A case of new york city high school principals' experiences with multiple accountability pressures and accompanying models for decision-making

Abstract

This study presents the results of an interview study that asked, How do principals' experiences with accountability in New York City schools affect the decisions they make about teaching and learning issues? To explore this question, 10 New York City high school principals were interviewed and asked for critical incidents that would illustrate their experiences with each of the accountabilities in the framework. The principals in this study worked in schools that were varied by size (i.e., <500, ≥500) and instructional philosophy (i.e., progressive or traditional). Interviews with each principal resulted in 96 critical incidents including 216 examples of accountability pressure. Using a mixed-method construct for data analysis, the critical incidents were analyzed for patterns of response based on two variables: size and instructional philosophy. Also, the data analysis considered principal responses when these variables were combined, resulting in the cases of principals' experiences with multiple accountabilities from the following school types: progressive large schools, progressive small schools, and traditional large schools. The study concludes that while all principals in the study experienced all forms of accountability---political, bureaucratic, market, professional, and moral---outlined in the conceptual framework for this study, there was difference in the frequency of these experiences when the variables of school size and instructional philosophy were considered. Findings suggest that principals of large schools reported more market accountability pressure than principals of small schools. Also, small school principals reported a greater number of experiences with bureaucratic and professional accountability conflict than their counterparts at large schools. When considering school philosophy, the data reveal that progressive school principals reported more moral accountability pressure than their traditional school counterparts. Also presented in this study is a decision situation framework: simple decision, simple conflict, and complex conflict, which evolved from principal reports of incidents where there were multiple accountabilities in support of each other, in conflict with each other, or both. The analysis using this framing indicated that the difference of experiences within each of these situations involving multiple accountabilities was apparent when school size and instructional philosophy were considered.

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