Students in schools led by highly trained principals gained the equivalent of four additional months of math learning compared to peers whose principals received limited professional development, according to a new report from the Learning Policy Institute. The gains were even larger for historically underserved students.
The report synthesizes more than two decades of research to argue that principals are the central force behind solving many of K12 education’s most urgent challenges, including chronic absenteeism, learning loss, teacher turnover and student mental health.
The strongest evidence emerged around teacher retention. Schools led by well-prepared principals retained teachers at an 89% annual rate, compared to 78% in schools with less-prepared leaders. Teachers who viewed school leaders as unsupportive were more than twice as likely to leave their school or exit the profession.
In high-need schools, effective principals reduced teacher attrition enough to erase much of the turnover gap between disadvantaged campuses and more affluent ones, the report found.
The research also warned of the long-term damage caused by principal turnover. Student achievement often declines for up to five years after a principal leaves, with the steepest drops occurring in high-poverty schools and campuses with histories of low performance. Those schools are also the most likely to experience leadership churn, creating a cycle that can be difficult to interrupt.
The report cites strong leadership as a solution to another growing challenge: chronic absenteeism. National absenteeism rates climbed from 13% of students in 2017 to 29% in 2022 and still affect roughly one in four students nationwide. Researchers identified school climate, which principals largely shape, as one of the strongest predictors of whether students consistently attend school.
Positive school climates were associated with stronger student engagement, higher graduation rates and reduced effects of poverty on academic performance.
The report urged states and districts to invest more aggressively in leadership development, including paid yearlong principal residencies, ongoing coaching for leaders and pipelines that recruit aspiring principals from the teacher workforce.
Researchers also argued that districts should treat principal stability as a core improvement strategy rather than a secondary outcome of other reforms. The report pointed to states such as Illinois and North Carolina as examples where stronger principal preparation programs have already produced measurable gains in student achievement.
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