Jacob Alonso, Nicole Arshan, James Bridgeforth, Miguel Casar, Linda Darling-Hammond, Jeimee Estrada, Susanna Loeb, Julie Marsh, Laura Mulfinger, Amanda Pickett, Tye Ripma, Vandeka Rodgers, Beth Schueler, Mariana De Franca Steil, Akunna Uka, Wesley Wei
School and district leadership play a central role in how California’s education system functions in practice. Principals shape instructional priorities, teacher development, and school climate, while superintendents and school boards set direction, allocate resources, and translate policy into local action. In a system built on local control, the effectiveness of these leaders is closely tied to the system’s ability to improve student outcomes over time.
At the same time, California’s education system is experiencing sustained leadership instability across multiple levels. These concerns are unfolding within a leadership landscape that is changing in other ways as well, including an increasingly diverse principal workforce and an aging group of school leaders approaching retirement. Between 2012-13 and 2024-25, the share of principals of color increased from 35 percent to 42 percent, and between 2016-17 and 2024-25, the share of female principals increased from 47 percent to 56 percent (Arshan, Darling-Hammond, and Wei). Principal turnover remains high relative to national averages, superintendent tenure is often short, and school boards face increasing demands and pressures. These patterns raise concerns about whether schools and districts have the continuity of leadership needed to sustain improvement, implement policy coherently, and build organizational capacity.
This brief draws on Getting Down to Facts III research to examine trends in school and district leadership in California and their implications for system stability and improvement.
Key Findings
1. Leadership turnover compounds system fragmentation and weakens implementation capacity. Turnover across principals, superintendents, and school boards reduces continuity across leadership roles and makes implementation harder to sustain. When leadership changes occur across roles at the same time, districts face greater difficulty sustaining reforms, aligning priorities, and maintaining coherent strategies over time.
2. Leadership turnover is widespread across principals, superintendents, and school boards, reducing continuity across the system. California is experiencing substantial turnover across all three roles. This pattern reduces continuity in the people responsible for setting direction, carrying out priorities, and maintaining relationships over time.
3. Principal turnover remains high and is associated with weaker school conditions and outcomes. Research consistently links principal turnover to increased teacher turnover and declines in student achievement, underscoring the importance of stable school-level leadership.
4. Superintendent turnover is widespread and limits district continuity. From 2019-20 to 2025-26, 69 percent of California districts experienced at least one superintendent transition, exceeding the national average. Only 38 percent of superintendents who were new in 2020-21 remained in their roles five years later.
5. School boards are operating under growing strain and variable capacity. Board members report increasing political, fiscal, and governance challenges, alongside uneven preparation and support for their roles.
