The Principal's Role in Identifying, Addressing, and Moving Mediocre Teachers Beyond the Plateau of Ineffectiveness

As state and federal accountability standards continue to require more from the classroom teacher, principals, who play the most crucial role in ensuring a successful campus, have the insurmountable task of ensuring that schools show adequate progress for school improvement. A well-trained and intuitive principal will make sure that teachers who are mediocre―those who fail to provide reliable, consistent, high quality instruction every day―are expeditiously identified and addressed by providing the needed resources, training, and support. This qualitative study provides insight on the characteristics of mediocre teachers and determines the principal’s role in raising student achievement by identifying, addressing, and moving their performance beyond ineffectiveness.
Data collected from a focus group of six elementary school principals of schools with varying demographics located within the same school district identified common themes and consistent trends as well as the barriers faced when supervising mediocre teachers.