Leveraging Leadership Development through Principal Evaluation

Below is an introduction to the Policy Update, if you would like to download the Policy Update click the following link:

Policy Update - Leveraging Leadership Development through Principal Evaluation.

Leadership Matters

In the current era of education accountability, policymakers have recognized that school improvement is not possible without highly skilled school leaders. Reports of dramatic school gains in closing achievement gaps consistently highlight the pivotal role that the school principal plays in improving teaching practice. Recent analyses of the School and Staffing Survey from the National Center for Educa­tion Statistics reinforced these findings and further demon­strated that the absence of strong leadership has deleterious consequences. It turns out that a top reason teachers leave positions is due to the lack of support from administrators— something that is particularly true for teachers in high minority, high poverty schools.

Other recent research—this time surveys of working condi­tions in North Carolina—showed that leadership contributed to both teacher retention and student learning. In fact, leadership was the single greatest predictor of Average Yearly Progress (AYP) status at the middle school level, accounting for student achievement more than either school size or teacher retention rates. For every one-point increase in the leadership domain on the survey, middle schools were 6.7 times more likely to achieve AYP. At the high school level, leadership served as the single greatest predictor of whether or not high schools had high student achievement. High schools were 48 times more likely to be included in one of the top three performance designations for every one-point increase in the area of leadership on the working conditions survey.

Just what is it that good principals do? Simply put, principals in highly productive schools invest considerable energy and resources in improving the technical core of their business: teaching and learning. High-quality leaders impact student learning by shaping their school’s professional environment, developing quality teachers, and organizing resources to improve classroom instruction and student learning. Despite

what we know about important dimensions of school leadership, however, current regulations for preparation, training, and licensure are only weakly associated with quality leadership. In fact, a national survey of nearly 2000 school leaders by Public Agenda reported that 72 percent of superintendents and 67 percent of principals said they were not well prepared to deal with the realities of leading teaching and learning communities in today’s schools.

If you would like to download the Policy Update click the following link: Policy Update - Leveraging Leadership Development through Principal Evaluation.