Principal Evaluation Models

Since No Child Left Behind and now the President’s Blueprint for Reform, it is not just the teacher’s job security that rests on the shoulders of student achievement, it is the principal’s as well.  Principal effectiveness plays a critical part in reaching the educational results required of schools today. If a school persistently under-performs on student achievement tests, the school’s principal is at risk of being transferred, demoted, or dismissed. Principals therefore need clear expectations for job performance, assessment of their performance, and feedback in order for principals to grow and develop in their performance. 

As part of the Integrated Leadership Development Initiative, West Ed used the most relevant and publicly accessible literature on the topic of principal evaluation including philosophies, models, common approaches, problems, and promising practices endorsed by states and school districts over a 30 year period.  They developed a 45 page literature review that summarized results of a large number of sources. They divided the literature into categories including implementation studies, instrumentation studies, portfolio-based evaluation studies, component analyses studies, literature that discusses the status of principal evaluation models, literature that criticizes principal evaluation models, literature that suggests more effective principal evaluation systems, and the literature of Best Practices in principal evaluation. 

The major criticizing themes in the literature review included the following: 1. principal evaluation systems tend to be locally developed and not aligned with literature on leadership effectiveness, 2. most principal evaluation systems, policies, and instruments have not been assessed for validity or reliability, 3. evaluation systems tend to rely on a single evaluator, 4. little is known about the degree to which these evaluation systems stimulate change in principal behaviors, and 5. evaluation systems are not comprehensive rather they rely on simple checklists or ratings. To make evaluation systems more effective, the literature suggests that protocols should be aligned with important school and student outcomes, evaluators should acquire appropriate feedback from multiple stakeholders, evidence should be collected though multiple methods, principals should be engaged partners in the process of establishing goals and objectives, and that procedures should be reliable and valid.  Principal evaluation systems seem to be most successful when the standards are clear and the expectations are aligned with the objectives of principals, schools, and districts.

Despite the amount of resources they were able to compile, the amount of literature available in this field is scarce. However, from the literature available and after analyzing the literature review, the authors compiled and highlighted the common themes and developed another document entitled, “Key Features of a Comprehensive Principal Evaluation System”. This document addressed the question: Why evaluate principals? The features associated with this question that should be included in an evaluation model are that it should have a clear purpose, alignment with the school or district’s mission statement and district policies, and opportunities for professional growth.  Another question addressed in this document was: What should be evaluated? The key features addressing this question are clear expectations, leadership research and standards, and principal participation. The last question addressed in this document is: How should principals be evaluated? The features addressing this question are multiple forms of data, technically sound information, it should be an ongoing process, procedures should be adaptable, the evaluator should undergo training, and there should be system review and accountability.

The goal of both documents discussed in this paper is to guide and support leader development and improving conditions of leadership so that there are highly accomplished leaders in our school districts. Moving toward a comprehensive principal evaluation model should be a goal of every district to improve our nation’s educational system.  Meeting this goal isn’t only of national importance but will improve our country’s standings in global competition of educational standards.