predict principal behavior and the needs of beginning principals. Conducting this analysis in New Jersey serves as an opportunity to closely examine the careers pathways of principals in general, and as it relates to the state sponsored induction program entitled New Jersey Leaders to Leaders (NJL2L). This study focused on providing a descriptive analysis of the principal workforce in New Jersey from 1996-2011. Principal descriptors included ethnicity/race, gender, age, salary and post-secondary educational attainment. The study also explored the career paths of New Jersey Leader to Leader Program participants and non-participants over a specific time period. Findings support the research reviewed and indicate that females and certain minority groups are underrepresented in particular grade spans of the principalship. Additionally, certain ethnic groups have experienced growth in numbers within the position and there are salary gaps based on grade spans, gender, race and educational attainment. Cohort tracking revealed that the majority of principals retain the same job code after one year of service, the majority of principals experience a job code change after 4-5 years of service and the most common examples of a job code changes typically involve an increase in salary. When comparing the career paths of NJL2L principals to nonparticipants the data do not result in less frequent job code changes for beginning principals. Recommendations include examination of NJL2L program activities, further examination of the principal population according to these descriptors, including an analysis by county and district codes, and tracking cohorts, taking into consideration the descriptors explored, in order to identify additional trends and best predict the behaviors of New Jersey school principals.

ETD_5215

Ed.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Matthew Gristina

doi:10.7282/T3W37TFM

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.