Rethinking Principal Evaluation

Ed Week

In an era of high-stakes testing, more-rigorous federal and state accountability programs, and intense interest among taxpayers and government leaders in school-level performance, the demand for accountability for principals has never been greater. However, narrowing a principal's performance evaluation to student test scores—or any single criterion, especially those for which a principal does not have direct control—is absurd. Yet that very scenario has been repeated time and again during the past 10 years of adequate yearly progress under the No Child Left Behind law, the current version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. As principal evaluation is likely to be included in proposals to reauthorize the ESEA, the federal government should encourage states to develop effective principal-evaluation systems based on multiple and meaningful measures of the competencies needed to improve student learning. Those systems should include professional-development plans that acknowledge the unique characteristics of each school and its community.

Recent changes to existing federal programs, such as School Improvement Grants, and the development of new initiatives, such as Race to the Top, emphasize the roles and responsibilities of principals. To meet program requirements, more than 30 stateshave changed statutes to require principal evaluation based in "significant part" on student test scores, and we have seen states and local districts hastily devise evaluation plans for principals and school leaders. As a result, many of these plans lack clear performance standards and research-based practices that accurately identify the true characteristics of a high-performing principal.

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