The highest-leverage page · Parts One & Two

What the exam actually rewards.

Twenty-five recurring moves, each derived from the official NYSED sample items and their published rationales, with the specific items that prove each one. Learn these and most selected-response items collapse to two options.

How to use this page Every pattern below was derived by reading the official NYSED sample items and their published rationales, then asking what the correct answer had in common. Patterns marked durable hold across both the current Field 109/110 items and the retired 107/108 items — those are the ones least likely to change. If you internalize nothing else, internalize the distractor checklist at the bottom.

A · How to read the data

Every scenario set hands you three to six exhibits. The exam is testing whether you read them like a leader.

1Disaggregate before you conclude anything. Aggregate data is a trap. durable

A school can look fine in the aggregate and be failing a group badly. The first analytic move is always to break the number apart — by subgroup, by classroom, by teacher, by program participation.

Proof: Bridgemere is 51% proficient against a 45% state average, but the by-group table hides the only group in decline. Branson Heights' ELA sits 9 points above the state while its English language learners sit at 36%. Field 110 item 2 rewards breaking formative results out by program participants vs. nonparticipants. Legacy 107 item 7 picks disaggregation precisely because the survey reports whole-population results only.

2Prioritize the subgroup furthest from the mean — especially one whose trend line is falling. durable

When you must rank needs, the group with the largest gap wins, and a declining trend beats a merely low number. This is the single most reliable tiebreaker on the exam.

Proof: Bridgemere's Black students are the only group declining in both subjects across three years while every other group rises. Field 109 item 6 names African American, economically disadvantaged and male students. The Assignment 1 model response picks ELLs and students with disabilities over stagnant math scores.

3The strongest evidence is a contradiction between two sources. Find the gap and lead with it. durable

When two exhibits disagree, that disagreement is the finding. The exam rewards noticing it and putting it in front of people.

Proof: Field 109 item 8: the correct answer is a side-by-side of faculty at 96% and students at 46% on whether all students are treated fairly. Assignment 1's model contrasts composite evaluation ratings against observation ratings — 8 of 18 math teachers basic or unsatisfactory despite effective composites. Assignment 2's exhibit shows 100% of walkthroughs with differentiated instruction while engagement and co-teaching sit near 40%.

4Never conclude more than the documents literally support.

Absolutes and unmentioned topics are distractor markers. If the exhibits do not contain it, the answer does not claim it.

Proof: Field 109 item 1: option C overreaches with “all students” with no disaggregated support; option D asserts technology integration that appears in no walkthrough. Item 2's option A describes the non-pilot teacher. Item 9's option A is arithmetically true — referrals were ~305% of enrollment — and still wrong, because it sidesteps the equity point.

5Cite numbers, groups and document names. Vague reference is scored down.

Both performance-task prompts say “be very specific in your answers, citing evidence.” The scoring commentary praises evidence “sufficient in quantity and quality” and notes the model draws on all sources provided.

Proof: The Assignment 1 model quotes 47%, 58%, 46%, 76%, 84%, 19%, 20% and “8 of 18 math teachers.” Rubric #1 grades the evidence behind prompts A and B on quantity and quality as its own line.

B · What a leader does first

Nearly every wrong answer on this exam is a good idea executed at the wrong moment.

6Diagnose before you act. The rewarded first move is gathering or analyzing information. durable

The scoring commentary names this outright: “the inquiry stance of a strong instructional leader.” All three Part One performance tasks are literally built as inquiry cycles — issue, questions, how you'll get answers, finding, action.

Proof: Field 109 item 7 picks review referral rates and meet with teachers before any intervention. Legacy 107 item 2 picks identifying the weakest curricular areas as the driver for planning; item 3 picks surveying faculty about PD needs. The Assignment 1 model opens part E with “conduct a needs assessment.”

7But the diagnosis must chase the equity signal, not gather information generically.

When several options are all data-gathering, the correct one follows the disproportionality or gap thread.

Proof: Field 109 item 7's three distractors are also data-gathering — disaggregate achievement by classroom, meet with special education and ENL staff, check for active-learning practices. The winner is the one asking whether equitable support systems are in place and in use in every classroom, because the achievement gaps overlap with the discipline disproportionality.

8Rank competing priorities by equity harm, triangulated evidence, and what stakeholders actually raised — not by who outranks you.

A superintendent's charge does not automatically become your priority. If the parents raised something corroborated by three exhibits, that wins.

Proof: Field 109 item 6 weighs the superintendent's achievement-gap concern against the parents' discipline concern and picks discipline, because referral data, suspension data and student survey comments all corroborate it. Same logic in Assignment 1, where the superintendent's charge is about math curriculum and the model's priority is ELL and SWD achievement.

9Identify a genuine strength and put it to work. Leadership here is asset-based.

Assignment 1 dedicates two of its eight prompts to this — part A names the strength and part G requires you to leverage it against the priority need.

Proof: The Assignment 1 model leverages the 76% / 84% teacher appetite for professional learning. The scoring commentary credits “respect for staff, willingness to engage teacher leaders in distributed leadership.” Field 110 item 3 leverages parent reports precisely because test-score gains had flattened.

C · How change gets implemented

The exam has a consistent theory of change, and it is not top-down.

10Build capacity; do not mandate. “Require all teachers to” is a near-automatic wrong answer. durable

Directives, mandates and requirements lose to professional learning, teams and modelling almost every time.

Proof: Field 109 item 4: expanding professional learning beats “mandating that all core-content teachers utilize specific differentiation strategies.” Assignment 1's model runs needs assessment → job-embedded learning → team ownership, never directives.

11Professional learning must be targeted to identified need, never generic. durable

“More PD” is not the answer. “PD targeted at what the survey identified” is.

Proof: The Assignment 1 model states flatly: “generalized professional learning will not be sufficient.” The scoring commentary names “specific, targeted professional learning in response to individual teacher needs.” Legacy 107 item 3 picks a survey precisely to determine how best to target it.

12Inform and include everyone. Don't single out the resisters or try to convert them.

Scenarios deliberately plant “a small, vocal group is opposed.” Targeting them is the trap.

Proof: Field 109 item 3: “ensure that all teachers understand the initiative” beats “meeting one-on-one with teachers who are opposed to overcome resistance.” The Assignment 3 model names the risk that “some staff might feel that they are being singled out.”

13Persuade with data, not promises or anecdotes.

Options that promise an outcome or offer anecdotal reassurance are distractors.

Proof: Field 109 item 3 rejects both “communicating that implementation will significantly improve student learning” (an unearned promise) and “sharing anecdotal evidence to persuade.” Items 8 and 9 both reward putting data in front of people.

14Work through teacher-leaders, teams and peer observation. Distributed leadership beats principal-centered action. durable

The leader convenes, supports and monitors. The leader rarely does it alone.

Proof: Field 109 item 5 picks working with teacher-leaders so less-familiar teachers can observe in pilot classrooms. Item 3 picks “working with her leadership team.” Legacy 107 item 4 supports and develops the struggling department chair rather than bypassing him. The Assignment 3 model routes the plan through the Shared Decision-Making Team.

15Job-embedded and classroom-proximate beats meeting-room abstraction.

Watching real practice beats reviewing data about practice; refining strategies beats discussing theories about them.

Proof: Field 109 item 5: observing in pilot classrooms beats reviewing interim data at staff meetings and beats writing common lesson plans. Legacy 107 item 9: “develop and refine instructional strategies” beats researching emerging theories. Nuance: abstract belief-work loses when the question asks what meetings should do, but naming bias wins when disproportionality data have already established the pattern (item 9).

D · Equity, expectations and bias

Competency 0002 is titled “to Promote Excellence, Equity, and Social Justice.” That last phrase is doing work.

16Name institutional bias explicitly when disproportionality data exist. Do not soften it. durable

Where the numbers show a pattern, the correct answer says so plainly. Softer framings lose.

Proof: Field 109 item 9's correct answer states the data “indicate that the school has failed to recognize institutional biases,” chosen over three gentler options. The competency language cited is “accountability for social justice and confronting disproportionality.”

17Never lower expectations to match current performance. Low teacher expectations are treated as a root cause. durable

Any option that adjusts standards downward to fit the students is wrong.

Proof: Legacy 107 item 5: “ensure rigorous instruction for all” wins; the trap is “establish academic expectations consistent with student performance.” The rationale cites research that low teacher expectations depress performance. Echoed in the Assignment 1 model: “student survey results suggest low teacher expectations.”

18Adults' self-perception is not evidence. When staff say things are fine and the data say otherwise, believe the data.

Teacher confidence, teacher self-report and teacher comfort are all treated as claims to be tested, not facts.

Proof: Field 109 item 8 (faculty 96% vs. students 46%); item 9 (teachers contend they are fair — refute with data); Assignment 1 part H anticipates “tension from teachers with inflated self-perception”; Assignment 2's model names response validity as a challenge because teachers are unfamiliar with co-teaching.

19Discipline is an instructional and equity issue, not a management issue.

Referrals are lost instructional time and a disproportionality signal. Options that treat them as behaviour management to be tuned are wrong.

Proof: The entire Bridgemere set. The legacy Assignment 3 model frames 120 referrals as lost learning — “students who are not in class are not engaged in learning” — not as misbehaviour to punish harder.

E · Part Two specifics

Human capital, family engagement and operations have their own reliable moves.

20Differentiate supervision by performance level.

Struggling teachers get a support system; high performers get leadership opportunities, never just more work.

Proof: The Human Capital model for the struggling teacher runs: review prior evaluations → conference → teacher self-identifies needs → mentor pairing with a highly effective same-subject colleague → formalized plan → walkthroughs with feedback → mentor models lessons. For the high performer it says explicitly “be sensitive to not make suggestions that would simply be additional work” and “if the teacher would be interested.”

21Immediate means individual performance. Long-term means structures, systems and culture.

When a prompt splits short-term from long-term, keep the two on their own sides of the line.

Proof: Human Capital task 1 (immediate) names the three teachers rated Developing. Task 2 (long-term) builds norms for collaborative team meetings and a professional learning community. Practice bank item 12: the winner is providing regular weekly time, because implementation depends on the time provided to support it.

22Build a system of ongoing two-way communication, not an episodic event or an individual workaround.

Anything that fires once, or that pushes the burden onto individual teachers, loses to a standing structure.

Proof: Field 110 item 4: “establish a system to ensure regular, ongoing communication” beats sending data as it arrives, periodic conferences, and letting individual teachers phone the college as issues arise.

23Time available decides committee vs. act now. This is the exam's most reliable operational discriminator.

Read the scenario for the deadline before you choose. Same facts, different clock, different answer.

Proof: Practice bank item 1: the superintendent wants a plan immediately, so disaggregate, consult, write and submit — and the key states outright that “if you were given ample time to convene a committee, D would be the best answer.” Item 18 rules out leadership-team discussion for the same reason. With no deadline pressure (items 10, 22, 61) the committee wins.

24Investigate before you conclude, discipline or promise — and get Central Office sign-off before structural change.

Take statements, review the video, observe it yourself, give the parent a date you'll respond. Then decide.

Proof: Practice bank items 6, 14, 55, 64, 65 all reward investigating first. Items 7 and 38 route an ability-grouping plan through the assistant superintendent and an ICT conversion through the Director of Special Education, because IEPs and Board policy are implicated.

25Equity of access is the first operational question for any new program or technology.

Before pedagogy, before security, before staff comfort: who is left out?

Proof: Field 110 item 6 on a bring-your-own-device pilot: the essential prior consideration is how the needs of students without devices will be met — digital citizenship, faculty comfort and data security are all real and all subordinate.

The distractor-elimination checklist

Derived from every official item above. Run it when two options both look defensible.

Eliminate an option if it…

  • contains an absolute the data don't support — “all students,” “will significantly improve.”
  • mandates or requires a specific practice of all teachers.
  • acts before diagnosing — jumps to a solution with no inquiry step.
  • targets only the resisters, or only a narrow subgroup of staff.
  • relies on anecdote, persuasion or a promise rather than data.
  • addresses a topic not present in the exhibits — technology that nobody observed, materials already chosen.
  • describes something the non-model teacher did in the walkthrough notes.
  • requires data you don't yet have.
  • is factually true but off the equity point.
  • lowers expectations to match current performance.
  • stops at theory or abstract discussion where concrete instructional change is called for.
  • punishes, blames, breaches confidentiality, or bypasses process — the union, the CBA, Central Office, the parent.
  • ignores the clock the scenario gave you — a committee when they asked for it today.
And the tiebreaker If two options survive all of that, pick the one that advocates for the group furthest from the mean, involves other people, and ties back to student achievement. That combination is the exam's house style.