Domain 2: Instructional Leadership, Curriculum, and Teacher Development
Domain 2 tests whether a building leader can improve teaching and learning through standards-aligned curriculum, data inquiry, high-quality feedback, and professional learning. The leader is the instructional lead, not a building manager who occasionally visits classrooms.
Core rules and concepts
- New York’s Next Generation Learning Standards define what students should know; the leader ensures vertical and horizontal alignment, not just coverage.
- A multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) framework organizes core instruction, intervention, and progress monitoring before referral for special education evaluation.
- APPR requirements under Commissioner’s Regulations emphasize observations, evidence-based feedback, and professional growth; evaluation should develop teachers, not merely rank them.
- Data inquiry teams examine disaggregated assessment results, identify a root cause, select one high-leverage action, and monitor implementation.
Worked example
Grade 3 ELA data show 38 percent of students with disabilities and 41 percent of English language learners scoring below benchmark, while overall proficiency is 62 percent. The principal resists a test-prep assembly. She convenes a data team, reviews the alignment of units to the standards, checks whether ENL and special education services are delivered inside core instruction, and schedules six weeks of modeled guided reading with coaching. The team monitors running records and unit assessments every two weeks.
Traps that cost marks
Using observations only to document incompetence; confusing an accommodation with a modification; replacing core instruction with intervention; adopting a program without checking alignment to the standards; ignoring ELL and IEP subgroups in data analysis; treating professional development as a one-day event.