Principals' Job Reviews Getting a Fresh Look

By Christina A. Samuel

Ed Week

Highly effective principals are mentioned in the same breath with good teachers as an essential ingredient for improving schools.

But when it comes to developing tools that can determine whether school leaders possess the qualities that promote academic growth, safe schools, and teacher satisfaction, that effort has been overshadowed by the intense debate over how best to measure the performance of teachers. While policymakers engage in pointed discussions about how—and whether—to incorporate sophisticated measures of student achievement into teacher performance reviews, the conversation around evaluating principals has been less vociferous.

The balance, however, is slowly starting to shift.

Two groups representing elementary and secondary principals announced a joint plan on Thursday to help states and districts create principal-evaluation tools that will provide trustworthy feedback and opportunities for professional development. WestEd, the San Francisco-based education research group, also wants to be a national resource for such efforts, building on meetings the group has held with education leaders in California. As one of the first steps, it released a literature review this month of research in the field of principal evaluation.

The announcements by the National Association of Elementary School Principals, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and WestEd adds to the backdrop of growing efforts across the country to improve districts’ current principal-evaluation processes.

Several districts and states, a foundation, various national groups and policymakers in recent years have all begun to take a hand in quietly revamping principal-evaluation processes to develop principals who can support high-achieving schools.

“We are clearly at a very different place [with principal evaluations] than we are with teacher evaluations,” said Edward Pauly, the director of research and evaluation for the Wallace Foundation, which has promoted educational leadership since 2000, His remark acknowledged that policymakers are primarily focused on revamping teacher evaluation at the moment. But, he added “there’s also widespread appreciation of how important principals are.” (The Wallace Foundation also provides funding to Education Week to support coverage of leadership.)

Codifying Leadership

While attention may be growing around the need to improve the principal-evaluation process, most principal evaluations continue to be based on a yearly meeting with a district-level administrator, and may not touch on the principal’s role as an instructional leader.

Experts have long recognized the need for a more systematic, instruction-focused evaluation system that will spur principals to do better in all aspects of their job. In 1996, the Washington-based Council for Chief State School Officers released a series of standards for principal leadership, called the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium Standards for School Leaders. This work was one of the first attempts to codify the characteristics of good school leaders.

Revised in 2008, the six standards offer a broad look at all the areas where principals should demonstrate proficiency, such as “facilitating the development, articulation, implementation, and stewardship of a vision of learning that is shared and supported by all stakeholders” and “promot[ing] the success of every student by acting with integrity, fairness, and in an ethical manner.”

Translating those standards into a method of measuring principal effectiveness has been a challenge, researchers say. The instrument has to not only measure principals’ strengths, but also accurately diagnose weak areas and create a road map for improvement.

“It really is about understanding what standards are supposed to do. It’s that kind of leadership training and conversation that we haven’t had enough of,” said Karen Kearney, the project director of the Leadership Initiative, WestEd’s project.

On Capitol Hill

The federal government also has attempted to steer the issue. In March 2010, the Obama administration’s blueprint for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act proposed that states define what it means to be an “effective” or a “highly effective” principal. Under the blueprint, states would be required to use student academic growth as an important measure of effectiveness, and they would have to ensure that effective school leaders are spread equitably among schools.

Congress has been slow to move on ESEA reauthorization. But, recognizing that the issue is growing in importance, the project unveiled this week by the NAESP, based in Alexandria, Va., and the NASSP, of Reston, Va., is aimed at giving states and districts a road map to follow if they want to improve their evaluation systems.

Gail Connelly, the executive director of the NAESP, said that the groups want to create a process that incorporates student performance into student evaluations, but also allows support for professional development and principal mentoring.

“We’re responding to a real eagerness on the part of our principals that they be held accountable on all the things that matter,” Ms. Connelly said. That includes student test scores, but not that measure alone, she said, echoing the parallel discussion going on over teacher evaluation.

The NASSP also wants to avoid a narrow focus on just test scores to prove a principal’s effectiveness, said Richard A. Flanary, the director of the organization’s department of professional development ...

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Coverage of leadership, extended and expanded learning time, and arts learning is supported in part by a grant from the Wallace Foundation, at www.wallacefoundation.org.

Vol. 30, Issue 37