Comparison of the leadership practices of principals of Blue Ribbon Schools with principals of randomly selected schools

Principals have been identified as critical to the success of schools and integral in effective schools to affect lasting reform. To achieve excellence, principals must embrace transformational leadership behaviors to motivate faculty and staff to perform beyond normal levels. In 1982, the Department of Education initiated the Blue Ribbon School Program to recognize excellent schools and to promote the sharing of these schools' successes. Schools must complete a rigorous application process, which includes an extensive application, nomination by the appropriate agency, a review by an independent committee, and a school visit. The purpose of this study is to determine if principals of Blue Ribbon Schools exhibit the five leadership practices as measured by the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) more than principals of non-Blue Ribbon schools. The procedure employed was a correlational research design. Participants included a stratified, simple random sample of 200 Blue Ribbon Schools and the control group included 400 public and private schools that have never received Blue Ribbon School honors. At each school, the principal and a randomly selected faculty member were asked to complete the LPI and a demographic survey. All hypotheses were stated in the null form. Tests for significance were set at.05 level of confidence. The statistical analysis that was conducted for each hypothesis was t-test, analysis of variance (ANOVA), or Pearson correlation. There were three major findings. First, principals of Blue Ribbon Schools scored significantly higher on the visionary questions of the factor Inspiring a Shared Vision, and the empowerment questions of the factors Challenging the Process and Enabling Others to Act. Second, though principals of Blue Ribbon Schools were older, had higher academic degrees, and had more years of experience than non-Blue Ribbon School principals, differences in LPI scores were of no significance. There were no significant gender differences among principals of Blue Ribbon Schools. Third, there were no significant differences among principals of Blue Ribbon Schools based on type (public versus private), size (small versus large), and location (urban versus suburban/rural). However, there was a statistically significant difference between elementary and secondary principals for the factor Enabling Others to Act.