How are Education Leaders Using CALL?

CALL is not usually used as a stand-alone system; leaders connect it to current initiatives to enhance and support the work they are currently doing. In many ways, CALL helps leaders move beyond compliance to leverage what is required of them to make positive changes in their schools. Here are some areas in which education leaders use CALL:

School Improvement Planning

CALL provides multi-layered feedback on instructional leadership practices. Due to the nature of the CALL survey questions, school leaders can look to individual items to identify goals for enhanced practice. In addition, the CALL data feedback system provides strategies and suggestions for improvement. School leaders utilize CALL data and feedback in developing their school improvement plans.

Professional Development

While CALL measures school-wide leadership practices, the principal is ultimately responsible for ensuring the existence and efficacy of these leadership tasks. CALL identifies areas on which school leaders need to focus their time and energy. Having school-wide multi-source data informs a principal’s professional development plan.

Educator Effectiveness Systems

Throughout the country, many states are implementing Educator Effectiveness (EE) systems. CALL can be used either as part of an EE system or to compliment the system. Many Principal Effectiveness systems call for an assessment of leadership practices, which coincides with the CALL theory of action. In addition, for Principal Effectiveness systems that do not call for the use of a survey for evaluation, CALL can be used to compliment the evaluation system by providing formative feedback on where principals should be focusing their work in preparation for their summative evaluations.

Furthermore, some states call for a summative evaluation of principals every other year or every three years. In those cases, schools and districts can administer CALL in the “off” years for formative feedback. Some states also call for schools to develop School/Student Learning Objectives. Once schools have identified these goals, it would be critical to identify the necessary instructional practices that will be needed to reach those goals for students. CALL would be an ideal tool for that process.

Common Core Implementation

With many states adopting Common Core State Standards, school leaders will need to focus their work on the implementation of these new standards. In doing so, effective instructional leadership becomes paramount, as school leaders must create the conditions for teachers to understand and implement the new standards. CALL functions as a diagnostic tool that identifies the areas of instructional leadership that need more attention for a complex initiative such as Common Core implementation.

School Leadership Program (SLP) Grants

Professional development organizations and school leadership researchers who have been awarded SLP grants to work with high-need local education agencies can use CALL to assess their work of supporting schools and school leaders. CALL provides SLP grantees with data on organizational health and school-wide leadership effectiveness. Moreover, the CALL formative feedback system supports school leaders and aligns with the mission of SLP grants to train and mentor principals and other school leaders.

School Leadership Preparation Programs

Principal preparation programs can use CALL as part of a self-evaluation of their program. By administering CALL in schools led by graduates of their programs, preparation programs can track the efficacy of their graduates, support their professional learning, and identify trends across their graduates’ schools that would in turn inform their program’s curriculum.

In addition, effective principal preparation programs emphasize meaningful and relevant fieldwork to train aspiring school leaders. Preparation programs can use CALL as a tool for pre-service principals to gain experience in gathering data, analyzing data, and developing school improvement plans based on that data.