Principals’ Instructional Feedback Practices During Race to the Top

We investigated how 12 K–12 public school principals in a Northeastern U.S. state perceived their role to provide teachers with instructional feedback during Race to the Top (RTTT). Guided by the use of evidence gathered from standardized teaching-practice rubrics, principals reported they provided more honest and frank instructional feedback to teachers regarding their performance. The principals described how the standardized indicators honed their focus on students’ levels of engagement during classroom observations. This study demonstrates how standardized teaching-practice protocols can assist principals’ instructional supervision and evaluation practices, but may not support principals’ or teachers’ pedagogical content-area needs.