Education Drivers

Principal Formal Evaluation

Data Mining

TITLE
SYNOPSIS
CITATION
What Distinguishes Effective Supervisors From Marginal Supervisors?
This inquiry looks at research on the impact of supervisors and the activities they engage in that most improve staff performance.
States, J. (2011). What Distinguishes Effective Supervisors From Marginal Supervisors? Retrieved from what-distinguishes-effective-supervisors.
How Effective Are Principals in Assessing Teacher Skills?
This is an examination of a tool used for assessing principal's accuracy in determining teacher’s abilities to effectively deliver instruction in a classroom.
States, J. (2012). How Effective Are Principals in Assessing Teacher Skills? Retrieved from how-effective-are-principals.
What evidence do principals rely on in assessing the quality of a teacher’s instruction?
This analysis examines principal sources of information on teacher instructional competency and the amount of time spent assessing teacher's instructional skills.
States, J. (2015). What evidence do principals rely on in assessing the quality of a teacher’s instruction? Retrieved from what-evidence-do-principals.

 

Presentations

TITLE
SYNOPSIS
CITATION
Now What? The Current State of Principal Preparation, Evaluation, and Support
This paper examines the current state of principal development in the context of best practices, including: evidence-based curriculum, well-trained instructors, effective coaching, and ongoing feedback and support.
Keyworth, R. (2015). Now What? The Current State of Principal Preparation, Evaluation, and Support [Powerpoint Slides]. Retrieved from 2015-calaba-presentation-randy-keyworth.
TITLE
SYNOPSIS
CITATION
Evaluating Principals: Balancing Accountability with Professional Growth

The goal of this paper is to provide policymakers with recommendations for the design and implementation of strong principal development and evaluation systems. States and local school systems that pursue these ideas can use principal evaluation to drive a powerful vision of principal effectiveness and, by consequence, improve outcomes for all students.

(2010). Evaluating Principals: Balancing Accountability with Professional Growth. New Leaders for New Schools.

Principal Evaluation Rubric

Overview New Leaders has recently published a new principal evaluation model. It includes seven modules: (1) Overview of the New Leaders Principal Evaluation Model, (2) The Principal Evaluation Rubric, (3) Setting a Principal Practice Goal + Strategic Planning, (4) Identifying Evidence, (5) Direct Observation of Principal Practice, (6) Collecting and Mapping Evidence to the Principal Practice Rubric, and (7) Providing Actionable Feedback.

(2012). Putting Principal Evaluation into Practice. New Leaders

Putting Principal Evaluation into Practice

Overview New Leaders has recently published a new principal evaluation model. It includes seven modules: (1) Overview of the New Leaders Principal Evaluation Model, (2) The Principal Evaluation Rubric, (3) Setting a Principal Practice Goal + Strategic Planning, (4) Identifying Evidence, (5) Direct Observation of Principal Practice, (6) Collecting and Mapping Evidence to the Principal Practice Rubric, and (7) Providing Actionable Feedback.

(2012). Putting Principal Evaluation into Practice. New Leaders

Evaluating and Supporting Principals

This report analyzes the progress of the districts participated in the Principal Pipeline Initiative sponsored by The Wallace Foundation in implementing the fourth key component, evaluation and support systems aligned with the district-adopted standards for leader. 

Anderson, L. M., Turnbull, B. J. (2016). Evaluating and Supporting Principals. Building a Stronger Principalship, vol 4. 

Antecedents And Consequences Of Reactions To Developmental 360° Feedback

This study investigates factors that influence leaders’ reactions to 360° feedback and the relationship of feedback reactions to subsequent development activities and changes in behavior.

Atwater, L. E., & Brett, J. F. (2005). Antecedents and consequences of reactions to developmental 360 feedback. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 66(3), 532-548.

360° Feedback: Accuracy, Reactions, And Perceptions Of Usefulness

This study examines 360° feedback ratings and reactions to feedback, perceptions of feedback accuracy, perceived usefulness of the feedback, and recipients' receptivity to development.

Brett, J. F., & Atwater, L. E. (2001). 360° feedback: Accuracy, reactions, and perceptions of usefulness. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(5), 930.

Do Principals Know Good Teaching When They See It?

This article examines the effectiveness and related issues of current methods of principal evaluation of teachers.

Burns M. (2011). Do Principals Know Good Teaching When They See It?. Educational policy, 19(1), 155-180.

Standards for educational leaders: An analysis
This project seeks to survey and document the knowledge and practice of districts and states that have
developed effective principal evaluation systems, and to share these success stories with others. This
grant-funded report is focused on improving principal evaluation, which is a major thrust of principal
pipeline initiatives.

Canole, M., & Young, M. (2013). Standards for educational leaders: An analysis. Washington, DC: Council of Chief State School Officers.

Improving instructional leadership: A multi-case study of principal perspectives on formal evaluation

In a time when public schools continue to be scrutinized, school leadership never mattered more in order to exercise school reform. This qualitative study examined how five principals working in an urban school district perceived their evaluation and how it contributed to their practice.

Chacon-Robles, B. (2018). Improving instructional leadership: A multi-case study perspectives on formal evaluations. The University of Texas at El Paso.

Rethinking principal evaluation: A new paradigm informed by research and practice

As the federal government urges states and districts to create principal evaluation systems, largely linked to student achievement, it’s also time that principals be part of the conversation. Without the inclusion of the expertise of school and instructional leaders, the new evaluation systems created across the country may not necessarily be improved or attain desired results, and, as a result, principals may not view feedback from these new evaluation systems as informative for improvement of their practice or their schools.

Connelly, G., & Schooley, M. (2013). National Association of Elementary School Principals. Leadership Matters: What the Research Says About the Importance of Principal Leadership.

Rethinking Leadership: The Changing Role of Principal Supervisors

This report consists of two parts: a survey of 67 public school systems district staff serving as principal supervisors and on-site analysis of six districts pre-service training and support systems for new principals.

Corcoran, A., et al. (2013). Rethinking Leadership: The Changing Role of Principal Supervisors. The Wallace Foundation.

The politics of principal evaluation

This article examines the politics of principal evaluation through both an extensive review of the literature and in-depth interviews with principals and superintendents. The findings reveal that the format and processes used in principal evaluation often vary from one district to another and that principals and superintendents frequently hold different perspectives about the purposes and usefulness of evaluation.

Davis, S. H., & Hensley, P. A. (1999). The politics of principal evaluation. Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education13(4), 383-403.

Useful or useless? Principal perceptions of the Texas Principal Evaluation and Support System

Principal evaluations can be important tools for improving leadership practice, but evaluations have often described by principals and researchers as unsystematic and lacking timely and actionable feedback. This study examines principal perceptions of the Texas Principal Evaluation and Support System.

DeMatthews, D. E., Scheffer, M., & Kotok, S. (2020). Useful or useless? Principal perceptions of the Texas principal evaluation and support system. Journal of Research on Leadership Education, 1942775120933920.

Education Leadership: A Bridge to School Reform

This report describes how Denver Public Schools hired people to coach and evaluate its principals.

DeVita, M., Colvin, R., Darling-Hammond, L., Haycock, K. (2007). Education Leadership: A Bridge to School Reform. The Wallace Foundation.

Doing the “real” work: How superintendents’ sensemaking shapes principal evaluation policies and practices in school districts

Almost every state in the United States has revamped its principal evaluation policies since 2009, yet we know little about how they are implemented. Based on interviews and document analysis in 21 small- and medium-sized school districts, we found that superintendents’ sense making shaped their implementation of policy.

Donaldson, M. L., Mavrogordato, M., Youngs, P., Dougherty, S., & Al Ghanem, R. (2021). “Doing the ‘Real’Work”: How Superintendents’ Sensemaking Shapes Principal Evaluation Policies and Practices in School Districts. AERA Open7, 2332858420986177.

Principal evaluation under the elementary and secondary Every Student Succeeds act: A comprehensive policy review

A growing body of research recognizes the critical role of the school principal, demonstrating that school principals’ effects on student outcomes are second only to those of teachers. Yet policy makers have often paid little attention to principals, choosing instead to focus policy reform on teachers. In the last decade, this pattern has shifted somewhat.

Donaldson, M., Mavrogordato, M., Dougherty, S. M., Ghanem, R. A., & Youngs, P. (2021). Principal Evaluation under the Elementary and Secondary Every Student Succeeds Act: A Comprehensive Policy Review.

Appraising principal evaluation and development: Current research and future directions.

In the past decade, nearly all states have revised their principal evaluation policies, prompting school districts across the country to rethink how they are evaluating school leaders. The new principal evaluation systems that emerge out of these policy reforms often couple increased accountability with a greater emphasis on development in an effort to spur continuous improvement in school leadership practices.

Donaldson, M., Mavrogordato, M., Youngs, P., & Dougherty, S. (2020). Appraising Principal Evaluation and Development: Current Research and Future Directions. Exploring Principal Development and Teacher Outcomes, 56-68.

Leading for Instructional Improvement: How Successful Leaders Develop Teaching and Learning Expertise

This book shows how principals and other school leaders can develop the skills necessary for teachers to deliver high quality instruction by introducing principals to a five-part model of effective instruction.

Fink, S., & Markholt, A. (2011). Leading for instructional improvement: How successful leaders develop teaching and learning expertise. John Wiley & Sons.

A bridge too far? Challenges in evaluating prin­cipal effectiveness

This research has profound implications for states and districts implementing principal evaluation systems, particularly those making high-stakes decisions about principals based on statistical estimates of principal effectiveness. Indeed, such statistical estimates should be used not for making judgments or decisions about principals but rather as a screening tool to identify where states and districts should focus more in-depth and accurate strategies to evaluate principal effectiveness.

Fuller, E. J., & Hollingworth, L. (2014). A bridge too far? Challenges in evaluating principal effectiveness. Educational Administration Quarterly50(3), 466-499.

Evaluating state principal evaluation plans across the United States

Recent federal legislation has created strong incentives for states to adopt principal evaluation systems, many of which include new measures of principal effectiveness such as estimates of student growth and changes in school climate. Yet, there has been little research on principal evaluation systems and no state-by-state analysis of the principal evaluation systems adopted at the behest of the legislation.

Fuller, E. J., Hollingworth, L., & Liu, J. (2015). Evaluating state principal evaluation plans across the United States. Journal of Research on Leadership Education10(3), 164-192.

Developing Leaders: The Importance—and the Challenges—of Evaluating Principal Preparation Programs

The role of today's principal is changing, as is the principal workforce. The new generation of principals is younger with less teaching experience, and is more mobile, working more hours, and experiencing more job stress. Understanding how to better prepare new leaders for the role of principal is an urgent policy concern.

George W. Bush Institute, Education Reform Initiative, (2016). Developing Leaders: The Importance—and the Challenges—of Evaluating Principal Preparation Programs. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED570672

Make Room for the Principal Supervisors

This report describes how Denver Public Schools hired personnel to coach and evaluate its principals.

Gill, J., (2013). Make Room for the Principal Supervisors. The Wallace Foundation.

The folklore of principal evaluation

Principal evaluation shares many characteristics with the more general field of personnel evaluation. That is, evaluations may have the purpose of gathering data to help improve performance (formative), or may use the collected information to make decisions about promotion or firing (summative).

Ginsberg, R., & Berry, B. (1990). The folklore of principal evaluation. Journal of personnel evaluation in education3(3), 205-230.

Changing the principal supervisor role to better support principals: Evidence from the Principal Supervisor Initiative

Principal supervisors are a potential point of leverage for supporting and developing principals' effectiveness, but little is known about the effectiveness of this approach. The overarching hypothesis of the PSI was that changing the role of principal supervisors from overseeing operations to developing principals' instructional leadership practices could drive improvement in principal effectiveness.

Goldring, E. B., Clark, M. A., Rubin, M., Rogers, L. K., Grissom, J. A., Gill, B., ... & Burnett, A. (2020). Changing the Principal Supervisor Role to Better Support Principals: Evidence from the Principal Supervisor Initiative. Mathematica.

The Evaluation of Principals: What and How do States and Urban Districts Assess Leadership?

This study present results of a comprehensive review of principal leadership assessment practices in the United States. Using the learning-centered leadership framework, it focused on identifying the congruence (or lack thereof) between documented assessment practices and the research-based criteria for effective leadership that are associated with improved school performance.

Goldring, E., Cravens, X. C., Murphy, J., Porter, A. C., Elliott, S. N., & Carson, B. (2009). The evaluation of principals: What and how do states and urban districts assess leadership?. The Elementary School Journal, 110(1), 19-39

Assessing Learning-Centered Leadership: Connections to Research, Professional Standards, and Current Practices

With support from The Wallace Foundation, a Vanderbilt University team is developing a tool to monitor and assess the performance of school leaders. The Vanderbilt assessment will differ from existing tools by focusing 100 percent on instructional leadership and examining both principals and leadership teams. The paper, with two companion reports, presents the research behind and conceptual framework for the tool.

Goldring, E., Porter, A., Murphy, J., Elliott, S. N., & Cravens, X. (2009). Assessing learning-centered leadership: Connections to research, professional standards, and current practices. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 8(1), 1-36.

Principals Younger and Freer, but Raise Doubts in the Schools

An analysis by The New York Times of the city’s signature report-card system shows that schools run by graduates of the celebrated New York City Leadership Academy — which the mayor created and helped raise more than $80 million for — have not done as well as those led by experienced principals or new principals who came through traditional routes.

Gootman, E., Gebeloff, R. (2009). Principals Younger and Freer, but Raise Doubts in the Schools. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/nyregion/26principals.html

Assessing principals’ assessments: Subjective evaluations of teacher effectiveness in low- and high-stakes environments

Teacher effectiveness varies substantially, yet principals’ evaluations of teachers often fail to differentiate performance among teachers. We offer new evidence on principals’ subjective evaluations of their teachers’ effectiveness using two sources of data from a large, urban district: principals’ high-stakes personnel evaluations of teachers, and their low-stakes assessments of a subsample of those teachers provided to the researchers.

Grissom, J. A., & Loeb, S. (2017). Assessing principals’ assessments: Subjective evaluations of teacher effectiveness in low-and high-stakes environments. Education Finance and Policy12(3), 369-395.

Evaluating school principals: Supervisor ratings of principal practice and principal job performance.

Numerous studies investigate high-stakes personnel evaluation systems in education, but nearly all focus on evaluation of teachers. The authors instead examine the evaluation of school principals at scale using data from the first 4 years of implementation of Tennessee’s multiple-measure administrator evaluation system. 

Grissom, J. A., Blissett, R. S. L., & Mitani, H. (2018). Evaluating school principals: Supervisor ratings of principal practice and principal job performance. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis40(3), 446–472.

Using student test scores to measure principal performance.

this article identifies multiple conceptual approaches for capturing the contributions of principals to student test score growth, develops empirical models to reflect these approaches, examines the properties of these models, and compares the results of the models empirically using data from a large urban school district.

Grissom, J. A., Kalogrides, D., & Loeb, S. (2015). Using student test scores to measure principal performance. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis37(1), 3–28.

Assessing the instructional management behavior of principals.

This article presents results from a study that examined the instructional management behavior of 10 elementary school principals in a single school district. The primary goal of the research was to describe the instructional management behavior of these principals in terms of specific job behaviors.

Hallinger, P., & Murphy, J. F. (1985). Assessing the instructional management behavior of principals. Elementary School Journal, 86(2), 217–247.

Measuring principals’ effectiveness: Results from New Jersey’s first year of statewide principal evaluation

States and districts across the country are implementing new principal evaluation systems that include measures of the quality of principals' school leadership practices and measures of student achievement growth. Because these evaluation systems will be used for high- stakes decisions, it is important that the component measures of the evaluation systems fairly and accurately differentiate between effective and ineffective principals.

Herrmann, M., & Ross, C. (2016). Measuring principals’ effectiveness: Results from New Jersey’s first year of statewide principal evaluation. Mathematica Policy Research Reports available from https://econpapers. repec. org/paper/mprmprres/5f9c12f1d7404636aaf2e98e5abfaf6 f. htm.

Can Principals Identify Effective Teachers? Evidence on Subjective Performance Evaluation in Education

This paper examines how well principals can distinguish between more and less effective teachers. To put principal evaluations in context, we compare them with the traditional determinants of teacher compensation-education and experience-as well as value-added measures of teacher effectiveness.

Jacob, B. A., & Lefgren, L. (2008). Can principals identify effective teachers? Evidence on subjective performance evaluation in education. Journal of Labor Economics, 26(1), 101-136.

Improving principal evaluation

In recent years, educators and policymakers have agreed that principals are critical to school success and have repeatedly pointed out the need to aggressively recruit and select highly qualified candidates. Surprisingly, however, the evaluation of principals has attracted much less interest. Recent policy documents on school leadership have largely ignored the topic, and the empirical research base is very thin.

Lashway, L. (2003). Improving principal evaluation.

Principal Evaluation Handbook

New Leaders has recently published a new principal evaluation model. It includes seven modules: (1) Overview of the New Leaders Principal Evaluation Model, (2) The Principal Evaluation Rubric, (3) Setting a Principal Practice Goal + Strategic Planning, (4) Identifying Evidence, (5) Direct Observation of Principal Practice, (6) Collecting and Mapping Evidence to the Principal Practice Rubric, and (7) Providing Actionable Feedback.

Leaders, N. (2012). New leaders principal evaluation handbook. New York: Author.

Measuring school leaders’ effectiveness: Final report from a multiyear pilot of Pennsylvania’s Framework for Leadership

States and districts across the country are revising how they evaluate school principals. Those that are doing so face a substantial challenge: there is scant evidence on the validity and reliability of current principal evaluation tools. Pennsylvania is among states that are developing a new tool for evaluating principals and assistant principals.

McCullough, M., Lipscomb, S., Chiang, H., Gill, B., & Cheban, I. (2016). Measuring school leaders’ effectiveness: Final report from a multiyear pilot of Pennsylvania’s Framework for Leadership (No. afa7e4c19e4140f3b17422e994fc4e1d). Mathematica Policy Research.

Principals in the Pipeline

This paper describe four essential elements of effective principals: principal standards, high-quality training, selective hiring, and a combination of solid on-the-job support and performance evaluation, especially for new hires.

Mendels, P. (2012). Principals in the pipeline. The Learning Professional33(3), 48.

Getting intentional about principal evaluations

Under new frameworks, districts have better aligned their evaluations with their school-leadership standards and developed nuanced rubrics for evidence-collection and evaluation ratings. They have also altered the role of principal supervisors so that they spend more time in schools working with principals.

Mendels, P. (2017). Getting Intentional about Principal Evaluations. Educational Leadership74(8), 52-56.

Race to the top: States implementing teacher and principal evaluation systems despite challenges

Education created RTT under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to provide incentives for states to reform K-12 education in areas such as improving the lowest performing schools and developing effective teachers and leaders. In 2010, Education awarded 12 states nearly $4 billion in RTT grant funds to spend over 4 years. A state's RTT application and scope of work included the state's plans for development and
implementation of teacher and principal evaluation systems by participating school districts

Scott, G. A. (2013). Race to the Top: States Implementing Teacher and Principal Evaluation Systems Despite Challenges. Report to the Chairman, Committee on Education and the Workforce, House of Representatives. GAO-13-777. US Government Accountability Office.

Principals' Test Not Predictive of Success on the Job: Exam results show racial disparities

New research has found essentially no positive correlation between how would-be principals perform on a widely used licensure exam and their success as school leaders.

Superville. D.S. (2017). Principals' Test Not Predictive of Success on the Job: Exam results show racial disparities. Education Week. Retrieved from https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/04/05/principals-test-not-predictive-of-success-on.html

Charting a course for the professional growth and development of principals: Evaluation process

The T-PESS process incorporates a series of actions and activities that should be applied on an ongoing basis. While the T-PESS process results in your annual summary assessment, it's better to think of it as an annual process of activities that help you self-assess, establish performance goals, collect and analyze information, and provide constructive feedback, improving your quality and effectiveness as the school leader.

Texas Education Agency. (2019). Charting a course for the professional growth and development of principalsEvaluation process.

Principal evaluation—linking individual and building-level progress: Making the connections and embracing the tensions

The article examines the tensions one superintendent in the USA experienced as he evaluated principals in a high-stakes environment that had undergone numerous transformations at the central office. Using qualitative methods, primarily, shadowing techniques, observations and debriefing, the following tensions emerged and were examined in light of the work of the superintendent evaluating principal performance.

Zepeda, S. J., Lanoue, P. D., Price, N. F., & Jimenez, A. M. (2014). Principal evaluation–linking individual and building-level progress: Making the connections and embracing the tensions. School Leadership & Management34(4), 324-351.

Addressing Challenges in Evaluating School Principal Improvement Efforts
This report describes the challenges states, districts, and other entities encounter as they evaluate school reform.
Burkhauser, S., Pierson, A., Gates, S., and Hamilton, L. (2012) Assessing the Relationship Between Administrator Preparation Programs and Job Performance. Rand Corporation.
School Principals and School Performance
This paper uses data from New York City to estimate how the characteristics of school principals relate to school performance, as measured by students' standardized exam scores and other outcomes. There is little evidence of any relationship between school performance and principal education and pre-principal work experience, but some evidence that experience as an assistant principal at the principal's current school is associated with higher performance among inexperienced principals.
Clark, D., Martorell, P., & Rockoff, J. (2009). School Principals and School Performance. Working Paper 38. National Center for Analysis of longitudinal data in Education research.
Practical Guide To Designing Comprehensive Principal Evaluation Systems
This guide is intended to assist states and districts in developing systems of principal evaluation and support and is informed by research on performance evaluation.
Clifford, M., Hansen, U. J., and Wraight, S. (2012). Practical Guide To Designing Comprehensive Principal Evaluation Systems. American Institutes for Research.
Measuring Principal Performance: How Rigorous Are Commonly Used Principal Performance Assessment Instruments?
This study reviewed eight publicly available formative assessments of principal performance, focusing on the tool’s approach, time requirement, content and construct validity, and reliability.
Condon, C., & Clifford, M. (2010). Measuring Principal Performance: How Rigorous Are Commonly Used Principal Performance Assessment Instruments? A Quality School Leadership Issue Brief. Learning Point Associates.
The Policies and Practices of Principal Evaluation
This paper provides a literature review of 68 research papers published from 1980 through 2010 on the topic of principal evaluation.
Davis, S., Kearney, K., Sanders, N., Thomas, C., & Leon, R. (2011). The policies and practices of principal evaluation: A review of the literature. San Francisco, CA: WestEd.
What We Know About Upward Appraisals of Management: Facilitating the Future Use of UPAs
This is a review of the literature on upward performance appraisal (UPA). It reveals that UPA is an under-used management tool; however, compared to traditional top-down appraisals, the focus of UPAs may be a better fit as an instrument for continuous improvement.
Hall, J. L., Leiaecker, J. K., & DiMarco, C. (1996). What we know about upward appraisals of management: facilitating the future use of UPAs. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 7(3), 209-226.

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