With reform movements besieging American schools, building administrators are increasingly called to lead the change process. The purpose of this study was to determine how the role of building administrators in literacy reform was viewed by teachers and how these perceptions influenced teacher practice and school improvement efforts.

The study employed a mixed-method approach to data collection and analysis. Additionally, the participants comprised 650 K-12 public school teachers from 30 districts in the state of Connecticut.

The results indicated that participants were uncertain whether building administrators or teachers should ultimately have responsibility over and accountability for literacy reform and, instead, endorsed a collaborative approach. Participants did, however, believe that building administrators should be instructional leaders as well as managers and asserted that building administrators need literacy training. These findings point to the need for a new model of administrative licensure which necessitates coursework in foundational understandings of literacy.